Hair (Original Broadway Cast Recording)

Hair: An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical
Studio album
Released 1968
Recorded May 6, 1968[1]
Genre Rock, Pop Rock
Length 40:25
Label RCA
Producer Brian Drutman, Denis McNamara, Norrie Paramor, Andy Wiswell[1]

Hair is a 1968 cast recording of the musical Hair on the RCA label. Sarah Erlewine, for Allmusic, wrote: "The music is heartening and invigorating, including the classics "Aquarius," "Good Morning Starshine," "Let the Sunshine In," "Frank Mills" (which was covered by the Lemonheads on their 1992 album It's a Shame About Ray), and "Easy to Be Hard." The joy that has been instilled in this original Broadway cast recording shines through, capturing in the performances of creators Gerome Ragni and James Rado exactly what they were aiming for – not to speak for their generation, but to speak for themselves."[1]

The recording received a Grammy Award in 1968 for Best Score from an Original Cast Show Album[2] and sold nearly 3 million copies in the U.S. by December 1969. (RCA LSO-1150)[3] The New York Times noted in 2007 that "The cast album of Hair was... a must-have for the middle classes. Its exotic orange-and-green cover art imprinted itself instantly and indelibly on the psyche.... [It] became a pop-rock classic that, like all good pop, has an appeal that transcends particular tastes for genre or period."[4]

Track listing

Music by Galt MacDermot; lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado.[1]

  1. "Aquarius" 2:55
  2. "Donna/Hashish" 2:45
  3. "Sodomy" :50
  4. "Coloured Spade" 1:10
  5. "Manchester England" 1:20
  6. "I'm Black/Aint Got No" 1:10
  7. "Air" 1:15
  8. "Initials" :55
  9. "I Got Life" 3:05
  10. "Hair" 2:55
  11. "My Conviction" 1:36
  12. "Dont Put It Down" 2:00
  13. "Frank Mills" 2:05
  14. "Be-In" 3:00
  15. "Where Do I go?" 2:40
  16. "Black Boys/White Boys" 3:35
  17. "Easy To Be Hard" 2:35
  18. "Walking In Space" 5:00
  19. "Abie Baby" 2:45
  20. "Three-Five-Zero-Zero/What a Piece of Work is Man" 4:45
  21. "Good Morning Starshine" 2:30
  22. "The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In)" 3:35

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Erlewine, Sarah. "Hair [Original Broadway Cast Recording]", Allmusic.com, accessed February 3, 2011
  2. ^ King, Betty Nygaard. "Hair". Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Historica Foundation of Canada. Retrieved on May 31, 2008.
  3. ^ "Hairzapoppin'". Time (December 12, 1969). Retrieved on May 29, 2008.
  4. ^ Isherwood, Charles (September 16, 2007). "The Aging of Aquarius". The New York Times. Retrieved on May 25, 2008.