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Once again here's another budget UK "public domain" CD release. In the last few years many British music labels have taken advantage of a legal loophole which classifies music recordings that are over 50 years old as "public domain" and therefore releasable without having to fork out money for licensing fees. Such is the case with this reissue of the 1957 Broadway cast album of THE MUSIC MAN.The 1956-57 Broadway season was one of the all-time best from what's now been officially acknowledged as the Golden Age. Meredith Willson's THE MUSIC MAN opened in a season which also saw "West Side Story", "My Fair Lady" and "New Girl in Town", not to mention such fabulous flops as "Shinbone Alley", "Copper and Brass" and "Rumple". Robert Preston stars as charming con-man Harold Hill, who whirls into the sleepy small town of River City, Iowa, with a grand plan to bilk it's residents into paying for a non-existant "boy's band". His scheme falls by the wayside, however, once he claps eyes on lovely, opinionated Marian "The Librarian" Paroo (played by the legendary Barbara Cook).Willson's score includes such classics as "Seventy-Six Trombones", "Till There Was You", "Marian the Librarian" and "Lida Rose"; perfectly melding the homespun turn-of-the-century ditties he'd fondly remembered from his own small-town beginnings with the razz-ma-tazz sound of Broadway musical theater. Robert Preston virtually reinvented himself as a brilliant "new" musical comedy star with his performance as Harold Hill. He'd subsequently reprise the role in the 1962 movie version and also returned to Broadway in the charming, little-known "Ben Franklin in Paris".Coming from her celebrated turn as Cunegonde in the original cast of Leonard Bernstein's "Candide", Barbara Cook was on the threshold of a string of memorable musicals ("The Gay Life", "She Loves Me") when she took to the stage as Marian. Despite the likes of Shirley Jones, Rebecca Luker and Kristin Chenoweth playing the role in subsequent versions, it's never gotten any better than Ms Cook's adorable, spunky performance. She's a dream.Sound quality on this CD is adequate but markedly inferior to the genuine studio releases. For a few dollars more you can buy the Angel Broadway edition (located here The Music Man (1957 Original Broadway Cast) [Angel Reissue]), which really should be your first point of purchase when it comes to THE MUSIC MAN anyway. Curiously this budget Hallmark reissue has cover artwork depicting the 1962 movie cast, but rest assured that if you must buy this disc, it's indeed the 1957 Broadway cast.