h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's cool and drizzly tonight. Fate is notoriously fickle, but today she has given me exactly what I needed: a pile of CDs that arrived in the mail this afternoon.

I started the evening by listening to "Barbara Cook in Carnegie Hall." Barbara is one of the finest sopranos ever to sing in musical comedies, but she was always passed over when her musicals were remade as Hollywood movies. Take "The Music Man." She originated the role of Marian the librarian, but Shirley Jones got the role in the movie version. Barbara moved on to "She Loves Me," which had a respectable Broadway run, but was never picked up by Hollywood. Barbara's voice is crystalline and somewhat plaintive -- sort of a cross between Julie Andrews and Barbra Streisand. She never pushes her voice beyond the point where it sounds good. On this recording, she sings songs from her work in "Music Man" and "She Loves me." She doeshomage to Barbra Streisand with a song from "Funny Girl." There are also songs from "By Jupiter" [Rodgers & Hart's last show], "Bandwagon," "Mack and Mabel" [Jerry Herman]; and "Carousel." There are 20 songs in all, all of them done with spunk and verve.

Right now, I'm listening to "Very best of the Manhattan Transfer." They took their name from the title of a book by John Dos Passos. Manhattan Transfer is two men and two women who sing in four-part harmony, backed up by an ensemble that includes saxophone, piano, percussion, and some strings. They easily move among numerous musical styles such as swing, jazz, rock, rhythm and blues, etc. The rhythms are perky and irresisistible. Many years ago, my sister gave me their initial CD, but I seem to have misplaced it. Now that I have this greatest-hits CD, I feel better. Right now, they're doing their take on the theme music for Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone." Before that, they did "Java Jive" and "Route 66."

After this CD is finished, I will put Paul Simon's "Rhythm of the Saints" into my CD player. Also on tap are "The very best of Sting and the Police" and the Soundtrack for "Woodstock."

I am enjoying reading your journey into all types of music paulh

Thanks

I hoped you were reading along, Lanzababy. It's turning out to be a lot of fun, and I recognize at least one old song with each CD that I hear. Last night, on one of the Woodstock CDs, I heard Jefferson Airplane singing "Somebody to love," and realized that I knew it.

I've been hanging up wet laundry and cooking "Ham and yam chili" for about an hour now. While I was doing that, I was listening to library copies of the Black Eyed Peas' "The Beginning" and Usher's "Here I Stand."

I've heard a lot about the Black Eyed Peas in the last few years. Usher
was less familiar, but when I was researching which of Justin Bieber's CDs to sample, Usher kept coming up as a mentor.

Both CDs are well worth buying.