By Marilyn Lester****From the Catskills to Las Vegas and back again, singer Julie Budd is one of the last performers standing from the glamorous age of nightclubs and variety television. She’s got quite a following built up over 53 years in show business, and after a three-year absence in New York, they were front and center to welcome her to Birdland Theater over a four-night run. With her walk down memory lane in The Songs of My Life, a career journey in music, the faithful were in the palm of her hand.
Who wouldn’t be awestruck to hear about a little girl from Brooklyn, USA conquering the Catskills at age 12 and going on to a wondrous career? Budd has worked with the crême of the golden age from composers to their lyricists to performers. With her opener of “The Best Is Yet To Come,” you know she knew Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh—she wasn’t just singing their song. Ditto when she offers the penultimate tunes, Jerry Herman’s “The Best of Times Is Now/I Am What I Am.” But as with a few other diva numbers, Budd’s vocal control was off kilter. Part of the issue lay in the sound mixing. She’s no novice when it comes to handling a microphone, so the plosives plaguing her delivery were enhanced on these big showstoppers.
The singer does better at this juncture with a more considered approach to vocalizing. Toning down her delivery gives Budd more consistency and helps eliminate rough high notes. By focusing on nuance, Budd is free to exploit her other assets, especially her ability to deeply interpret the lyric. This is the tack she took with Michel Legrand’s “I Will Wait for You” (English lyric by Norman Gimbel) and a beautiful new songbook entry by her friend, Marc Shaiman, “The Place Where Lost Things Go” (additional lyrics by Scott Wittman). Budd truly doesn’t need the razzle dazzle to achieve her wow factor. Another triumph of sensitive interpretation was the charming “Pink Taffeta Sample Size 10” (Coleman/Fields), cut from Sweet Charity. The novelty story song, ”He Had Refinement” (Arthur Schwartz/Dorothy Fields) from Broadway’s A Tree Grows In Brooklyn was a perfect pairing—a natural—for the girl from the county of Kings.
The narrative of The Songs of My Life was long and might have been enervating in other hands, but the teller is such an enthusiastic charmer with a touch of the lovable and loving yenta in her, all is forgiven. Besides, to hear first hand about Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Dorothy Fields and so many more national treasures, is an event that doesn’t come around too often. Budd followed a reminiscence of spending a hot afternoon on a theater fire escape with the charismatic Duke Ellington with three of his hits. She’s not a jazz singer per se, but the blues base and rhythmic structure of his tunes suits her. A toe-tapping “I’m Beginning to See the Light” (lyric by Don George) and a swingy “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (lyric by Bob Russell) flowed into the high-energy “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” (lyric by Mitchell Parrish) featuring exquisite drumming by Sam Lazzara and the grooving bass of David Winograd.
Herb Bernstein is the producer-musician who took the 12-year old Budd under his wing way back when in the Catskill mountains, and he has been her music director and pianist ever since. He’s one of those keyboard artists who can turn a single piano into an orchestra. His lush introduction for Budd’s initial entrance was a taste of consistent piano virtuosity throughout.
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