My Fair Lady (1959 Original London Cast)

My Fair Lady is without question one of the greatest shows ever created for the musical theater. It's a charming, hilarious, and touching adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, pitting flower girl Eliza Doolittle against Prof. Henry Higgins, the self-absorbed and ill-tempered linguist who bets that he can turn her into a lady by improving her diction. Lerner and Loewe's score includes some of the best-loved songs in the canon: "Why Can't the English," "Wouldn't It Be Loverly," "The Rain in Spain," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "On the Street Where You Live," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," among others. The 1959 London-cast stereo recording is generally held in lower regard than its Broadway counterpart, recorded three years earlier in mono. But why quibble? The principals are all the same--Rex Harrison as Higgins, Julie Andrews as Eliza, Stanley Holloway as her dad, and Robert Coote as Col. Pickering (Leonard Weir replaced Michael King as Freddy Einsford-Hill)--and it's still a classic recording in its own right that you'll treasure for years. --David Horiuchi