The King and I [1964 Broadway Revival Cast] [2006 Bonus Track]

1	Overture 5:47
2	I Whistle a Happy Tune / James Harvery 2:32
3	My Lord and Master / Lee Venora 2:05
4	Hello, Young Lovers / Risė Stevens 2:56
5	March of the Siamese Children 3:30
6	A Puzzlement / Darren McGavin 3:11
7	Getting to Know You / Risė Stevens 3:35
8	We Kiss in a Shadow / Frank Porretta 3:46
9	Shall I Tell You What I Think of You? / Risė Stevens 4:06
10	Western People Funny / Patricia Neway Bonus Track 1:31
11	Something Wonderful 2:42
12	I Have Dreamed / Frank Porretta 3:29
13	The Small House of Uncle Thomas / Lee Venora 8:27
14	Shall We Dance? / Darren McGavin 2:23
15	Something Wonderful (Reprise) 1:44

All Music Guide

In 1964, Richard Rodgers accepted a position as president and producing director of Music Theater of Lincoln Center, a summer series of limited engagement revival productions of famous Broadway musicals performed at the New York State Theater at the recently opened Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The series' first show, appropriately enough, was The King and I, for which Rodgers had composed the music. It starred opera singer Rise Stevens as Anna Leonowens, the widowed British teacher who travels to Siam to instruct the children of the king, played by television actor Darren McGavin. With such casting, Rodgers re-adjusted the balance in the show, which had been written in 1951 for famed British actress Gertrude Lawrence, but turned Yul Brynner into a star. Of course, the vocal talents were also upgraded by the use of Stevens, a much better singer than Lawrence, and Rodgers also brought in another opera singer, Patricia Neway, who had sung "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" in The Sound of Music, to play Lady Thiang, and her major number, a similarly rangy ballad "Something Wonderful." With the use of McGavin, best known for playing TV detectives, the balance may have been tipped too far, however. The king doesn't have much to do on cast and soundtrack albums beyond the patter song "A Puzzlement," but McGavin demonstrated that he didn't have much of a singing voice, making this album inferior to the original Broadway cast and original soundtrack albums featuring Brynner. The disc is notable, however, as the longest yet recording of the show at 50 minutes, including, for the first time, eight-and-a-half minutes of "The Small House of Uncle Thomas." [The 2006 CD reissue added one previously unreleased bonus track, a one-and-a-half-minute rendition of "Western People Funny" by Neway.] William Ruhlmann