Lorna Luft
Grateful
Feinstein’s/54 Below, NYC, October 22, 2021
Reviewed by Ron Forman
It was wonderful that Lorna Luft was able to know and become friends with five of the 20th century’s greatest songwriters: Leslie Bricusse, Johnny Mercer, Jerry Herman, Peter Allen, and Ellie Greenwich. In her new show Grateful, she expresses her gratitude to each of them in this fast, funny, and entertaining show.
She intersperses often funny but always interesting personal anecdotes about each of them between performing some of their most memorable songs. The music provided by her music director and husband Colin Freeman (piano), Peter Calo (guitar), Jim Donica (bass), and Josh Priest (drums) nicely matched the song’s genre, and really rocked when it had to. Back-up singers David Sabella (Luft’s vocal coach) and Justice Somerville, were an important part of the show.
Luft opened with a very lively “I Can See Clearly Now” followed by “On a Wonderful Day Like Today” which gave her a chance to talk about her friendship with Leslie Bricusse, who had passed away three days previously. After performing “Moon River” she spoke about her mom Judy Garland’s longtime romance with Johnny Mercer, spoiled only by the fact that each was married to someone else. She then did a medley of eight of Mercer’s greatest songs beginning with “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” (music by Harry Warren) and ending with “Too Marvelous for Words” (music by Richard Whiting), including a very powerful “Come Rain or Come Shine” (music by Harold Arlen) allegedly written by Mercer for Garland.
Luft met and worked with Jerry Herman when they did a 26-city tour together. Opening in Florida, where as will happen the audience began walking out prior to the end of the show, Herman remarked to her, “We’re getting a standing ovation.” After getting a big laugh with that story, she sang two songs from Mack and Mabel—“Wherever He Ain’t” and a very dramatic “Time Heals Everything.” She was 14 when her sister Liza Minnelli married Peter Allen, and she described her relationship with him as a loving friendship. She ended the tribute to Allen with Sabella and Justice’s voices melded nicely with hers, with “Don’t Cry Out Loud” (lyrics by Carol Bayer Sager).
The highlight of the show was Luft’s tribute to Ellie Greenwich, which began with Luft telling how she grew up listening to Greenwich’s songs and how thrilled she was to meet and work with her. She was joined by Sabella and Justice for a medley of Greenwich songs beginning with “Be My Baby” (written with Jeff Barry and Phil Spector) that had the audience cheering. Sabella had a solo number, “(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry” (written with Phil Spector and Tony Powers) that brought the audience to its feet. Luft closed the show with the audience singing along to “Chapel of Love” and “Da Doo Run Run” (both written with Jeff Barry and Phil Spector).
