Palmetto Records recently released Tony Award winner and two-time Grammy nominee Betty Buckley's latest solo album, Betty Buckley: Ah, Men! The Boys of Broadway. Inspired by her critically acclaimed 2011 concert at Feinstein's at the Lowes Regency in New York City, Buckley reinterprets classic Broadway songs that were originally made famous by men. Buckley made an appearance at Barnes & Noble yesterday, where she sang 5 songs from her new album and did a Q&A with Seth Rudetsky. Check out photos from the event below!
Ah, Men! The Boys of Broadway features men's songs from Broadway shows that Buckley has always wanted to sing, including numbers from Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, Pippin, The Fantasticks and more. The centerpiece of the new album is "A Hymn to Her," a rewrite of My Fair Lady's "A Hymn to Him" in which Henry Higgins asks "Why Can't a Woman be More Like A Man?" The prolific singer reverses the question in a witty retort complete with musical references to iconic male Broadway roles including Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, Harold Hill in A Musical Man and Jean Val Jean in Les Miserables.
Recorded in Los Angeles at the legendary Sound Factory, Ah, Men! The Boys of Broadway features arrangements by Christian Jacob and Eric Stern with Jacobs on piano, Peter Barshay on bass and Matt Betton on drums. "A Hymn to Her" concept and lyrics are by Eric Kornfeld and Eric Stern.
Betty Buckley won a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella in Andrew Lloyd Webber's CATS. She received a second Tony Award nomination as "Best Actress in a Musical" for her performance as Hesione in Triumph of Love, and an Olivier Award nomination for her critically acclaimed interpretation of Norma Desmond in the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, which she repeated to more rave reviews on Broadway. On television, Buckley starred in the HBO series "Oz" and as Abby Bradford in the hit series "Eight is Enough." She received two Emmy Award nominations for the After-School Specials "Bobby and Sarah" and "Taking a Stand," for which she co-wrote the musical score. Her film career includes M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, Brian de Palma's screen version of Stephen King's novel Carrie, Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies, Roman Polanski's Frantic, Woody Allen's Another Woman and Lawrence Kasden's Wyatt Earp.
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