Thanks, Maryann, for sharing those wonderful memories of Barbara Cook, and giving her a little boost to get into cabaret.
I once had the honor of writing about her then-new show at the Café Carlyle, back in 1993, for the N.Y. Daily News.
Cook's repertoire ran the gamut: from turning Duke Ellington's ''I'm Beginning to See the Light'' into a toe-tapping testimonial, to swinging to ''Accentuate the Positive.'' She sang Sylvia Fine's lilting ''Lullaby in Ragtime.'' And she gave her all to Amanda McBroom's ''Ship in a Bottle,'' a beautiful ballad about a woman who's full of longings that have gone unfulfilled. Cook was magic, offering you so many sides of her personality.
This was the closing paragraph of my rave review: ''So there you have it: the sermonizing Cook, the carefree Cook, the maternal Cook, the coquettish Cook. Perhaps too many Cooks spoil the broth, but here they only spoil the listener for any other singer.''
(I'm so glad I got to salute this amazing artist in print. And the Café Carlyle even reprinted my entire review in an ad in N.Y. Times.) |
