Julie Budd
Songs of My Life and the Composers Who Wrote Them
Birdland Theater, NYC, May 2, 2019
Reviewed by Ron Forman for Cabaret Scenes
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I have been a fan of Julie Budd’s since first I saw her as a 14-year-old singing prodigy, two years after her still-present musical director Herb Bernstein discovered her in a talent show in the Catskill Mountains. Now more than 50 years later, they are still working together, which is a testament to how great an artist and human being Budd is.
Her show featured songs by and stories about performers and songwriters she has worked with in her career, including Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Duke Ellington, and Michel Legrand. As always, her phrasing and diction were impeccable, and her beautiful sound is still there.
She opened with a swinging “The Best Is Yet to Come,” and in this case it was very true.
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A story about meeting the then 100-year-old Irving Caesar led into her performing a very slow medley of two of his songs—“Tea for Two” and “I Want to Be Happy” (music for both: Vincent Youmans). After telling about Legrand’s gentlemanliness, she performed an especially beautiful and moving “I Will Wait for You” (lyrics: Normal Gimbel).
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Budd shared the stage in Las Vegas with Jimmy Durante and did an imitation of him singing “The Song’s Gotta Come from the Heart,” a number that he did with Sinatra in the film It Happened in Brooklyn. She got big laughs with “He Had Refinement,” singing it as Shirley Booth did in A Tree Grows in Btooklyn. A story of her meeting Duke Ellington when they were both guests on the Mike Douglas Show preceded her swinging medley of “Don’t Get Around Much Any More” (lyrics: Bob Russell) and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” Bernstein provided the accompaniment for his composition “Little Boy of Mine.” The highlight of this very engaging and personal show was her closing tribute to Jerry Herman, beginning with a rousing “The Best of Times” and ending with an especially moving “I Am What I Am.” For an encore, she told of working with Mr.
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Sinatra (that is always the way Budd refers to him) as a teenager, and his asking her to sing “Let Me Try Again.” At that point in her life, she felt she was too young to perform it, but at this point in her career, it made for the perfect way to end the show.