ETHEL MERMAN - The Ethel Merman Disco Album [1979] A&M / LP / FLAC

The idea is, of course, absurd. By the end of the 1970s, everyone, it seemed, was adding a disco beat and trying to cash in on the current -- and temporary -- fad. But Ethel Merman? The seventy or so Broadway diva was 20 years past her last big success on the Great White Way and, you'd have thought, ready for retirement. Yet she agreed to sing some of her best-known songs in disco arrangements by the estimable Peter Matz (the man who, for example, helped Barbra Streisand put together her first albums). The result sounds pretty much like you'd expect. Matz creates fairly typical disco tracks, and Merman sings the way she always does, sounding like she has nothing to do with the background at all. Actually, she sounds good for a 70-year-old, but it doesn't matter. The record is really only good for a laugh, but there's just one joke. by William Ruhlmann
Tracklist
A1  There's No Business Like Show Business 5:45
Words By, Music By – Irving Berlin
A2  Everything's Coming Up Roses 6:26
Music By – Jule Styne
Words By – Stephen Sondheim
A3  I Get A Kick Out Of You 5:59
Words By, Music By – Cole Porter
B1  Something For The Boys 5:15
Backing Vocals [Additional] – Bobby Borelli, George Ferren, John Joyce, Jon Randazzo, Manny Slali, Steve Smith 
Words By, Music By – Cole Porter
B2   Some People 4:47
Music By – Jule Styne
Words By – Stephen Sondheim
B3  Alexander's Ragtime Band  4:24
Words By, Music By – Irving Berlin
B4  I Got Rhythm  5:04
Music By – I. Gershwin
Words By – G. Gershwin
Credits
Bass – Chuck Berghofer, Greg Lee
Contractor [Orchestral] – Joe Soldo
Directed By [Backing Vocals] – Marilyn Jackson, Stephanie Spruill
Drums – Steve Schaeffer
Guitar – Dennis Budimir, Michael Anthony, Mitch Holder
Keyboards – John Berkman, Peter Matz
Percussion – Garyno, Paulinho
Producer, Conductor, Arranged By, Liner Notes, Arranged By [Vocal And Orchestra Arrangements] –Peter Matz
Saxophone, Soloist – Bud Shank, Ernie Watts
Trumpet, Soloist – Warren Luening

ETHEL MERMAN - The Ethel Merman Disco Album

A&M Records 1979 / LP / FLAC/ scans

O Púbis da Rosa

ETHEL MERMAN - 24 Classic Songs [1998]

 In the 1930s and '40s, while starring in one Broadway musical after another, Ethel Merman made occasional forays into the recording studio, usually to cut songs from her shows. The era of the original Broadway cast album didn't get started until 1943, with the success of Oklahoma!, but Merman cut 23 songs at eight sessions for RCA Victor, Brunswick, Liberty Music Stores, and Decca between 1932 and 1940, singing songs like "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "Anything Goes." There are 18 of those tracks reproduced here, along with six from Decca's 1946 cast album for Annie Get Your Gun. If you're wondering why there are no tracks from Merman shows like Call Me Madam and Gypsy, the answer is simple. European copyright law puts recordings over 50 years old in the public domain, and with a 1998 release date, this album wasn't entitled to use that material, without getting permission and paying a licensing fee, that is. The sound quality on the earlier tracks is only OK, while the recordings from Annie Get Your Gun are much better; but then, they probably were purloined directly from another CD. The tracks are sequenced randomly, so that the young Merman is juxtaposed against the middle-aged one. Annotations are skimpy; Tony Watts provides brief, generic biographical notes, and, along with the song titles, that's it. (The songwriters aren't even noted, which is unusual, even for a budget release like this one.) There are better collections of this material, but there may not be cheaper ones.

1. You're the Top

2. I Get a Kick Out of You

3. It's De-Lovely

4. You Can't Get a Man With a Gun

5. Doin' What Comes Natur'lly

6. How Deep Is the Ocean?

7. Friendship

8. Red, Hot and Blue

9. Down in the Depths (On the 90th Floor)

10. I've Still Got My Health

11. My Mother Would Love You

12. Eadie Was a Lady, Pts. 1-2

13. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues

14. You're a Builder Upper

15. This Is It

16. I'll Pay the Check

17. A Lady Needs a Change

18. I'm an Indian, Too

19. Moonshine Lullaby

20. An Earful of Music

21. Let's Be Buddies

22. Make It Another Old Fashioned, Please

23. Anything You Can Do

24. Ridin' Hig

O Púbis da Rosa