Favorite Albums: June Angela / Sayonara Love Theme

I was a fervent viewer of the Children’s Television Workshop show THE ELECTRIC COMPANY, a show I watched from when it was first introduced to me in 2nd grade all the way til its demise sometimes in the early eighties!

  While I’ve loved everything about the show, whether it be cast members, songs or skits, by far my favorite thing about the show was the singing group THE SHORT CIRCUS, a group I’ve babbled on with love in an earlier post. And the member who was always my very favorite was the lovely June Angela, the one member who remained as the group went through its various changes over the years.

  When NOGGIN began re-airing vintage episodes of the Electric Company, my interest in June got a shot in the arm, and it was then, browsing around for June-related articles on the internet, that I discovered that June had not only created a homepage of her own, but was announcing the release of her very first solo CD!

WOW! I’d already picked up the RCA soundtrack of THE KING AND I years ago because I knew June performed on it as Tuptim, but here was a brand new CD collecting June’s songs from not just The King and I, but a handful of OTHER shows as well!

Generally known simply as “June Angela”, the CD’s complete title was actually  “Sayonara Love Theme, Songs from Shogun & other Broadway Asiana…with a Touch of Jazz”, and that’s exactly what it was! With “Special Guests” David Gaines, Joseph Foranda and John Schneider (Whodathunk them Hazzard Boys could sing!). June’s songs ranged from Sayonara, Shogun, Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen and Sing To The Dawn among others, the tracks presented a wide variety of styles! She even did a jazzy take on the Electric Company theme, just for us fans!

Now, at the time, June’s CD wasn’t going to be released in a lot of places, so I was happy to find that it was going to be sold at the Tower Records in California (or was it New York? I can't remember)- since I worked there, I figured I could get one transferred over to my store in Hawaii. My friend who did the receiving at Tower said June’s album was a consignment and wasn’t sure if they could send it over, but she pulled some strings, and my CD came in a few days!

 I was so happy! Later, The Boss was walking around demanding to know, “Who Stock Transferred a consignment?!” Oops! Fortunately, they let me off with a “Don’t do that again!” Ah, the things I do for my June Angela fix!

Well, that CD became  my soundtrack for that month…I just fell in love with the songs, and though I was already familiar with songs from Shogun and of course The King And I, I was really interested in knowing more about some of the other ones, especially Sing To The Dawn, the songs from this play (like the awesome The City) come across so powerful!

I’ve  chosen a few of my favorite tracks for you to take a listen to, hopefully when you hear how wonderful these songs are and how great June sounds here, you’ll decide to pick up a copy of your own!