Mathis on Broadway

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Music reviews of Mathis on Broadway

Music Review: Vocal Brilliance--Just Not Enough Of It!
Rating: 4 Stars

But oh, well. If you can't praise what you want, praise what you've got. I love the choices that were made on this CD. Mathis chose well his singing partners, acquiring seasoned Tony Award-winning Broadway veterans to help him out on a couple of them. Nell Carter is from the musical "Ain't Misbehavin'", even though folks my age probably remember her better as Joey Lawrence's mother-surrogate on the TV show Gimme A Break. Betty Buckley has done more Broadway than I can think of; like Ms. Carter, she became popular on TV, and people still remember her from the Eight is Enough TV series. But Ms. Buckley was, if I'm not mistaken, the original Grisabella in "Cats", and she may have also played Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (before Glenn Close did).

Seasons of Love is a wonderful, wonderful song, a thought-provoking song, and Nell Carter enhances the song beautifully. The medley with Betty Buckley to me gets mixed reviews. I much prefer Our Children, because the dual parts are so exquisitely blended. Life is a Bowl of Cherries is one of those songs that you think you're just absolutely going to hate, but surprisingly enough, I found it very charming! In fact, I say the Forever Plaid guys give Take 6 a good run for their money! But my favorite song has to go to the Lion King's They Live In You...it is such a powerful song, and there is such personal meaning in it for me, and Mathis complements the South African singers wonderfully. I was so impressed at how well Mathis handled the South African expressions in the song, too; I've tried studying African languages and the pronunciation is very, very difficult! Is there nothing Mathis can't handle? Not on this CD.

Getting back to the length, this same thing happened with the Better Together duets album...they left off so many viable contenders for this concept. How about a few more Andrew Lloyd Webber songs? Think of it...just imagine Mathis and Betty Buckley together again on Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Unexpected Song" from Song and Dance, or they could have dueted for "Love Changes Everything" from Aspects of Love! What about Mathis alone singing "High Flying, Adored" from Evita, or maybe even "I Am the Starlight" from Starlight Express? Surely they would have fallen into the twenty-year time frame. I think these songs would have been great additions AND they would have beefed this recording up considerably.

Mathis on Broadway features a healthy Johnny Mathis with a voice as I haven't heard him in a long, long time. He sounds wonderful! And this is one CD that DIDN'T have to "grow on me"! Sadly, I cannot give five stars to a recording this short. It's criminal, these things cost too much. I give 5 stars for Mathis' performance, 2 stars for the fact that this should have been marketed (and priced) as a CD extended play single with extra tracks! That totals 7, divide by 2 to get 3.5, which rounds up to four stars.

Description of Mathis on Broadway

Broadway & Vocalists CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock