Gray skies are gonna clear up...

More than seven years before the first Tribe of Hair let the sun shine in, another cast of characters brought rock (and roll!) to the New York stage.  Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ smash hit musical Bye Bye Birdie skyrocketed its leading actors Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera to greater fame in 1960, alongside director/choreographer Gower Champion, in a sweet but timely tale of a hip-swiveling rocker about to go off to the Army and the one teenage girl who wins his “one last kiss.”  Birdie gently skewered not just Elvis Presley but the entire rock-and-roll phenomenon.  With its humorous depiction of the generation gap and the emerging youth culture, Birdie was a natural for the big-screen Hollywood treatment.  The movies, after all, had been ahead of the rock curve, and now the musical had a bona fide star in the form of Dick Van Dyke, who followed his New York triumph with The Dick Van Dyke Show on television.  Masterworks Broadway has just announced the reissue of the soundtrack to Columbia Pictures’ 1963 Bye Bye Birdie in a newly remastered and expanded edition due on Tuesday, January 8 on CD and digitally.

Columbia and producer Fred Kohlmar wisely retained the services of Van Dyke as Albert Peterson, an English teacher and part-time songwriter onstage.  (Irving Brecher’s screenplay dropped the English teacher part and gave Albert a degree in biochemistry in order to introduce super-speed pills developed by Albert, in one of the film’s silliest subplots!)  Opposite Van Dyke wasn’t Chita Rivera, however, but famous blonde Janet Leigh in a brunette wig as his long-suffering secretary and girlfriend Rosie DeLeon (that surname also being new to the film).  Returning from New York as frazzled dad Harry MacAfee was a perfectly sneering Paul Lynde, and Maureen Stapleton replaced Kay Medford as Albert’s meddlesome mother Mae Peterson.  Real-life teen idol Bobby Rydell joined the film not as rock star Conrad Birdie (played by Jesse Pearson, but as the put-upon Hugo Peabody.  Stealing the show as lucky teenager Kim MacAfee was one Ann-Margret.  Though Birdie wasn’t the Swedish bombshell’s first film, it was the one that cemented her stardom, capitalizing on her blend of vixen-ish sex appeal and wholesome innocence.  Singing the film’s one new composition, a title song, Ann-Margret made an unforgettable impression.  (Par for the course, numerous songs were dropped from Strouse and Adams’ stage score.)

Hit the jump for more, including the complete track listing with discography, and order link!

When Bye Bye Birdie opened, it broke box office records at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, earned acclaim and two Academy Award nominations, and became a beloved classic as well as a time capsule of a bygone era.  And such was Ann-Margret’s fame that soon she left Conrad Birdie behind and was co-starring with the real Elvis Presley on screen in the frothy musical Viva Las Vegas!  As for Bye Bye Birdie, it continues to be one of the most popular staples of high school musical theatre year after year, and has seen an onstage sequel, a film remake for television and a Broadway revival.

The original RCA Victor soundtrack album has been reissued twice before on CD, first in a bare-bones edition and again in 2003 in an expanded edition on the BMG Heritage label.  That release resequenced the album to film order, and added three bonus tracks: the actual film recordings of “We Love You, Conrad” (the teenage girls’ chant that later was adapted to “We Love You, Beatles” when Beatlemania swept the nation) and “The Sultans’ Ballet,” plus the gym rehearsal outtake of Birdie’s “One Last Kiss.”  The new Masterworks reissue adds three more bonus tracks: another previously-unreleased actual film recording (“One Last Kiss,” again) and Ann-Margret’s pop recordings of “How Lovely to Be a Woman” and “Bye Bye Birdie.”  (Strouse’s songs lent themselves to the pop treatment; even before penning Bye Bye Birdie, the composer had an actual No. 1 rock-and-roll hit with the Poni-Tails’ “Born Too Late.”)  As he did in 2003, Didier C. Deutsch has produced this edition and annotated it, as well.  Timothy Sturges at Battery Studios has newly remastered the album.

The newly-expanded Bye Bye Birdie arrives in stores on January 8 at the link below!

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Bye Bye Birdie (RCA Victor LSO-1081, 1963 – reissued Masterworks Broadway, 2012) (Digital Link)

1. Bye Bye Birdie
2. Opening Credits
3. The Telephone Hour
4. How Lovely To Be Woman
5.  We Love You Conrad (Film Version)
6. Honestly Sincere
7. Hymn For A Sunday Evening
8. One Boy
9. Put On A Happy Face
10. Kids
11. One Last Kiss (Gym Rehearsal Outtake)
12. A Lot of Livin’ To Do
13. The Sultans’ Ballet (Film Version)
14. One Last Kiss
15. Rosie
16. Bye Bye Birdie (Reprise)
17. One Last Kiss (Film Version) (Bonus Track)
18. How Lovely To Be A Woman – Ann-Margret (Bonus Track)
19. Bye Bye Birdie – Ann-Margret (Bonus Track)

Tracks 5, 11 & 13 first issued on RCA Victor/BMG Heritage CD 82876 54217 2, 2003
Track 17 previously unreleased
Track 18 RCA Victor mx. PPA3-2959, 1963, produced and arranged by Don Ralke
Track 19 RCA Victor mx. PPA3-2900/single 47-8168, 1963, produced and arranged by Billy Strange (Mono)