Wainwright... and Garland

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johnfoyle
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Wainwright... and Garland

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/ente ... 829270.htm


Fri, Jun. 16, 2006


Wainwright... and Garland

By David Patrick Stearns
Inquirer Music Critic

NEW YORK - Despite the avalanche of publicity that heralded singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright's two-night re-creation of Judy Garland's famous 1961 Carnegie Hall concert, nobody really knew what to expect. And even the most outrageous rumors never presupposed what happened on Wednesday: a surprise guest who made the event the next best thing to a Garland resurrection.

Near the end of the two-hour-plus concert, Garland's No. 2 daughter, Lorna Luft (who inherited Mom's vibrato), arrived onstage to sing a duet with Wainwright on "After You've Gone." The audience - predominantly male couples who seemed equally well versed in Garland and Wainwright - turned delirious.

He should have just handed over the entire song to Luft, since the concert's best moments were when the Judy vs. Rufus balance was decisively tilted toward Rufus. Wainwright comes from such a different tradition of singing, vocally and stylistically, that any surrogate Garland experiences (and I speak as someone who saw Garland on her last U.S. tour) are best left to Broadway mezzo-soprano Audra McDonald. But that didn't keep Wainwright's concert, filmed by director Sam Mendes, from being pretty thrilling, partly because of the potential for train wrecks.

Among them: Wainwright's attempt to sing "Do It Again" in Garland's key, which is too high for his comfort. Or counting off the upbeat "Just You, Just Me" and accidentally singing instead "Who Cares?"

Garland's original orchestrations, created by giants such as Billy May and Nelson Riddle, and modified for this concert, ask for a cleaner vocal style than Wainwright was inclined to supply. They generally put his own idiosyncrasies in higher relief. His vowels are strange: The word me comes out may, for example. Going for a high note required a vocal swoop - and a less-than-intentional wail. He had the notes for Garland's songs, but not always many choices for coloring them.

Little of that mattered when he was deep inside a song, which happened intermittently during the concert's first half, but almost always during the second. Unlike Elvis Costello's homage-encounters with different pop genres, Wainwright stuck close to the vocal lines as written - more than he did with the lyrics. Most distinctive, he sang with the emotional conviction of a fellow composer, one able to inhabit a song in a way that momentarily suggested he could have written it.

And that happened best in some of the more dangerous parts of the concert, such as "The Man That Got Away," which is so associated with Garland that few others will touch it. Near the end of the night, Wainwright claimed he had been "communing" with Garland's spirit in recent weeks. If so, Garland counseled him well to avoid "Stormy Weather" - the only song in her show he completely skipped, and one in which he could only suffer by comparison. That song was given to his sister, Martha Wainwright, who resorted to soap-opera emoting that showed how wrong a well-meaning artist can go. Liza Minnelli would have been the ideal guest star, but a phone call to her attorney this week revealed that she was on the West Coast working on a movie deal.

Another rumored misstep that was wisely scrapped was showing Garland on video with Wainwright's voice seemingly coming out of her mouth.

Ultimately, Wainwright's intentions in this endeavor had no ulterior high concept: He did it because he could. The voice is there, and he enjoys the clout to sell out Carnegie Hall and sing with a 40-piece orchestra. Who wouldn't go for that?

Contact music critic David Patrick Stearns at 215-854-4907 or dstearns@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/ davidpatrickstearns.
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

What, is he gay or something?
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bobster
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Post by bobster »

I have it on strict confidence that the whole gay thing is a front. It's all about the marketing, folks.

After a brief fring with with Jennifer Anniston, Rufus is now secretly dating all three Dixie Chicks. Pass it on.
http://www.forwardtoyesterday.com -- Where "hopelessly dated" is a compliment!
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