-
JUDY GARLAND LIVE AT THE CARNEGIE HALL
Variety wrote that the night’s atmosphere was supercharged at either side of the lights and that all was pandemonium.
The crowd were certainly there to pay homage and they were expectant. Over three thousand turned out, including the New York’s great and good, to see the famous two hours of pow and a life transformed that had nearly ended in 1959. The Sixties had started for Judy Garland, like so many others, at the London Palladium and this night in April 1961 came in many eyes to represent the apex of her performing career.
I can’t tell you much about the early years; the transformation from Frances Ethel Gumm to Judy Garland, the Metro years that created a legend or the drugs that kept her thin and ruined her. ‘At the Carnegie Hall In Person’ is one of the best live recordings I have ever heard and is one of my favourite albums.
For the sleeve notes and photography; the Berlin and Gershwin songs, the musical arrangements and talent of her nine piece band, the reactions of the crowd and her interaction with it- the stories of the Parisian hairdresser and the London journalist.
Forgetting the words of ‘You Go To My Head’.
Magical.
