Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Music and lyrics by David Yazbek and Billy Strauss (Ghostlight 7915584406)

While each of these four cast recordings embody a certain degree of camp--Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is also the most retro. Not quite film noir like Cy Coleman's City of Angels, Scoundrels is in the spirit of a classic whodunit. And it is also old-fashioned in the best sense--actually having songs you leave the theatre humming.

For openers, John Lithgow explains life as a con man in the tuneful, upbeat "Give Them What They Want." While the lyrics of Joanna Gleason's "What Was a Woman to Do" get plenty of laughs ("If music be the food of love, he ate my smorgasbord"), the melody is just as pleasing. The show's real star, Norbert Leo Butz (yep, that's his name), then pours out his materialistic affliction in "Great Big Stuff." Like Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof, Butz will be identified with this role for a long time. The entire featured cast is outstanding as well. Gregory Jbara continues to be the master of understatement (as he was opposite Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria) in "Chimp in a Suit." Sara Gettlefinger (yep, that's her real name too) makes country & western swing in ""Oklahoma?" A witty novelty song, "All About Ruprecht," follows, which with words like "KY Jelly," "testicles" and "farts" may someday wind up on the Sirius airwaves of Howard Stern.

The irrepressible Sherie Rene Scott rounds out the terrific cast with "Here I Am," a Latin ballad that would have been released as a single if this were the 50s. She follows her own success with the haunting "Nothing Is Too Wonderful To Be True," which I was humming by intermission--a beautiful match of words and music. Look at the way the moon behaves, look at the way she paints a silver ribbon on the waves. (As a bonus track, Scott performs this song as a duet with jazz pianist Bill Charlap.)

A number of songs follow that advance the story, including the sweet "Like Zis/Like Zat" pairing Gleason and Jbara. Butz storms back with "Love Is My Legs." Lithgow follows sheepishly with "Love Sneaks In," another reminder of Yazbek's way with a melody. This and more lead up to the show's theme song "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and the aptly titled "Finale." There are also a couple of bonus tracks by the composer.

Of the four cast albums, this one, perhaps, stands on its own the best, with many listenable melodies and oversized performances. The sound is decent throughout--in some cases, the strings a little thin. The only demonstration track is the Scott/Charlap bonus which, with its close-up miking, turns one of the prettiest songs in recent memory into an almost-like-being-there experience.