NRR Project: 'Kiss Me, Kate' (1949)

 

NRR Project: “Kiss Me, Kate”

Words and music by Cole Porter

Original Broadway cast album

Released Feb. 15, 1949

54:44

Cole Porter (1891-1964) was one of America’s songwriting geniuses. Along with Irving Berlin and Frank Loesser, he wrote both his music and his lyrics – a standalone talent.

Coming from a wealthy background, Porter attended elite schools, traveled widely, and lived well. His precocious talents meant that he was a prolific writer of songs, although he did not gain recognition until age 36. However, once he caught on he became highly celebrated. His work appeared in a number of successful musicials, with many of his hit songs becoming American standards. These include “Night and Day,” “Begin the Beguine,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Let’s Do It,” “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” and “You’re the Top.”

Porter came from an older songwriting tradition – one in which the songs did not relate intrinsically to the narrative material around them. Songs were plugged into librettos willy-nilly. This all changed with the success of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! in 1943. Now songs were integrated into a musical’s plot, used to advance the action or to illustrate character.

Porter met this challenge with Kiss Me, Kate, a backstage musical about a warring couple of performers who are starring in a musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. (Producer Arnold Saint-Subber was inspired for the musical’s concept by observing the fractious relationship of famous actors/couple Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne in their 1935 production of Shrew.) Porter wrote some of his best work for the show – “So in Love,” “Too Darn Hot,” “From This Moment On,” and “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”

The cast album came on on 78 r.p.m. records and, for the first time, on a brand-new technology -- a 33 1/3 r.p.m. “long-playing” record.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Little Engine That Could.