Yep, it's a hot one, all right

The thirst for love, a compulsion to adopt strange accents and a bit of chang-chang-changity-chang-shoo-bop are expressed in recent cast albums.

"110 in the Shade"

The 2007 Broadway revival (PS Classics)

*** 1/2

Here's one that got away. The score aches, shimmers, transcends. Yet, shockingly, it remains little-known.

How exciting, then, to hear this 1963 show as interpreted by some of today's top Broadway talents for Roundabout Theatre Company's revival. Paul Gemignani conducts new orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, and Audra McDonald sings the central role.

Set in a parched patch of Texas in 1936, this musical version of N. Richard Nash's play "The Rainmaker" depicts arid lives in need of a downpour. Subtly but unmistakably, the songs by "The Fantasticks" duo of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt evoke an America of Fourth of July picnics and bonfire singalongs, an impression complemented by Tunick's sprightly, Copland-esque arrangements (written for a 2003 revival and also heard at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2004).

Hope struggles against despair in the songs -- with such titles as "Love, Don't Turn Away," "Old Maid" and "Simple Little Things" -- given to McDonald's straight-talking Lizzie. Her low notes resonate, her high notes sparkle, a mixture of shadow and light strikingly paired with a similar duality in Christopher Innvar's voice as Lizzie and the local sheriff dare to dream in "A Man and a Woman." Steve Kazee, portraying a con man with a romantic streak, seems to glimmer as he makes a wish on the "Evenin' Star," written for the original production, cut in tryouts and restored here. John Cullum is around to chuckle at Lizzie's teasing threat to get "Raunchy" -- the number that was such a dazzler on the Tony telecast.

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"Young Frankenstein"

Original Broadway cast (Decca Broadway)

** 1/2

It's no "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane," yet Mel Brooks' 1974 Marx Brothers comedy of a horror film, "Young Frankenstein," endures as one of filmdom's most quotable scripts. Always one to work a gag for all it's worth, Brooks has expanded several of the more memorable lines into songs for his Broadway musical version of the piece.