Platinum Girls: The Musical is the story of three women: Elaine, Ruby Lee and Doris. Best of friends in high school who entered a songwriting contest and won, one hit song defined their friendship. Now, forty years later, as headliners at Brad's Bowl N' Roll, their claim to fame is less than ideal. Let's hope their stars will align for them once again as they prepare for the comeback concert of their lives, hopefully overcoming their biggest obstacle: themselves...

Starring Tony Award winner Beth Leavel (The Prom, The Drowsy Chaperone), Tony Award winner Debbie Gravitte (Jerome Robbins' Broadway), and Tony nominee Brenda Braxton (Smokey Joe's Cafe), and featuring Felicia Boswell, Carla Mongado and Natalie Weiss, the zany new musical is written by Andrew Beall, Russell Moss and Brad Zumwalt.

The overture provides an impressive, strong opening to the recording, and really sets the scene for a musical which is essentially about show business, The sound, and the orchestrations on this album are superb. It’s such a refreshing change to hear a full orchestra on a concept album, and here they sound just great. I though a couple of the orchestrations sounded a little thin under the vocals at times, but at other times they soar. The cast is superb also. I’ve been a long time fan of Gravitte, and it’s great to hear her on here. She’s featured along side Leavel and Braxton, and the three of them make a great team, which is needed for a recording like this.

Whilst I enjoyed the album as a whole, I didn’t feel the songs were particularly memorable. The lyrics are clever, and the music is pleasant, but I wasn’t humming anything, even after a couple of listens. ‘High Heel Tango’ and ‘Grapefruit Twist’ are very catchy, and clever, and I particularly enjoyed the girls’ ‘We’ve Been Here Before’, which is perhaps the best number.

Worth a listen for the orchestrations and the cast - the material needs a bit more work.

7

Ian Gude