Review: Linda Eder at Mohegan Sun's Cabaret Theater

Last night, Linda Eder performed two acts for her audience at Mohegan Sun's Cabaret Theater. Each of the acts would have stood as a complete evening, and this audience got both of them. What a treat!

No warm up for the band, no overture. Her six piece band takes their places and off-stage a voice announces "Ladies and Gentleman, Linda Eder". Out walks Linda in a floor-length, sleeveless, pale, green gown, her newly blonde hair shimmering in the spotlight. She and the band launch right into "Almost Like Being in Love"; using the "Judy at Carnegie Hall" arrangement. No starting slow for her or her band, right out of their corners, they were swingin'.

A "medley" of songs associated with Judy Garland followed, I put medley in quotes because I usually think of a medley as 32 bars of a bunch of songs put together into four minutes. This "medley" contained most of "The Best is Yet to Come", "The Man I Love" and "Just in Time". What made it a medley, mostly, is that the arrangement let Linda and the band bypass the end of the songs and move deftly right into the next.

"I am often asked what my favorite song is", Linda said, " It changes, depending on what list we are working from, but this one is always right near the top." The band began to play the familiar melody of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Waters" and the audience murmured its approval. With its sweeping, grand notes that allow the listener to see the "bridge" in their minds eye, this is a song that Linda has put her stamp on.

Two more "Judy" songs followed, "The Boy Next Door" and "You Made Me Love" you. With all deference to the original recording of "You Made Me Love You", which was recorded by a young Judy Garland as a love letter to Clark Gable on his 36th birthday, I think the writers James V. Monaco and Joseph McCarthy (and Roger Edens?) would love Linda's version. It is a different song, with more layers of meaning and experience. Some of the wide-eyed innocence is gone, with it, the overwhelming, sweetness.

A deep, delta blues, intro for "Son of a Preacher Man" followed. Not surprisingly, Linda nailed it, along with the duet of "Clouds" that she sang with her drummer.

"My favorite song, right now, no question, is this next song." Linda said, as she and the band launched into "Blue Skies". The notes, as they came out of Linda's throat, reminded me of a beautiful songbird in flight; as it alternately dips, turns, dives and soars.

Linda closed act one with a rousing rendition of "Don't Rain on My Parade". Usually associated with Barbra Streisand, Judy fans are very aware that she sang it with her daughter, Liza .

Intermission. Whew!

During act two, Linda sang songs from her recent gig at Feinstein's in NYC. An act of "Torch Songs" that took the audience through the five stages of grief over a relationship that has ended. Linda warned the audience not to take all of the songs as if she were singing them autobiographically.

The arrangements she sang were lush, with Linda in great voice and clearly enjoying herself. There were a couple songs she sang that I am not familiar with, which I always appreciate.

During the evening, Linda said that lots of people had come up to her recently and said that she "looked so happy". "I had no idea I had looked sad", she said. I have to agree. Linda radiates. She attributes it to being in love again.

 

Love becomes Linda Eder.

 

Linda Eder at Mohegan Sun's Cabaret Theater, June 2-4 2006.

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