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It almost seemed as though every elderly female stage and film star--from Ethel Merman to Dorothy Lamour to Ginger Rogers--tried their hand at portraying Thornton Wilder's famous matchmaker, Dolly Levi, following the musical's smash 1964 opening, and yet the role will always belong to Carol Channing. When Pearl Bailey assumed the role on Broadway, however, she created yet another critical sensation with Jerry Herman's first major musical--not only because it was an all-black cast, setting off a long-running trend; and because the great Cab Calloway came out of retirement to play Horace Vanderbilt; but mainly because "Miss Pearlie Mae" brought her own famous ad-libbing personality to the role, creating a most interesting interpretation that is immortalized on this recording. Her version of the title song stands alongside Channing's own. --Bill Holdship