Michael Feinstein

Get Happy: Michael Feinstein Celebrates the Judy Garland Centennial

Feinstein’s/54 Below, NYC, December 19, 2021

Reviewed by Ron Forman

Rather than doing his usual holiday show at Feinstein’s/54 Below, as 2022 approaches, Michael Feinstein used the opportunity to celebrate the centennial of Judy Garland with a celebration of her life and music. The always entertaining Feinstein introduced the music with interesting, amusing, and sometimes obscure stories about Garland. Two screens on either side of the stage continuously displayed still photos of Garland on and off screen and also included video clips from her MGM movies.  Feinstein was backed by a trio of stellar musicians—music director Tedd Firth (piano), David Finck (bass), and Mark McLean (drums)—that really can swing when the number calls for it. Feinstein always manages to include hilarious comments and stories in all of his shows as he did when talking about working with Mickey Rooney, late in Rooney’s life. Rooney claimed he was working on a new musical that would be a bigger hit than Cats; his show was going to be titled Dogs.

The trio opened with an overture of songs associated with Garland, while the screens displayed videos from her films. Feinstein then cheerfully bounced on stage, looking marvelous, and instantly put us in the mood to have fun with a lively upbeat “Get Happy.” He then performed “That’s Judy Garland” (Charles Butler), sung to the melody of Dietz and Schwartz’s “That’s Entertainment.” Feinstein told of Judy’s early life, starting in vaudeville at age 18 months, leading into a medley of songs from the vaudeville era. “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” was the song Garland considered her lucky song as it was the one she performed for her MGM audition, and Feinstein belted it out. He recalled seeing lyricist Yip Harburg perform “If I Only Had a Heart/Brain/The Nerve” and performed them, as Harburg did, including a verse not in The Wizard of Oz. A medley of songs from films Garland made with Mickey Rooney included “Manhattan” and a delightfully performed “How About You.” Feinstein told of visiting the house Garland lived in as a young girl and finding a stack of home-made records hidden behind a wall recorded by Garland, including an a cappella recording of “I’ll Be Seeing You,” a song she never publically sang or recorded. Feinstein then walked to the piano and accompanied the recording. He breathlessly performed a medley of songs from MGM movies produced by Arthur Freed beginning with “On the Athchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” and ending with “The Trolley Song.” Next to closing he belted “Come Rain or Come Shine” with the trio really rocking behind him. He closed the show alone at the piano the only way possible for this holiday show with a very warm “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”