Debby Boone reviewed

From the New York Observer: Boone Treasures Clooney’s Songbook
by Rex Reed

When the great, irreplaceable Rosemary Clooney died, she left her lifetime collection of musical arrangements—a 60-year career of archival-status treasures, from soup to nuts—to Debby Boone. Not to the ASCAP, the Smithsonian or the Salvation Army, but to Pat Boone’s little girl. This is not as odd as it seems. The only thing Rosie loved more than her songs was her family. And Debby Boone was her daughter-in-law.

Now it’s payback time. The pretty singer with the warm voice who has been married to Rosie’s son Gabriel for 25 years is saluting and celebrating her mentor and mother-in-law with a brand-new cabaret act called Reflections of Rosemary, now through May 21 at Feinstein’s at the Regency. The title says it all. It’s all a big family affair in the nicest way possible. Get out your calculator and figure this out. Rosie had five children by the same marriage to José Ferrer. Five kids, 10 grandchildren, an army of musicians, singers, band leaders, friends and a nephew named George Clooney, and they all hung out day and night at Rosie’s house on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills next-door to Ira Gershwin. Debby Boone fell in love with Gabriel, the middle son, when they were both teenagers, and married him when she was 22. They have four kids of their own. (This gang believes in longevity.) Feinstein’s was Rosie’s New York home. She opened the room. Now it seems fitting that her daughter-in-law is taking over the joint with some of Rosie’s own loyal, longtime musicians, including her friend-arranger-pianist John Oddo. The pieces are falling into place. I’m dizzy from the math.

So the stage is set, the piano is tuned, and the audience has brought what you need at Feinstein’s—plenty of checkbooks, cash and credit cards. Now how about the music? It is my happy duty to report that from somewhere above, next to that second star on the right, Rosemary Clooney is beaming approval and smiling proudly. This is Debby Boone’s New York cabaret debut, but she’s no novice, and all of her stage roles, concerts, music tours and CD’s are paying off nicely. She doesn’t sound like Rosie, but it’s obvious that she’s listened studiously to the family record collection, mastering the same timing, intonation and that laid-back, center-of-the-chart, straight-from-the-heart intimacy her mother-in-law perfected. Because the emphasis is on Rosie’s vast repertoire, almost anything goes and all of the finest composers are represented. Not known as a jazz stylist, she nevertheless achieves an easy swing rhythm on "Time After Time" that enthralls, and with her six-piece band jamming wildly on "From This Moment On," she fractures the joint. If you snag a veteran rhythm section like Joe Cocuzzo on drums and Jay Leonhart on bass, there are no detours ahead on standards by André Previn, Cy Coleman, Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, and Cole Porter. I love the imaginative way she weds "It Never Entered My Mind" with "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" until they sound like separate choruses of the same composition. This girl has taste.

She’s full of surprises, too. Inserting a country-and-western ballad like Hank Williams’ "I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry" into the proceedings approaches blasphemy—until you realize that Debby’s maternal grandfather was popular Grand Ole Opry star Red Foley and Rosie’s own Kentucky bluegrass roots led to one of her biggest-selling record hits of all time, "Half as Much," which was also written by the same Hank Williams. Changing pace and style as fast as the flick of a manicured fingernail, she reduced the crowd to awe with "I Wish It So," one of the last compositions ever written by Marc Blitzstein, from the fabulous score of the Broadway musical Juno. This is an aria, not a pop tune, and it’s a stretch, unlike anything she’s done before. Another curious choice, you think, but wait: That show was directed by José Ferrer, Rosie fell in love with that song and recorded it on one of her best collections at a time when she was in the middle of an ill-fated affair with the album’s arranger, Nelson Riddle. Who else would tell you these things?

From the State Fair classic "It Might as Well Be Spring" (Pat Boone starred in the movie remake) to a loving medley of ballads written for Bing Crosby (Rosie’s best friend, and his son Harry Crosby was in the audience to prove it), the versatility of the material fits like the clef notes in a big-band chart. And Debby Boone sings it all with a voice that makes up for a lack of power with a sunny warmth that is smooth, honest and true. This engagement is a welcome relief from the noise all over town. Two questions remain: Where has she been? And what took her so long to get here?

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