| My Fair Lady | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Cast recording by the original Broadway cast | |
| Released | April 2, 1956 |
| Recorded | March 24, 1956 |
| Studio | Columbia 30th Street, New York City |
| Genre | Show tunes |
| Length | 53:44 |
| Label | Columbia Records |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
The Broadway cast recording of the musical My Fair Lady was first released April 2, 1956 by Columbia Records,[2] with songs by Lerner and Loewe, conducted by Franz Allers, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. Columbia president Goddard Lieberson provided the $375,000 needed to stage the show in return for the rights to the cast recording.[2]
A commercial success, the album became the first LP record to sell 1 million copies.[3] The album topped US Billboard 200 charts for fifteen weeks at different times in 1956 (eight consecutive weeks), 1957, 1958, and 1959.[1]
After the musical transferred to London in April 1958, the album spent 19 consecutive weeks atop the UK charts, the biggest-selling album of the year.[4] The musical's renewed success sent Andrews, Harrison, and the London cast to the recording studio in 1959 to capture the score in stereo: the London cast recording shares all the same principals as the Broadway cast.
Columbia first released the Broadway album on compact disc in 1988, followed by numerous subsequent reissues.[5] As of 2023[update], the original cast recording remains among the longest-charting albums in the U.S., with 480 weeks on the Billboard 200.[6]
