Kat: Judy Garland. Two years ago, NPR and other media outlets were noting that Judy would have turned one hundred. And while that's true, I don't think that's the 100 years I'd measure. 2037 would be the hundred years for me. Thirteen years from now. That'll be 100 years from the moment the world fell in love with Judy Garland.
1937 is the year she sang "You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It)" in the film BROADWAY MELODY OF 1938 and starred with Mickey Rooney in THOROUGHBREDS DON'T CRY, and the next year she followed with Deanna Durbin in EVERYBODY SING and again with Mickey Rooney for LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY. Of course, this eternal love affair was sealed in 1939 with THE WIZARD OF OZ and "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."
In 2019, I covered Judy's ALONE album and the reason why was because, online, it really was as though Judy was just an actress. If her songs were mentioned, it was in terms of a film she sang one in. And Judy was a great actress. I'm reading a book right now that argues she was as natural and talented at acting as Spencer Tracy. The Academy of Awards and Sciences gave her an Oscar (Academy Juvenile Award) for 1939's THE WIZARD OF OZ and BABES IN ARMS and she was nominated two more times -- Best Actress for A STAR IS BORN and Best Supporting Actress for JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG. The Golden Globes? She was nominated for JUDGEMENT and she won for A STAR IS BORN. Great actress, no question, and she delivered at the box office, filmgoers loved her. But she was a one of a kind singer and it was her singing that resulted in a Tony, three Emmy nominations (her singing in variety shows) and two Grammys (plus a Grammy lifetime award). So her films being widely covered online didn't surprise me but Frank Sinatra made some good films and some great ones and he also sang. When you went online, you saw sites covering his films and you saw sites covering his albums. Why wasn't that the same for Judy?
I grew up loving music and that included the hits of my youth but it also included great singers from the forties and fifties and sixties that my grandparents who lived with us listened to -- Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Nine Simone, Dinah Washington, Cab Calloway and, yes, Judy Garland.
In the pre-streaming days, the days before DVDS, the days before video cassettes or laser discs, I knew Judy as primarily a singer, in fact. Like most kids, I'd see THE WIZARD OF OZ each year when CBS aired it. Or maybe I'd be able to catch SUMMER STOCK, FOR ME AND MY GIRL, THE EASTER PARADE, IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME or other of her MGM classics airing on broadcast TV at some point over an 18th month period. But near daily, I'd hear Judy on the stereo as my grandparents played their record collection.
In the time since, there's been an uptick in online coverage of Judy's recordings -- especially during the 100th year anniversary of her birth. And I'm continuing my coverage of her studio recordings that started with ALONE and have since covered JUDY, MISS SHOW BUSINESS, JUDY IN LOVE and THE GARLAND TOUCH. This year, we're going with THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!
In 1996, Linda Ronstadt released an album entitled DEDICATED TO THE ONE I LOVE
I remember Linda Ronstadt where she took various rock standards -- like the title track which was a hit for the Shirelles and the Mamas and the Papas in the sixtes -- and gave them a twist to make then songs for children, lullabies. The overall sound is similar to what Judy did on THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!
You should be able to note this difference in the way she handles "How Long Has This Been Going On?" -- a song she'd already perfected before 1960. Or take the title track opens the album and it's the well known classic by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz -- the one everyone sings at full volume and, many times, in what seems like their attempt of and Ethel Merman impersonation. That's entertainment becomes THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!!!!
Except it doesn't on this album. Judy's got a joyful version but it's not really belted, it's more carefully song. And it jars you a little and makes you hear the song a little differently. That's what she does with every song and if you haven't noticed that by her interpretation of "Putting On The Ritz," you're really not listening.
The mood she's building really works for these songs. It allows her to reinterpret Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg's "Down With Love" in a manner that provides a different sort of excitement and understanding that other versions (including her own previous versions).
Over and over, track for track, this album showcases an artist in a true state of reflection. Listen to her sing, especially the songs she had already interpreted before this album, and marvel over the new moods she finds in the song.
She truly was one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. She did six studio albums for CAPITOL and all are strong and worthy of praise. With this review, I've now completed what I set out to do, my contribution to Judy getting her recognition as an album artists. She didn't just sing hit songs. She made deeply moving albums as strong as Frank Sinatra's IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING. Maybe her voice wasn't getting the recognition it should have in the online world, her voice and her talent, because the DECCA years weren't album albums. They took songs she recorded from movies. Sometimes they gathered a bunch of released songs, slapped them on a 78 and called it an album. That's not Judy's fault. When albums -- 33 and 1/3 vinyl albums -- emerged in the 1950s as an art form, she was already done at MGM and without a studio. In 1954, CAPITOL had great success with the soundtrack to A STAR IS BORN -- this album of songs by Judy from the film of the same name made it all the way to number five on the charts. With Frank and others reimaging what an album -- an "lp" for "long player" -- could be, Judy signed to CAPTIOL and released 1955's MISS SHOW BUSINESS demonstrating she had the artistry needed to make an album -- not just a hodge-podge collection of songs, but a full artistic statement.
The post MGM years were where Judy became not just a popular and talented singer but a true artist in the music world. She did that first onstage and then later with her studio albums for CAPITOL. Do I go on and cover her live albums next or is this the final review of a Judy album by me? I don't know. With this review, I've completed the task I set for myself back in 2019.
Maybe the answer is in that book I mentioned, the one I'm reading about Judy Garland? Right now, I'm hating the book for so many reasons, including the fact that by page sixty, I shouldn't be yelling,, "Get on with the story all damn ready!" I don't need bio sketches of bit players in a film. If you're talking about the making of one of Judy's classic films, talk about it. Don't give me twenty or so bio sketches on people in the movie -- including a minor dancer who never amounted to anything and doesn't even have a line -- or for that matter, a full dance scene -- as you avoid addressing the making of the movie. Sixty pages and we're still not to the making of the film. It's infuriating. But because it's a book about Judy, I haven't just snapped, "Enough!" and written it off. I'm trudging through each dull and meandering page hoping it will get better because Judy deserves better. Based on that, my response to that book, I'd say there's a good chance that I'll cover at least one of the live albums, if not more.
