With the Tony Awards coming up on Sunday, thoughts naturally turn to the medium that gave most people their first fix of musical theater, the original cast album. I recently spoke with an expert on the subject, Didier C. Deutsch, a longtime record producer and chronicler of the Broadway scene. These days, Deutsch, a Frenchman who moved to New York about 40 years ago, is working for Legacy Records, a reissue label for Sony (his latest project: a Bob Dylan 40-CD box set) and contributing to the new Masterworks Broadway Web site, which has a wealth of features on show recordings. His producing credits include The Best of Broadway, a multivolume series
for Time-Life; Sony's box set Sondheim: The Story So Far...; and reissues of many original cast albums. A portion of my conversation with Deutsch is included in the story "Jukebox musicals 'American Idiot,' 'Fela!' and  'Million Dollar Quartet' up for best musical Tonys.''  Here are a few other things he had to say:

Whither the cast album? For the most part, the shows that do not get recorded are shows for which there already are recordings available. Mary Poppins, for example, was already recorded in London. Doing a Broadway cast recording can be a very expensive proposition. It can take $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 to create a cast album, and the sales often do not justify spending that kind of money. Either the show is not successful or has only a short run. It does not make financial sense. Finian's Rainbow closed very quickly, but I am very glad to see there is a cast album.  It's what I consider the definitive recording.

Is the jukebox musical the death knell for musical theater?  It's not a dead end. It's a step forward in a different direction that will lead to something else. The great thing about musical theater and Broadway is
that it is in constant evolution; there is always something new. Don't get me wrong, I have the greatest admiration for Rodgers and Hammerstein and what they created. They fashioned the musical into something totally unique. But for the past 40 years it has been kind of stagnant, and now it is moving again in a different direction because we need to reach new audiences. We need to bring into the theater younger people.

Why Come Fly Away (Twyla Tharp's dance musical to Frank Sinatra songs) doesn't fly To my mind, she takes liberties that do not make sense. To give you an example, in the middle of the show there is suddenly Take Five by Dave Brubeck. I've worked with the Dave Brubeck catalog at Legacy, so I know Dave Brubeck inside-out.  What is the connection between Dave Brubeck and Frank Sinatra? None. That's where I have to draw the line, when I don't understand the point. Except that's what Twyla wanted.

Deutsch's desert-island original cast albums Very simple. Gypsy. Guys and Dolls. Anyone Can Whistle. A Little Night Music. Nine. Gypsy and Guys and Dolls are the  two perfect musicals. Anyone Can
Whistle -- a flop, but I love that score. I think (Stephen) Sondheim wrote a wonderful, wonderful score that has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and saddled with a book that doesn't work. You can't say anything negative about A Little Night Music. And Nine is so inventive. It's incredible the variety that Maury (Yeston, the composer) brought to that score. You have a tarantella, Broadway, some jazz. And I will add a sixth: On the Town. That's a half a dozen. that's a good number.