PAT SUZUKI: BROADWAY '59
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Pat Suzuki: Broadway '59 (RCA Victor, LPM-1965, 1959
Cast Notes: Technically, this isn't a formal FDS album but released a year after her triumphant run on Broadway as Linda Low, Suzuki put out this LP full of different showtunes, including a three-song suite from FDS.
Music: What's notable about this LP is that it contains, in my opinion, the single-best vocal version of "Love Look Away" even though Suzuki's character in the musical doesn't actually sing the song. She brings a lot of depth and nuance to the song and the arrangement behind her hits the right mood too. I first heard this version on Renee Tajima's My America and it took me several years to figure out it was from a Suzuki solo LP and not some variation on a FDS soundtrack.
Cover Art: Suzuki's albums are an interesting study in how to market an Asian face within mainstream pop music in the late 1950s and early '60s. Most of them, like Broadway '59 usually try to place her in an All-America setting, or at the very least, don't play up her ethnicity in any stereotypical ways. The back cover here is different insofar as we see Suzuki dressed in a Chinese-influenced shift but she's also clearly in the studio and the suggestion here is to link back to Flower Drum Song and remind the consumer that Suzuki was one of the major leads in the film.
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