ON THE RECORD: Kate Baldwin & Sheldon Harnick's She Loves Him; Liz & Ann Hampton Callaway's Boom!

By Steven Suskin
21 Aug 2011

Liz Callaway & Ann Hampton Callaway; Boom! Live at Birdland [PS Classics PS-1199]
PS Classics brings us another tuneful CD suitable for repeat playing, this coming not from Feinstein's in March but Birdland in May. Those Callaway sisters, Liz and Ann Hampton, came in with a nostalgic act; given the acknowledged singing talents of the Callaways, alone or together, it is not exactly surprising that the resulting CD is so good.

Boom!, they call it. This is a salute to what the girls consider the soundtrack of their childhood, all those songs from the 1960s and 1970s. Joni Mitchell, Carole King, The Beatles, Jimmy Webb and more. Fifteen numbers (including some multi-song medleys), interwoven with sisterly banter.

These are the songs of my childhood, too; but they are the songs I endeavored to avoid as much as possible. So Boom! is not exactly a nostalgic whirl for me. The Callaways do so well, though, that many of these songs manage to sound most welcome — even to me. So let's call this an enthusiastic approval, with a disclaimer for folks who spent the 1960s listening not to Paul & John and Joni and Dylan, but to Steve, Jerry & Sheldon, and John & Fred.

(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released updated and expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He also pens Playbill.com's Book Shelf and DVD Shelf columns. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)

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