Is It Worth the Waiting For?

My formative-album-replay project continues apace over at my Train My Ear blog, and I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't mention here that today's is a cast album, Oliver! (the original London recording with Georgia Brown--accept no substitutes). I haven't done a lot of those since I started the project last winter--I'm trying to spread the love to all the genres and subgenres that have shaped my tastes--but the few show records I have revisited (Fiddler, Pacific Overtures, Threepenny) have made me hear anew how much the music leads the theater. This should be obvious, I guess, but it seems it's not always remembered by the people who actually make musical theater--one reason, I suspect, that I don't have more cast albums on my preferred playlist.