Golden Boy original Broadway cast album on CD

If you need any proof of Sammy Davis, Jr.'s strength as a singer, just listen to this show from 1964. I suspect his live performances were electric, because his vocal performance of Golden Boy seems to jump off the cast album. Mr. Davis makes the uneven score uniformly sing.

Between the notes to this CD release and some online reading about the history of this musical, I can understand why the show seems a bit of a hodge-podge. The book is based on Clifford Odet's 1937 drama of the same name but with significant changes--including changing the title character from an Irish-American immigrant to an African-American outsider. I suppose that in the 30s, the Irish in America were outsiders, too, but now the race card is clearly played, and the civil rights cause of the 60s is the larger issue that boxer Joe Bonaparte is fighting.

I generally like most of the music on this album, although it does seem to be missing a uniform "voice" a lot of the time. There are numbers that seem like Big Band, swing, gospel, pop and more conventional Broadway. Some of it deserves a life outside the theater, although I had never heard any of these songs before. I was particularly struck by two elegiac ballads about life in the big city--"A Night Song" which is in the Sinatra vein, and "While the City Sleeps" which lacks a little structure and oomph.

This is clearly a vehicle for Sammy Davis who shines throughout even when the heavy-handed inter-racial love story and some obvious racial jokes are added. The rest of the cast has significantly less to do, except Paula Wayne as the love interest with the great character name of Lorna Moon. Ms. Wayne has a slightly gravely character voice that reminds me of a younger Elaine Stritch.

I wonder if Encores has ever done a concert version of this show? I can imagine Taye Diggs in it.

Golden Boy
Music by Charles Strouse
Lyrics by Lee Adams
Book by Clifford Odets and William Gibson
Opened in 1964
Cast: Sammy Davis, Paula Wayne, Billy Daniels