Bette Midler

Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's score for Gypsy has had five major recordings: the 1959 original Broadway cast album starring Ethel Merman; the 1962 original motion picture soundtrack starring Rosalind Russell, partially dubbed by Lisa Kirk; the 1973 London cast album starring Angela Lansbury; the 1989 Broadway revival cast album starring Tyne Daly; and here, the 1993 television soundtrack starring Bette Midler.

Paul A. Rothchild produced the final Janis Joplin studio album, Pearl, as well as many a Doors disc, and the late producer was the perfect guy to tackle this tribute to Joplin featuring "The Divine Miss M" as "Pearl"/"The Rose." In March of 1980, the version of "When a Man Loves a Woman" from this 1979 film soundtrack went Top 35, and Midler's biggest hit followed her Oscar nomination, but it was a well-produced version of the title track, different from the album, which went Top Three, the gold single the biggest of her six hits up to this point in time.

Using her regular touring band and employing Don Was, an expert on helping pop veterans reclaim the sounds that made them successful, Bette Midler makes an excellent album to tie in with the premiere of her network television show. Was seems to conceive of Midler as a kind of pre-rock, neo-Brill Building performer, frequently putting her into mid-tempo pop arrangements of old R&B ballads, here including Baby Washington's 1960 hit "That's How Heartaches Are Made," the Temptations' 1971 hit "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)" (which here sounds even more like an old Drifters hit than it does usually), and a pair of 1980 titles, Teddy Pendergrass' "Love TKO" and the Manhattans' "Shining Star."

"Live at Last" is the first live album by American singer Bette Midler, a two-disc set released in 1977, Midler's fourth album release on the Atlantic Records label. The album spawned from her live, recorded performance, "The Depression Tour" in Cleveland, entitled "The Bette Midler Show".

Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits is a compilation album by American singer Bette Midler, featuring many of her best-known songs. The fourteen track compilation was released on Atlantic Records in 1993…

Bette Midler's first songbook album focused on songs popularized by Rosemary Clooney, and it became a surprising hit after being latched onto by vocal fans as well as adult contemporary audiences. Befitting her image, the record wasn't a reverent tribute; Midler and musical partner Barry Manilow modernized the arrangements of Clooney's bigger hits, recasting "Come On-A My House" as a swing-hip-hop number and reimagining "This Ole House" as a bluegrass song.