British archival label Pearl's The Ultimate Show Boat gathers recordings of music from the musical Show Boat made between 1925 and 1947. (The earlier date, of course, is two years before Show Boat opened on Broadway; it refers to a Henry Burr recording of the sentimental standard "After the Ball," which was interpolated into the show.) It's not so much an ultimate Show Boat as it is a collector's Show Boat; though, come to think of it, there's already been an album by that title. RCA's 1970s compilation, however, constructed a version of the score by selecting tracks from among the label's several recordings, while the Pearl set doesn't worry about repetition. There are no less than nine versions of "Ol' Man River," for example, four of them by Paul Robeson (of the original London production and 1932 Broadway revival), plus multiple versions of "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Bill," "Make-Believe," "Why Do I Love You?," "Ah Still Suits Me," and "You Are Love." The point of the collection is to present the major recordings of the show in the first 20 years after it was first presented. (European copyright law makes recordings more than 50 years old public domain, and Pearl takes advantage of this by including all eight tracks from the 1932 Broadway revival cast album and all ten from the 1946 Broadway revival cast, even though Sony claims ownership of them in the U.S.) The repetition may not interest casual listeners, but just tracing the changes in the interpretations of "Ol' Man River" is fascinating. Paul Whiteman's hit version with Bing Crosby on vocals is set to fox-trot tempo; Al Jolson sings the original lyrics, complete with the "n" word; and Robeson rewrites the lyrics over the years until he has utterly transformed the song's meaning. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
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