Interview: Carolyn Montgomery Celebrates Rosemary Clooney in GIRLSINGER at 54 Below

Carolyn Montgomery, multi-award winning star of the concert stage returns to 54 Below on Wednesday May 22nd at 7 pm in girlSINGER, a celebration of Rosemary Clooney. With a world-class band featuring members of Clooney’s own musical ensemble, and Montgomery’s critically acclaimed powerhouse vocals belting out hits like “Hey There,” “Come On-A My House,” and “Tenderly,” audiences sing along, laugh, weep, and dance in their seats. Montgomery’s talent for storytelling elevates the music into a spellbinding, one-woman tour-de-force.

Montgomery is also the Executive Director of the American Songbook Association, an organization that seeks to create transformational experiences for people of all ages by engaging in the music of the Great American Songbook. Whether you're already a fan of the great American classics, or you've never heard them before, this show is a chance to hear some of the standards of yore interpreted by a master.

We spoke about how this show came to be, Clooney's impact on Montgomery, and more.

Where did the idea come from to do your Rosemary Clooney tribute?
About two years ago, I was listening to her. I've been collecting vinyl, and I have a friend who really is great at finding, like, old, old vinyl. And he found me some old Rosemary Clooney records. And I began listening. And then I started listening to her newer stuff, and then I started reading about her.

I went up to Lincoln Center Library and started finding some things about her. And then I read her autobiography, which is called Girl Singer. And I had already grabbed Sally Mayes and said, “I think I want to do a Rosemary Clooney show, you know?” And she was like, “Oh my God, that's perfect. Have you read her autobiography?”

And I said, no, I'm going to go read it. So I read it and I came back to her and I was like... you know when you have an instant dislike to something and you realize because you see something in it that's exactly like you? So that's what happened to me. I didn't know that at the time.

And I went back to Sally and I said, nah, I'm not going to do a Rosemary Clooney show. I'll just enjoy her music. No two women were ever more different. And Sally went, Uh-huh. Read it again. And so I did. And sure enough... I had to read it three times, just to make a short story shorter.

And I came back to her and I said, oh my God, it's like we're the same woman. And she said, yeah, I thought you'd finally get that. And so not only am I really attracted to her music, I very much resonate with what's happened in her life.

Do you have an example of one of the things you relate to?
Mental illness to me is like any illness that needs to be managed. There's no stigma to mental illness. However, I do not, gratefully, suffer from that. So I didn't have that or the addiction issues that she had, but I did have the very typical issues that women, I think, face now, which is trying to be everything to everyone. And nobody stops you from trying to do that, trying to be a mother and a powerhouse and skinny but not too skinny, as they say in the Barbie film. Right? You're trying to be everything to everyone.

It's impossible. You have to be yourself. And I'm afraid that there's a huge movement afoot to keep women from being themselves, because we are incredibly powerful when we dig deep and don't feel like we have to change our faces or change our bodies or whatever. And she found that out later in life and so did I. And I talk a lot about that in the show.

What kind of response did you get from the first one you did back in January?

My biggest fear was that somebody would say, oh my gosh, you go to do a Rosemary Clooney show, and it's all about you, you, you. Well, that's not true. It's really about Rosemary. It's her body of work. But I do bring myself into it, and I make myself incredibly vulnerable, which I have never, ever done. And I admit to that.

And the response was unbelievable. The critical response was great. I sold out Birdland within two weeks of advertising my show, because I hadn't done a show for a while. And the people that were there said, wow, you managed to keep Rosemary and bring yourself into it. And, Ricky Pope said, we just would love to hear more about you now.

And so, I feel as though I absolutely got the message across and achieved what I set out to achieve.

Have you tweaked it at all for this upcoming one?
Just in terms of making it more smooth and organic. I try not to look at a set list as I go along. I want them to be spontaneous. I want people to feel that I'm really comfortable in my body. So, I've worked on that. My show in London, I feel, was better than my show at Birdland, and I think my show at 54 Below is going to be better than that.

Do you remember how you heard about Rosemary Clooney initially, or what impact she had on you growing up?
Rosemary Clooney was born a year before my mom. So, my parents were really big classic American Songbook lovers. They loved the Cole Porter, The Irving Berlin, the Harold Arlen, the Johnny Mercer, and, of course, Rosemary Clooney started recording in 1947 and then she continued recording until 2003.

So, she was relevant to my parents’ lives and also relevant to mine in terms of being contemporary. And my mom just talked about her incredible voice, and it really it really is an unbeatable sound.

Is there anything else that you want to add about the show?
Just that one of the things that I think is really important in a tribute show is that you do bring both the person you're celebrating and yourself into the show. And I need to make it very, very clear that I am not imitating Rosemary Clooney. Not at all. I'm bringing Carolyn Montgomery onto the stage and honoring Rosemary Clooney, but I'm not trying to sound like her.

You know, that would be silly. That would be really dumb, actually. [laughs] And, so I want people to know that this is Rosemary Clooney first and foremost, but it's also me, and that's what makes it interesting, I think.

Is there anything else that you want to plug?
Well, I'm going to be bringing this... because I am the executive director of the American Songbook Association, I hope to take this Rosemary Clooney show across the country and actually back to London, to Paris, and talk about the American Songbook and classic American songbook with this show. So I really want to plug that organization because we're really doing well, and I want to plug the show at the same time.

I'm going to try to be an ambassador for American music all across the country.

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Learn more about Carolyn Montgomery on her website at CarolynMontgomery.net

Learn more about the American Songbook Association on their website at americansongbookassociation.org

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