The material on this album began life as a one-character, sung-through television musical called Tell Me on a Sunday, broadcast by the BBC in January 1980. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s song cycle told the story of Emma, an English hat maker who moves to New York and has romantic encounters with four men — the musician she goes over for, a movie producer from Los Angeles, a software salesman from Nebraska, and a married executive. In 1982, it was turned into a stage musical by combining it with a ballet set to Lloyd Webber’s variations on Paganini’s composition for cello and orchestra, “A-minor Caprice,” under the name Song and Dance, with Marti Webb, who had appeared in the TV version, again starring. The show ran for two-and-a-half years in London. Notwithstanding that success, the show was revised extensively for the Broadway production, with Richard Maltby, Jr. brought in to direct and, by his estimate, rewrite nearly two-thirds of the lyrics. The resulting Song & Dance opened on Broadway on September 18, 1985, and ran 474 performances. Bernadette Peters starred, and she won a Tony Award for her performance. This original Broadway cast album (the cast consisting solely of Peters) presents the whole of the first act, Tell Me on a Sunday, but none of the instrumental music from the second act, and is thus subtitled The Songs. Peters, in an uncertain British accent, is typically engaging, and Lloyd Webber’s music is his usual mixture of light pop/rock and light opera. Listeners will hear elements reminiscent of Jesus Christ Superstar and Cats. But the story lacks dramatic purpose, and its episodic nature is not aided by the recitative that makes up most of the musical passages, few of which rise to the name of “song.” The notable exceptions are “Unexpected Song” and “Tell Me on a Sunday,” two attractive ballads that have found a life outside the show. But they are not enough to make this more than minor Lloyd Webber. (The album contains one song, “Nothing Like You’ve Ever Known,” that was cut from the stage production.) – William Ruhlmann
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