Betty Buckley at Birdland!

There was no broadway in this set. She chose only songs to honor the room. The room was the venerable jazz house, Birdland - "no theatre tunes, but I'm just going to tell you my sad stories about the theatre and maybe you'll understand why I'm the way I am." She opened with James Taylor's 4th of July, which pleased me to no end. She went into Johnny Mercer's Autumn Leaves. The next song was They Can't Take That Away from Me, which she said she's done exactly the same since she was 15 years old. Wow. We ate it up. Then she sang Dindi/How Insensitive, which are on her Quintessence album - simply gorgeous. She talked about her crush on Michael McDonald and sang his song Honest Emotion. She killed us with I'm Just a Ghost in this House - its just raw with emotion. I'm not a cryer, but tears sprang to my eyes. She blues'd it up with Since I Fell for You. She talked about growing up in the 60s, "I wanted to be like Janice Joplin. My mother wanted me to be Julie Andrews. Therein lies the problem." She sang Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'. It sort of made me want to get involved in some cause or something. Thank God, she sang Abby Llincoln's Throw It Away and then Brenda Russell's Get Here. Her encore was Tom Wait's Take It with Me When I Go. It just doesn't get any better than Betty. Honestly, I would drop everything for a chance to hear her live anytime.