Hit Parade: The Lullaby of Broadway Edition

Slate Culture

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2019

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Musical theater is one of America’s greatest cultural products—and in the mid–20th century, it also dominated the Billboard charts, from My Fair Lady to West Side Story. But the rise of rock and roll in the ’60s sidelined showtunes on the radio. And even when Broadway tried to rock—from Hair to Jesus Christ Superstar—a new generation grew wary of characters breaking into song (unless they were animated mermaids, teapots or lions). And yet, in the 21st century, Broadway music has staged a cultural comeback: taking over our movie screens, making shows out of jukebox hits, and raising a new generation to believe they can rap like Hamilton and Lafayette. In this Tonys month, Hit Parade dances down the Great White Way to chronicle the tangled history of the Broadway musical on the pop charts. Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You escaped the war?
0:01.2	A hand the whip.
0:02.0	A Paramount Plus new original series,
0:04.6	Starring David Yello, Donald Sutherland, and Dennis Quaid.
0:08.5	I took an oath to take care of one.
0:10.5	Stream Lorman Bass Reeves on Paramount Plus, and joined by the 27th of November to get 50% off the first three months at just 349 per month.
0:19.0	I'm Bass Reeves and I'm the Lord this lamb.
0:22.0	After the first three months, auto renews at the then standard price of a monthly plan until
0:25.2	cancelled.
0:26.2	Currently 699 per month, new and eligible former subscribers only, 18 plus, Tees and sees apply. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Charistory from Slate magazine, about the hits from
0:42.0	Coast to coast.
0:43.0	I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic,
0:46.0	and writer of Slate's Why Is the Song Number One series.
0:50.0	On today's show, 60 years ago in 1959, a stage musical by the legendary team of Richard
0:57.9	Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein made its debut on Broadway.
1:02.5	Within a few months, in January of 1960,
1:06.3	its original cast recording was the number one album in America. To this day, to this day, this recording of the to the springs.
1:15.0	To this day, this recording of The Sound of Music,
1:22.0	led by Broadway star Mary Martin, remains the best
1:26.8	charting cast album of a stage musical in Billboard history, having spent 16 weeks on top of the album charts.
1:35.7	And this song, My Favorite Things, is one of its most indelible standards.
1:41.4	Indeed, the song is so well known by the general public that six decades later,
	...

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