Big River: The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (1985 Original Broadway Cast)

 (68 customer reviews)

If you are going to be audacious enough to try and make a musical of Huckleberry Finn, then choosing Roger Miller of "King of the Road" fame to write the songs is certainly an inspired move. "Big River," the Tony Award winning musical, owes as much to Miller as it does to Mark Twain for writing the classic story in the first place. Of course when you are talking Roger Miller you are talking fun songs, from John Goodman's ripping diatribe on "Guv'ment" as Huck's Pappy and Tom Sawyer's (John Short) "Hand for the Hog" to the two songs by the King (Bob Gunton) and the Duke (Rene Auberjonois), "When the Sun Goes Down in the South" and "The Royal Nonesuch" ("She's got one big breast in the middle of her chest/And an eye in the middle of her nose/So says I, if you look her in the eye/You're better off looking up her nose"). Even when Miller offers us the tender country ballad, "You Oughta Be Here with Me,"...Read more

The only reason I purchased a copy of the BIG RIVER soundtrack is because I wanted to incorporate some of the songs into a unit plan I was developing on Mark Twain and THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. I knew that the musical had won the Tony for Best Musical in 1985, but I honestly didn't think I was going to like the album that much. I was wrong. I've love the music from start to finish. The songs include a wide variety of styles from country to jazz to gospel. However, most of the tunes cannot be pigeonholed as one style of music or the other because Roger Miller has done a beautiful job of blending several types of music into one coherent whole on many of the songs. The company of this production of BIG RIVER includes such stars as Rene Auberjonois and John Goodman. Some of my favorite tunes from the album include:"Do You Want to Go to Heaven""I, Huckleberry, Me""Muddy Water""The Crossing""Worlds...Read more

BIG RIVER, which is based on Mark Twain's HUCKLEBERRY FINN, is a wonderful musical, and the original Broadway cast album is a delight from start to finish. Roger Miller created a country/western-style score that, even if it doesn't quite capture Twain's distinctive wit, is evocative, touching, and a joy to hear. The album is dominated by the partnership of Daniel Jenkins as Huck and Ronald Richardson as the runaway slave, Jim. Jenkins has a characterful tenor voice, while Richardson's sound is dark and mellifluous. Their three duets, "Muddy Water", "River in the Rain", and "Worlds Apart", are beautifully and emotionally sung. Twain's characters, from Huck and Jim to Tom Sawyer ("The Boys", "Hand for the Hog"), Pap Finn ("Guv'ment"), and the "Duke" ("When the Sun Goes Down in the South", "The Royal Nonesuch") come to life in Miller's songs and in this recording. As Mary Jane Wilkes, on whom Huck develops a crush, Patty Cohenour has a warm, pure soprano voice and sounds lovely in...Read more