Annie Get Your Gun

With all due respect to Bernadette Peters's wonderful, Tony-winning portrayal in the 1999 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, the role of sharpshooting Annie Oakley belongs to Ethel Merman. Her bold, brassy performance of Irving Berlin's best score is legendary, as are the songs themselves, including "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun," "They Say It's Wonderful," "I Got the Sun in the Morning," "Anything You Can Do," and, of course, the classic industry anthem "There's No Business Like Show Business." This rerelease of the original 1946 cast recording includes four bonus tracks recorded in 1972: the overture, "Colonel Buffalo Bill" and "I'm a Bad, Bad Man" (both removed along with "I'm an Indian Too" for the politically correct 1999 revival), and "An Old-Fashioned Wedding," which was written for the 1966 revival. --David Horiuchi