I looked at it it, and as i was reading the names of the songs (The Old Gumbie Cat, The Rum Tum Tugger, Grizabella, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer) I thought "What in the world is this???!! So I knew the song "Memory" and i played it...i immediately liked the woman who was singing it (Betty Buckley) so i started the cd from the beginning...well, when the CD was done...i fell in love!! noting that it was only Highlights, i bugged my mom to get the Complete...so a few days later i went into the Wiz, and bought the first thing that looked like the CD, not thinking anything else.....so later in the car on the way home, I looked at the front of the CD and it said "The Original London Cast"...I turned and said to my mom--Look, we bought the wrong one, this one is from London...she said, well, it's all the same, so i nodded and thought, yeah she's right....

Well, that was about 4 years ago, and I LOVE the London Cast.....Elaine Paige Rules!!! The cast is superb with stars like Sarah Brightman, Brian Blessed, Sharon Lee-Hill & Myra Sands.....This cast also, is has the only surviving recording of "The Ballad Of Billy McCaw"....the love duet between Growltiger and Griddlebone, incidently the music for that song was re-used in Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber's "New Starlight Express" for the song "Next Time You Fall In Love".....

Since then, I've seen CATS 7 times on B'way, and own it in German, Austrian, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and three English ones; London, B'way and Australian......

If you can, GET the London cast, although out of print, you can still get it from Footlight Records, or Dress Circle.....
Now and Forever

Review by John Di Spirito