The "soundtrack album" of songs taken directly from the original studio pre-recordings did not come into existence until MGM formed "M-G-M Records" in 1946 and released selections from Till The Clouds Roll By on 78 rpm in 1947. The February 22, 1947 edition of "Billboard" notes that M-G-M Records was to release its first shipment of 78rpm discs on March 1, 1947. Clouds was their very first album with a record number of "MGM-1".

Prior to 1947, the only soundtrack performances available to the public were a couple of 78s from RCA Records of selections from Walt Disney's Snow White And the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and a few commemorative 78s in 1933 with parts of Max Steiner's ground-breaking score for King Kong (RKO - 1933). But neither of these were released as "cast" or "soundtrack" albums.

When M-G-M Records premiered their Till The Clouds Roll By soundtrack, it was far from a complete soundtrack album as we know it today. The standard "albums" of the time were in the 78rpm format. Called "albums" because they were usually 4 discs containing 8 songs packaged much like a photo album. The time constraints on each side of these 78's was limited, so most of the performances were abridged and/or altered versions of the numbers as seen and heard in the films. Easter Parade was peppered with, as advertised, "17 Irving Berlin Song Hits!" - but the album only featured 8 of these, most in abridged format. Usually the parts edited out for release on album were the long dance breaks. When the complete pre-recordings sessions were released decades later, many of these earlier versions were still popular because they featured alternate openings or endings recorded specifically for album release, and not found in the films themselves or the newly released pre-recordings.

It wasn't until the mid-1950s that the 10" and 12" 33 1/3 "long playing" records appeared. Still, M-G-M Records and other record companies did not release complete soundtracks (with overtures and background score) until after 1959 when Disney released their "complete" soundtrack (including overture and some background scoring) of Sleeping Beauty. This became the standard format for soundtracks through the advent of the compact disc era. A year prior to this, in 1958, M-G-M Records released their soundtrack to Gigi with the overture, and although it did not include any of the background score it was their most complete soundtrack to date. Gigi was also their first stereo soundtrack. Stereo films had been around since as early as 1953, but stereo records were not released until 1958.

In spite of this new, longer format M-G-M Records did not see the need to take the time and expense to go back and re-do their old soundtrack albums. They simply reissued them in special two-record editions. Judy's complete soundtracks would not appear until the late 1970's on bootleg albums of songs taken directly from soundtracks of the films, not the actual pre-recordings.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's CBS Special Products released several MGM soundtracks "complete" on CD for the first time. These were, once again, taken directly from the soundtracks of the films. Some included a few outtakes added from the old bootleg records of the 70's. The sound quality varied from good to mediocre to bad! They did what us fans had been doing for a long time: making our own "complete" soundtracks by recording directly from the films - first from TV and then video. It wasn't until the mid-1990's when Rhino Records, in arrangement with Turner Classic Movies Music and Turner Entertainment, began releasing the MGM Musicals on CD that we finally got to hear the complete unedited pre-recordings - restored and re-mastered - and many in true stereo!

Most of Judy's pre-recordings, including alternate takes, had previously appeared on the alternate audio channels of the laser disc sets "Judy Garland The Golden Years at MGM", "The Ultimate Oz", "That's Entertainment - The Ultimate Musical Treasury", "That's Entertainment! III - Special Edition" and the double feature "Thoroughbreds Don't Cry/Listen Darling". These laser discs are still the only place to find many of these rare pre-recordings.

A few notes about these pages:

Discrepancies in titles and even track listings is inherent to the many bootleg soundtracks released over the years. We have made note of these inconsistencies on the pages for those soundtracks.

Films such as That's Entertainment! that feature Garland vocals are listed in the "Compilations" section.

We're always on the lookout for albums that are not represented here. If you have an album or CD that is not listed, please feel free to to email us a scan of the cover with information about the contents. Thanks!

All images on this page from the collections of Scott Brogan and Eric Hemphill.