Betty Buckley 1998

Betty Buckley at The Bottom Line: November 1, 1998

Betty just finished doing Gypsy, a vocally demanding show, and had done 4 shows at The Bottom Line by the time Sunday, Nov. 1st came around. Her most fervent fans stood in line 2 hours before the doors opened (I know this because I was eating lunch across the street and saw them!). The club was packed. There is no backstage entrance to the club, so Betty came in through the front door about 45 minutes before the show while everyone was being seated and went behind the stage curtains to prepare. She came out on stage singing Angel From Montgomery, one of her signature songs. (It's not on any of her albums.) Thus, the first line of her show was "I am an old woman." No way! ;)

After her first song, she explained that her voice was "fried" because of Gypsy and her performances at The Bottom Line on Friday and Saturday. She said she woke up that morning and found her voice like that, so she decided to sing songs from her lower register because she just couldn't hit the high notes. When she's done shows (like Gypsy, etc.) she's occasionally missed performances due to illness, but she said there was no way she'd miss a show at The Bottom Line because when she was younger it was her dream to sing at that rock club because that's where her idols sang. For example, Janis Joplin — Betty says it was too bad her voice was shot because she does "a mean version of Piece of My Heart". She explained that she always wanted to sing like Janis Joplin, but that she wanted to *be* Joni Mitchell.

This was the first performance where she had a backup singer of sorts who took some of the higher notes while Betty did harmony or a lower-register melody. The combination worked well. In fact, Betty remarked that it's her dream to keep singing even when they have to bring her onto stage in a wheelchair and that this backup arrangement might work really well when that day comes!

Her second song was another standard for her (also not on any of her albums), From Boulder to Birmingham, an Emmylou Harris song. She also did No One Is Alone (from "Into the Woods" and her Children Will Listen album), Hi Lili Hi Lo/I Can Let Go Now (a combination from her Carnegie Hall album). She took a song associated with an old Broadway show, Magic Show, and did a wonderful job with it (it's the type of song that could easily flop but she made it work). And she did a beautiful Danny Boy — it's a song that many singers try to do wistfully and it's a cliche to do it that way, but she chose a mournful approach to it that made it real and cut straight to the bone.

She started singing River (a Joni Mitchell song on two of her albums), but had to stop because she needed to tell the backup singer to take the higher notes. There was also a snag with the sound system — her microphone went out (not that she ever needed a microphone!). At any other venue, it might not have gone over as well. But because her shows at The Bottom Line are more casual than her shows at other clubs and the audience is looser, too, no one minded. It was rather like being at a recording session!

She told stories in between all the songs and tried to explain why she chose them. She explained that her favorite is Mary Chapin Carpenter's Come On Come On, which has become a standard of Betty's and is on one or two of her albums. Luckily it falls into her lower register so she did it for us!

From her most recent album (Much More), she did The Very Thought of You, Autumn Leaves (including a verse in French), and Flight. I had been lukewarm about Flight on the album -- I had liked it but wasn't overwhelmed by it. But hearing it live changed everything — I finally "got" the song. Now I'm a convert! It was just one of those moments where everything — her interpretation, the musicians, and the electricity of a live audience — gelled and it became very powerful.

Finally, she did Send In The Clowns, which featured an extended (excellent) improvisation by her pianist and musical director, Kenny Werner.

Of course we gave her a standing ovation, and her encore was Amazing Grace.

I haven't given nearly enough credit to her musicians, who have been with her for years and who have managed to give her a particular "sound" which is more noticeable at her live shows than on her albums.

Betty's tradition is to come out after her shows while people stand in line for autographs, pictures, etc. She came out but couldn't speak because she had to save her voice for the show later that night. Nonetheless she was as gracious as she could be under the circumstances.