Tony Award Winner MELBA MOORE To Honor Legendary Singers In New Show at Metropolitan Room, 4/13

Melba Moore, a four-time Grammy nominee and winner of the 1970 Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical," for her performance as "Lutiebelle" in Purlie will appear at the Metropolitan Room on April 13 at 9:30 with a new show featuring songs made famous by legendary singers, including Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Nancy Wilson, Barbra Streisand, and Diana Ross. Joining Moore will be her special guest, actor/singer/songwriter Clifton Davis, who wrote hits for The Jackson Five.

With a total of 11 top ten U.S. hits on the Billboard charts over the past 40 years, both singles and albums, Melba Moore continues into the 21st century as one of pop music's most enduring artists.

Born Beatrice Melba Hill in Harlem to the popular R & B singer Bonnie Davis (originally named Gertrude Melba Smith) and saxophonist Teddy Hill, who managed the influential Harlem jazz club Minton's Playhouse in its heyday, Melba Moore attended the High School for Performing Arts in Newark, where she studied piano and voice, and went on to Montclair State College (New Jersey) for a bachelor's degree in music education.

After graduation, Melba worked briefly as a music teacher, but eventually got a job making backup tracks (with Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson on Bobby Hebb's "Sunny" in 1966), some of them for stars as prominent as Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin. During one recording session for a commercial voice-over in 1967 she met Galt MacDermot, composer of the musical Hair. He invited her to join the cast of his new show off-Broadway, and Melba jumped at the chance. She eventually moved to Broadway with the original cast of Hair as the character named "Dionne," and after several months she replaced Diane Keaton in the role of "Sheila," becoming the first African-American actress to replace a white actress in a lead role on Broadway.

In 1970, Moore was cast as "Lutiebelle" Gussie Mae Jenkins," opposite Cleavon Little, in the musical Purlie. Originally she was assigned only the title song, but she had such success with it in previews that songwriters Gary Geld and Peter Udell gave her another, "I Got Love." This song was such a smash hit that it shot Melba to stardom. Not only did it supply the title to her debut album with Mercury Records, which earned her a 1971 Grammy nomination as Best New Artist, but it boosted her to the 1970 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical, a 1970 Theatre World Award, and a 1970 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

Melba's 1975 album, Peach Melba, earned her a second Grammy nomination. In 1976, five singles approached the top of the charts, and one of them, "Lean on Me," earned her a third Grammy nomination for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance, Female. As a single, "This Is It" (her 1976 album) reached Number Two on the U.S. dance charts. That same year, she also returned to television with a serious acting assignment, playing Harriet Tubman in The American Woman: Portraits of Courage, and emerging with an Emmy nomination.

In 1995, Melba became the first Black actress to the play the role of "Fantine" in Les Miserables. In 2003, Moore was featured in the film The Fighting Temptations, which starred Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Beyoncé Knowles. In 2006, she toured with American Idol star Diana DeGarmo in the musical Brooklyn.

After her success at the Café Carlyle in April 2011 in a cabaret act called Forever Moore, she has a new R&B album forthcoming, her first in 20 years, by the same title. Her single, "Love Is," is now available on iTunes. She continues to perform and work on her one-woman play (a development of Sweet Songs of the Soul) called Still Standing: The Melba Moore Story.

Melba Moore at the Metropolitan Room
Monday, Apr 13, 2015 9:30 PM (Doors open at 9:00 PM)
Ticket Price: $32.50 - $115.00, 2-drink minimum. For reservations, contact the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd ST., New York, NY 10010, 212.206.0440 or go to: http://metropolitanroom.com/event.cfm?id=188100

Photo credit: Willis Roberts

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