Jane Powell and Gordon MacRae were the stars of the 1953 movie musical 3 Sailors and a Girl, and they are featured on the Capitol Records LP of the same name, but the album is not an actual soundtrack recording from the film. Rather, it is a "studiotrack," a set of separate, studio-recorded performances of nine songs featured in the picture, sung by Powell and/or MacRae. There were two more in the score, "It's Gonna Be a Big Hit" and "Here Comes the Navy," but since the album was released in a 10" format, there may not have been room for them. The songs that are here, written by composer Sammy Fain and lyricist Sammy Cahn (except for "When It's Love," which has music by Earl Brent), give the best opportunities to Powell, who is able to descend from her operatic soprano to handle comic numbers like "Kiss Me or I'll Scream" and "Show Me a Happy Woman (And I'll Show You a Miserable Man)." The long out of print album went out of copyright in Europe in the early 2000s, enabling Britain's Sepia Records label to assemble this unlicensed version, on which the original nine tracks are augmented by no less than 20 bonus tracks of unrelated solo recordings by MacRae and Powell. These include such standards as "Cara Mia" and "Count Your Blessings" (MacRae), and a quartet of songs from The King and I (Powell), making the CD a good sampler of the two singers' talents.
© William Ruhlmann /TiVo