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User Reviews about Annie

While I really wanted the original broadway musical version (which is not available at a reasonable price) this CD worked out fine. If you are looking for this album on iTunes, don't bother, while iTunes has plenty of music, they don't seem to have a deal for all that many musicals so I turned to purchasing an "old fashioned" CD. The music is great, and the singers are good too. -- what's not to love

The mastering on this cd is crystal clear and the additional material (audition stuff) was just fun to hear. No complaints - just enjoyed listening to this soundtrack in my car and at home. -- Enjoyed it immensely

First up, this is the identical disc to the previous 1998 Broadway Masterworks pressing, but in new, cardboard "eco-pack" sleeve packaging. Affectionately nicknamed "The Red Album", the 1977 original Broadway cast recording of ANNIE has never been out of the catalogue, enjoying steady sales for the past thirty years.

Andrea McArdle is still the definitive Annie for most fans, belting out her signature "Tomorrow" with all the confidence of a seasoned Broadway veteran; though in fact this was her Broadway debut and she had only won the role after the little girl originally cast as Annie was deemed "unsatisfactory" during early tryouts. It's a hard knock life!

Dorothy Loudon is a hoot and a half playing the addled orphanage owner Miss Hannigan, Reid Shelton (whose credits date back to the chorus of the original 1956 "My Fair Lady") is a consummate Warbucks; and the late, great Laurie Beechman belts it like nobody's business as the Star to Be in the "N.Y.C." sequence.

Listening to the album today, you can still pick up on the sense of triumph and excitememt within the performances, and the spicy orchestrations of Philip J. Lang positively SCREAM Old-School Broadway (if you don't get chills during the Overture, you are definitely missing something). ANNIE was one of the last great "all-American" Broadway musicals before the British invasion took Broadway into a totally new direction in the early Eighties. It still holds a warm, nostalgic spell for audiences all over. Recommended.

[Masterworks Broadway 88697 49909 2] -- essential cast album

I have a severely handicapped daughter who loves "Annie" and watches it over and over. She requires VHS tapes, not DVDs. But VHSs of Annie are getting very hard to find -- Hard to find VHS tapes