| Something Wonderful | |
| Type: | Studio |
| Artist: | Carmen McRae |
| Cover: | Something Wonderful (Carmen McRae album).png |
| Recorded: | June 11 and July 22, 1962[1] |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 35:50 |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Producer: | Buddy Bregman |
| Prev Title: | Take Five Live |
| Prev Year: | 1962 |
| Next Title: | Live at Sugar Hill |
| Next Year: | 1963 |
Something Wonderful is a studio album by American singer Carmen McRae, released in 1963 by Columbia Records. The album was conceived as a tribute to the various female lead singers in Broadway musicals.
A Billboard reviewer wrote: "Now soft and tender, now bright and brassy but always her distinctive self, Carmen McRae salutes "Great Moments on Broadway" in this album, spotlighting show tunes made famous by Éthel Merman, Ella Logan, Mary Martin, et al. At no time is Carmen merely "imitative," and her 18 tunes–and 18 switches of mood–are her own. Fine wax."[2]
Music critic Will Friedwald noted that "tracks are frustratingly brief (as is the set as a whole); what's more, the Bregman charts are serviceable butuninspired. Still, McRae's singing doesn't disappoint, and any concept that gives her the chance to sing such excellent songs as "Long Before I KnewYou"is to be enjoyed. Show buffs will take delight in hearing rare songs from flop productions with terrific scores: All-American, Nowhere to Go but Up, and, best of all, "How Does the Wine Taste?", which McRae sings with so much vivacity you can practically taste the wine yourself."[3]
From Anything Goes (1934)
From the musical Bells Are Ringing (1956)
From the musical St. Louis Woman (1946)
From the musical Finian's Rainbow (1947)
From the musical South Pacific (1949)
From the musical The Most Happy Fella (1956)
From the musical Two on the Aisle (1951)
From the musical The King and I (1951)