MY FAIR LADY SOUNDTRACK - CD

SKU/Barcode: 074646671122

Inevitably, the original soundtrack to My Fair Lady is remembered, like the film, for the absence of Julie Andrews, who starred in the Broadway and London stage productions, but was deemed, at least at the time when the casting decision had to be made, not enough of a star to carry the movie. (Embarrassingly, by the time the movie opened, Mary Poppins had made her more than enough of a star to do so.) Instead, Audrey Hepburn stepped into the role of the pre-World War I London flower girl Eliza Doolittle who aspires to a better accent and the social advantages that will come with it. Ironically, Hepburn's voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon when it came to singing. (Nixon was an accomplished Hollywood voice ghost, having previously sung for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Rosalind Russell in Gypsy, among other assignments.) Rex Harrison re-created his stage role as the elocutionist, Professor Henry Higgins (he had also appeared in the film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, the source for My Fair Lady), as did Stanley Holloway, as Eliza's flamboyant Cockney father. It was good that Harrison and Holloway got to immortalize their performances on film, but since both were making their third recordings of the score, they didn't have much to add. Nixon (no doubt with bits of Hepburn here and there) was fine, but the composite performance lacked the flair that Andrews would have given it. The result was an acceptable recording that did not surpass the Broadway or London cast albums. The 1994 CD reissue adds a number of choral and orchestral interludes, as well as reprises of a few songs.

1. Overture
2. Why Cant The English?N
3. Wouldnt It Be Loverly
4. The Flower Marketn
5. Im An Ordinary Man
6. With A Little Bit Of Luck
7. Just You Wait
8. Servants Chorus
9. The Rain In Spain
10. I Could Have Danced All Night
11. Ascot Gavotte
12. Ascot Gavotte Reprise
13. On The Street Where You Live
14. Intermission
15. The Transylvanian March
16. The Embassy Waltz
17. You Did It
18. Just You Wait Reprise
19. On The Street Where You Live Reprise
20. Show Me
21. The Flowermarket
22. Get Me To The Church On Time
23. A Hymn To Him
24. Without You
25. Ive Grown Accustomed To Her Face
26. End Titles
27. Exit Music