Hair: An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical
Psychedelic green and yellow colorized photo-negative of a man's face with a bushy "afro", reflected below in red and yellow.
Cast recording
Released1968
RecordedMay 6, 1968[1]
StudioRCA Victor, New York City
GenrePop rock, psychedelic rock, funk, R&B
Length40:25
LabelRCA Victor
ProducerBrian Drutman, Denis McNamara, Norrie Paramor, Andy Wiswell[1]

Hair is a 1968 cast recording of the musical Hair on the RCA Victor label. Sarah Erlewine, for AllMusic, wrote: "The music is heartening and invigorating, including the classics 'Aquarius,' 'Good Morning Starshine,' 'Let the Sunshine In,' 'Frank Mills' ... and 'Easy to Be Hard.' The joy that has been instilled in this original Broadway cast recording shines through, capturing in the performances of creators Gerome Ragni and James Rado exactly what they were aiming for — not to speak for their generation, but to speak for themselves."[1]

The album charted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the last Broadway cast album to do so. Hair's cast album stayed at No. 1 for 13 weeks in 1969.[2]

The recording also received a Grammy Award in 1969 for Best Score from an Original Cast Show Album[3] and sold nearly 3 million copies in the U.S. by December 1969.[4] The New York Times noted in 2007 that "The cast album of Hair was ... a must-have for the middle classes. Its exotic orange-and-green cover art imprinted itself instantly and indelibly on the psyche. ... [It] became a pop-rock classic that, like all good pop, has an appeal that transcends particular tastes for genre or period."[5] In 2018, the Original Broadway Cast Recording was added to the National Recording Registry.[6]

Track listing

Music by Galt MacDermot; lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado.[1]

  1. "Aquarius" 2:55 — Ronnie Dyson
  2. "Donna" 2:08 — Gerome Ragni
  3. "Hashish" 1:03 — Cast
  4. "Sodomy" 0:50 Steve Curry
  5. "Colored Spade" 1:10 — Lamont Washington
  6. "Manchester England" 1:20 — James Rado
  7. "I'm Black" 0:36 — Lamont Washington, Steve Curry, Gerome Ragni, James Rado
  8. "Ain't Got No" 0:43 — Steve Curry, Lamont Washington, Melba Moore
  9. "I Believe In Love" 1:06 — Melba Moore*
  10. "Ain't Got No" (reprise) 1:16 — Steve Curry, Lamont Washington, Melba Moore
  11. "Air" 1:15 — Sally Eaton, Shelley Plimpton, Melba Moore
  12. "Initials (LBJ)" 0:55 — Cast
  13. "I Got Life" 3:05 — James Rado
  14. "Going Down" 2:18 — Gerome Ragni*
  15. "Hair" 2:55 — James Rado, Gerome Ragni
  16. "My Conviction" 1:36 — Jonathan Kramer
  17. "Easy to Be Hard" 2:35 — Lynn Kellogg
  18. "Don't Put It Down" 2:00 — Steve Curry, Gerome Ragni
  19. "Frank Mills" 2:05 — Shelley Plimpton
  20. "Be-In (Hare Krishna)" 3:00 — Cast
  21. "Where Do I Go?" 2:40 — James Rado
  22. "Electric Blues" 2:35 — Paul Jabara*
  23. "Manchester England" (Reprise) 0:30 — James Rado
  24. "Black Boys" 1:10 — Diane Keaton, Suzannah Norstrand, Natalie Mosco
  25. "White Boys" 2:28 — Melba Moore, Lorrie Davis & Emmaretta Marks
  26. "Walking In Space" 5:00 — Cast
  27. "Abie Baby" 2:45 — Lamont Washington, Ronnie Dyson, Donnie Burks & Lorrie Davis
  28. "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" 3:09 — Cast
  29. "What a Piece of Work is Man" 1:36 — Ronnie Dyson & Walter Michael Harris
  30. "Good Morning Starshine" 2:30 — Lynn Kellogg, Melba Moore, James Rado, Gerome Ragni
  31. "The Bed" 2:56 — Cast*
  32. "The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In)" 3:35 — James Rado, Lynn Kellogg, Melba Moore

* The original LP release (RCA Victor LSO-1150) omitted a few tracks due to space limitations: "I Believe In Love", "Going Down", "Electric Blues" and "The Bed", as well as short reprises, and placed "Easy to Be Hard" after "Black Boys/White Boys".[7] The full track list above was included on later CD issues.[1][8]

Charts

Chart (1968/70) Position
United States (Billboard 200)[2] 1
Australia (Kent Music Report)[9] 2

Certifications and sales

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Austria (IFPI Austria)[10] Gold 25,000*
United States (RIAA)[11] Gold 3,000,000[4]
Summaries
Worldwide — 5,000,000[12]

* Sales figures based on certification alone.

Credits

Cover versions

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Erlewine, Sarah. "Hair [Original Broadway Cast Recording]", AllMusic.com, accessed October 1, 2015
  2. ^ a b Grein, Paul. "Chart Watch: The Hamilton Mixtape Makes History" Archived December 13, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Yahoo Music, December 12, 2016
  3. ^ "Grammy Awards 1969", AwardsandShows.com, accessed March 6, 2017
  4. ^ a b "Television: "Hairzapoppin'"", Time (December 12, 1969). Retrieved on June 24, 2020.
  5. ^ Isherwood, Charles (September 16, 2007). "The Aging of Aquarius". The New York Times, accessed May 25, 2008.
  6. ^ Culwell-Block, Logan. "Hair Original Broadway Cast Album Inducted Into Library of Congress' National Recording Registry", Playbill, March 21, 2019
  7. ^ Hair (Liner notes). RCA Victor Dynagroove. 1968. LOC-1150.
  8. ^ Reich, Howard. "Hair (original Broadway cast recording)", Chicago Tribune, April 9, 1989, accessed May 22, 2016
  9. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 281. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  10. ^ "Austrian album certifications – Musical Cast Recording – Hair" (in German). IFPI Austria. Retrieved December 10, 2021.
  11. ^ "American album certifications – Soundtrack – Hair". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved December 10, 2021.
  12. ^ Murrells, Joseph. Million selling records from the 1900s to the 1980s : an illustrated directory. Arco Pub. p. 254. ISBN 0668064595. It subsequently went on to sell over five million copies by mid-1971...
  13. ^ "Nina Simone - Ain't Got No-I Got Life". Dutch Top 40. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
  14. ^ "Nina Simone Chart History". Billboard.biz. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  15. ^ Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. pp. 218–219 & 256. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.
  16. ^ Unterberger, Ritchie. Liner notes for Good Morning Starshine (1969), reprinted at Richieunterberger.com, accessed February 10, 2018
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