Broadway to Hollywood -- And Back

Liner Note Author: Geoff Milne .Mary Martin went back and forth between the West Coast world of movie entertainment and the East Coast world of the legitimate stage several times before finally settling in New York in the mid-'40s to be a major Broadway star for the next two decades. This ping-ponging is alluded to in simplified form in the title of Jasmine Records' Martin compilation, Broadway to Hollywood -- and Back. (Actually, she started in Hollywood, but never mind.) The two-and-a-half-hour, 52-track, two-CD set is easily the most extensive collection of Martin's recordings ever released, and yet it is still incomplete. Annotator and compiler Geoff Milne coyly states, "Regrettably, no songs from The Sound of Music or I Do! I Do! were available for inclusion in the set." This is a conceit. Jasmine, like several other European record labels, patiently waits out the 50-year copyright limit on recordings in that territory and then assembles unlicensed discs like this one without payi