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ON THE RECORD: David Yazbek's "Evil Monkey Man," and "Judy Garland at the Grove"
By Steven Suskin
03 Mar 2008
JUDY GARLAND AT THE GROVE [DRG 19107]
Capitol Records hit it big with "Judy at Carnegie Hall," a two-LP set recorded live in April 1961 that captured Garland at the peak of her career — or, at least, one of the peaks of her career. Capitol had first carted recording equipment to a Judy performance three years earlier, at the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. "Garland at the Grove" was released the following year, slightly trimmed so that it could fit on a single LP. It has more or less faded from memory, especially in the wake of the best-selling Carnegie recording. DRG, which continues to mine the archives of the Capitol and Columbia catalogues, has now brought the Aug. 5, 1958 nightclub act to CD.
This is not Garland at her best; the fire and excitement of the Carnegie album is pretty much absent. Even the crowd of Garland fans, at the closing performance of her two-week stint, is relatively sedate. But a live recording of Judy is a live recording of Judy, which should be enough for her current generations of fans. And I mean, after all, you get not only the Rainbow and Trolley songs but the contemporary treat (?) "Purple People Eater." (I especially like Ms. Garland's rendition of Arlen & Koehler's "When the Sun Comes Out.") The three songs that were cut from the LP due to length — "Day In – Day Out," "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" and "Do It Again" — have been restored for the CD. True, these tracks have been heard elsewhere over the years; but now "Garland at the Grove" gives us the full 50-minute set as heard on that August night long ago. Here she is, boys — here she is, world: Somewhere between her triumphant comeback of 1951 at the Palace, and her triumphant comeback of 1961, ten blocks uptown, at Carnegie Hall.
(Steven Suskin is author of "Second Act Trouble," "Show Tunes" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com)
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