Search - Ethel Merman :: Merman in Vegas

The Merm Stuns Vegas Crowd

Geoffrey Mark Fidelman | Sherman Oaks, CA United States | 08/13/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This album is the only commercially released live album by the great Ethel Merman. So near and yet so far, this collection should have been the perfect representation of Ethel performing before a live audience. Alas, The Mighty Merm was recorded through a wireless chest mike, and the audio was deemed unsatisfactory for release. So Ethel was invited in to the Reprise recording studios in Burbank, where she sang (nonstop) the entire show over again to the playback of the master tape. In it's original LP release, the album was awful. One could hear two Merman voices overlapping on almost every number. For this CD version, the audio engineers have managed to mix it down to one voice for the most part, and to remove a troublesome hoarseness in Merman's voice made during the original Vegas recording. The only complaint now is that they did not include for CD the rest of the concert, which contained such gems as "That Old Feeling", "Eadie Was a Lady", "I Got Lost in His Arms", "Gee, But It's Good to Be Here", "I Get a Kick Out of You" and others. Ethel was proud to be signed to Reprise Records by Frank Sinatra. This was the second and last album she did for them. The first one, "Merman: Her Greatest" still has not been released on CD. When asked about Ethel's opening night in Vegas, Judy Garland said, "I was stunned, simply stunned!" So will you. Get this album!"