Appropriately titled, Barry Lloyd’s latest show at the Metropolitan Room, Take Me!, makes us eager to do just that! Grab this guy and never let him go. Meeting him for the first time I said “Why aren’t you replacing Bobby Short?” In the genre of saloon singers, he’s in the top one percent. In the arena of cabaret performers, he’s the ultimate example of the how and why of crafting a show musically because each song comes from real-life. Barry is an intelligent, lyric devotee whose acting skills create and spin a tale that is mesmerizing. 

Barry hails from San Francisco and, as one of nine children, born to a mother who spent her entire life on the stage (she was married three times), he absorbed it all. From childhood days in the dressing room, performing bit parts on stage with Mom, he then trained as a dancer, combining music, acting and voice into the mix and settling in as a fine musician with a smooth as satin baritone voice.

Rehearsing only three hours prior, his flying fingers on piano shared the stage with talented musicians Scott Latsky (drums) and Tim Ferguson (bass). Opening with Lane/Barer’s “Take Me,” he sets the tone for the fun, cleverness and sadness about to unfold. His life’s story is revealed from the moment he segues into Bart Howard’s “Sell Me!” Barry tells of the loss of his mate from AIDS after six years, the emotional rollercoaster ride and heartbreak of a last memory of finding a place they would share and of his survival. His choice of songs is the story!  “I Was Doing All Right” (Gershwins) as a slow introspective ballad and John Rox’s “They Flip” all about how to snag a mate…‘I give ‘em the slow eye and they flip…I give ‘em the blue jeans that fit tight in the hip and they flip’ into the bluesy “I Ain’t Got Nobody” (Williams/Graham introduced in 1953 by Mae Barnes)-‘Abercrombie has got his Fitch…Snow White had her Dwarfs’ followed by the double entendre, suggestive “Rub Your Lamp” (Cole Porter) which he entwines with his recent trip to Harlem and his meeting with the fortune teller, Princess Aladdin, falling into his own trance at the keyboard ‘ Rub your lamp if you want health; your figure will get bigger if you rub your lamp…’segueing quietly, soulfully into “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

Barry’s genius continues with Brian Lasser’s “Becoming My Mother” and “The Glamorous Life” (Sondheim). The touching story about the land he bought on the hill where he and his former mate were to build their dream house, brings tears to the eyes in “The Folks Who Live On The Hill” (Kern/Hammerstein II); the release of laughter erupting in “Disgustingly Rich” (Rogers/Hart) as he explains how the value has sextupled!  Barry Lloyd is a unique experience and we crave more. Here’s hoping he will record a CD of this show!

Sandi Durell
Cabaret Scenes
May 2, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org