Review: 2015 MetroStar Champ Minda Larsen Delivers Another Winning Performance With MY SOUTHERN SONG at Metropolitan Room

The fourth time was the charm for Minda Larsen, winner of the 2015 MetroStar Competition: "I have an MFA in opera," she joked during the debut of her show, My Southern Song, at the Metropolitan Room on May 21, "So it took four tries in six years to win that competition." The remark is typical of the self-deprecating humor of the versatile singer from Jacksonville, FL, who spent time in Georgia and went to school in South Carolina. Itching all her life to get out of the South, now she longs to get back. Her new show (a four-date run and her award for winning the MetroStar) captures that longing with love, laughter, and an occasional tear.

Larsen opened aptly with the 1947 Phil Harris hit "That's What I Like About The South," a rollicking, campy tune she sang as a heartwarming ballad. With her vocal clarity and confident, yet easy presence, Larsen reminds one of Dinah Shore at her most sincere and reflective. Combining technique with unmistakable warmth, she nailed "Mississippi Mud" (Harry Barris/James Cavanaugh; alternate lyrics by Johnny Mercer) and "Basin Street Blues" (Spencer Williams).

Like the Williams song--an extended "welcome" inviting us to "come along" the Mississippi to New Orleans, "where the rich and poor folks meet" on Basin Street--Larsen's voice draws us in and makes us feel at home. The performer is clearly at home with the material; the music fairly courses through her body, which moves with a dancer's grace.

The pairing of "Georgia On My Mind" (Hoagy Carmichael/Stuart Gorrell) and "Sittin' On The Dock of the Bay" (Otis Redding/Steve Cropper) was artful, but the smooth languor created by musical director Barry Levitt on the piano, Peter Grant on drums, and Tom Hubbard on bass, made one wish Larsen had sung it in full, particularly since the Redding/Cooper hit was one of few songs on which Larsen's vocals sounded a bit forced.

Larsen's brief reminiscence about summers in Georgia with her grandmother, a member of a "hip church," was a nice prelude to "Grandma's Hands" (Bill Withers), which opened acapella. Speculating that the West Virginian songwriter must also have had a special grandma, Larsen next paid tribute to Southern mamas "who tell it like it is" in "Blues in the Night (Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer). The long hold at the song's conclusion left no doubt about Larsen serious vocal chops.

Songs cycle in their popularity, as with "Jolene," Dolly Parton's emotional song about a woman begging another woman (with whom she knows she can't compete) not to steal her man, seems to be back in vogue. Nicholas Rodriguez sang a powerful but not gut-wrenching version on his excellent 2015 release, The First Time, and I've been hearing it more and more in cabaret. The song is malleable. Larsen's rendering lets us feel the acute desperation of the speaker without overplaying it (which has the ironic and unintended effect of lessening rather than increasing our empathy for the tortured soul).

Man trouble runs through the next few songs, beginning with the classic by Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill, "Stand By Your Man." A critic should be upfront about her biases, so here is mine: I loathe this song. But Barry Levitt's brilliant arrangement and Larsen's insightful rendering changed my mind. At least, Larsen's performance was the best case I've heard for the song's inclusion in the pantheon of country music, even as it made the song sound less like an apologia for poor male behavior.

"He's just a man," delivered with a smile and faint eye-roll, sounded like the Southern expression "Bless his heart," which anyone in the South knows is uttered not from an inferior position but a superior one. Taken thus, the song is a call to be the bigger person, but not at the expense of one's dignity, a quality Larsen brought to "Understand Your Man," a beautiful, lesser-known song by Johnny Cash. "I Had Myself a True Love" (Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer) turns that "understanding" inward, in what was--in a show full of hits--the powerhouse number. The performer's opera training was evident but not ostentatiously on display. One can see why she devoted an entire show to Mercer; Larsen owns the song famously sung by Barbra Streisand and Audra MacDonald.

The Dixie Chicks "The Long Way Around" (Martie Erwin Maguire, Emily Erwin Robison, Natalie Maines) was a change of pace, with the performer giving the audience a glimpse into her present life. Unlike many she grew up with who never left the zip code, she hit the rode in an RV after school. A gypsy at heart, Larsen did marry a Georgian of sorts: an acrobat from the Russian state of Georgia named Moukhametov Boulat. When she turned to her husband in the audience, one could see the love between this unlikely couple.

Her love story segued nicely to a clever pairing of "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" (George Leybourne, Gaston Lyle, Alfred Lee) and "Fly Me To The Moon." Alternating effortlessly between male and female parts, the performer showed off her comedic instincts. Like the show's director, the cabaret icon Marilyn Maye, whom Larsen thanked in a moving, yet understated way ("And that's all I'm gonna say about that!"), she knows how to charm an audience. Sitting in a corner booth at the Met Room, Maye looked visibly pleased as she scribbled notes dutifully throughout the show.

"My Southern Song" closed with a trilogy of tunes from Showboat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II: "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Bill," and "Make Believe." All were well done, but the first was so terrific, Larsen might have made it the finale.

Larsen isn't as chatty as many cabaret artists (Maye's influence?), but she doesn't need to be. Her singing is so expressive that you get a sense of who she is without excessive personal disclosure. If anything, Larsen inspires curiosity by not over-sharing. She lets the music do the talking--and makes us fall in love with her along the way.

Minda Larsen returns to the Metropolitan Room with My Southern Song on June 1, June 28, and August 17, all at 7 pm. For reservations, go to: www.metropolitanroom.com

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