SHE MADE ME LOVE HER: Singing the Praises of One Ms. Judy Garland

So yes, this is my 100th post.

And I chose a topic I felt was justified. 

June is Pride Month...and there are very few performers as beloved in the community as Judy Garland. It seems fitting that she both came and left the world during June.

In fact, I am posting this on June 9th, just day before her birthday.

I have talked a lot about Garland in the past...particularly in a long post on my old blog, but I decided that she was worth a revisit and a new discussion. Considering how much of a factor she played into my childhood onward (not to mention the timing of Pride Month), I felt like this was a great topic to delve into.

As is to be expected, my introduction to Judy Garland was through the most obvious and expected source: The Wizard of Oz. 

I was very young...maybe like 3 years old...and not surprisingly, I loved the movie but I had developed something of a fascination with her.

Now keep in mind, I was not exactly aware of her personal life for a little while longer. I believe I ended up reading about it online in minimal capacity...and soon after watched an E! True Hollywood Story on her life. This was still during the 90s so it was also before the famous Judy Davis/Tammy Blanchard biopic came out.

With how beloved she is in the community, I still find it kind of fascinating at how much I was drawn to her at my young age before I even realized a lot of things about myself...or could comprehend them.

One vivid memory I had is that I actually printed off Judy Garland's filmography on a Dot Matrix printer.

For you young kids out there, this would be a Dot Matrix printer:

Needless to say, it took forever...but that is how we rolled in the mid 90s.

That and dial-up internet.

ANYWAY....I can recall watching a lot of her films on AMC back when being the American Movie Channel actually meant what its title was.

Not surprisingly, it was a combo of two films that turned her more into an obsession for me: 

Meet Me in St. Louis

A Star is Born

I think the real pleasure of Meet Me in St. Louis is that it was my first true glimpse into the glitzy glamorous style of an MGM musical. It is simply gorgeous to look at and it gives Garland some of the best songs to sing.

Then you have A Star is Born which truly showed the world what a stellar dramatic actress she could be...but hey, let's give the Oscar to Grace Kelly anyway...sigh...

A lot has been said/written/put on film about Garland and her life...and chances are if you're reading this, you are pretty familiar with her life and work so I don't need to go into a lot of detail.

Her treatment by Hollywood is the stuff of horrific legend...and tragedy. The fact that they treated her like she was some kind of ogre (MGM head Louis B. Mayer infamously called her his "little Hunchback")

Let me take a quite sidestep to show you a pic of Louis B. Mayer:

Sir, you are a marshmallow dipped into cigar ash so please take several seats.

Now that I got that out of the way...

I really want to focus more on her work and celebrate her immense and immeasurable talent. What I am going to do is single out some of my favorite vocal performances of hers. These might be video clips or strictly audio clips, but I feel like they are what I always go to the most when I got back to revisit her glorious voice.

I want to begin with an audio recording from November 1935, when Garland was just 13 years old. She had been asked to perform on a radio program only to find out that her father was dying in the hospital from spiral meningitis. Her father had been known to have an amazing voice and seemed to be the source of her talent...something that her mother cultivated and resented all at once. Also, her father faced a lot of turmoil for what was said to have been "homosexual indications".

Garland never saw her father alive again and had to perform "Zing! Went The Strings of My Heart", her first signature song, live on the air. A radio was placed next to his hospital bed in hopes that he could hear her sing one last time before he passed away the following morning.

The audio of her performance is below:

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Going through her career, here are some of my favorite highlights:

Dear Mr. Gable/You Made Me Love You

The song "You Made Me Love You" is a classic. It was first introduced by Al Jolson in the 1913 Broadway revue The Honeymoon Express and it has since been covered by many artists over the years...but as to be expected, I feel like it is a song that belongs to Garland.

It is remarkable how mature her voice sounds at 15. 

The story goes that lyricist Roger Edens penned new lyrics repurposing the song as a teenaged fan singing about her love of Clark Gable, which Garland performed at a birthday party for Gable prepared by MGM in 1937.

The performance was such an instant success amongst MGM execs at the party that they included the song in the film Broadway Melody of 1938...and would eventually become a beloved B-Side on the single for "Over the Rainbow".

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Over the Rainbow

The song is a legend for a reason.

While the original recording done for The Wizard of Oz is undeniably great, I often love a lot of the versions she did as she got older.

It is hard to single out just one...but I chose this one as it is a video and it was an early example of her giving the song a little more dramatic weight as she was singing this during the height of WWII.

It was said that Garland once wrote a letter to the song's lyricist E.Y. Harburg about how much she deeply loved the song despite having performed it thousands of times.

"I have sung it over a thousand times, and it is still the song that is closest to my heart"

And to think it almost got cut from the film...

I don't think much else is needed to express my love and legend of this one.

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The Trolley Song

I could make a case of this being the song of Garland's I revisit the most. It is so glorious and joyous and truly epitomizes what I really enjoy about Meet Me in St. Louis as a film.

Rather sadly, the film lost the Oscar for Best Song to "Swinging on a Star" from that year's Best Picture winner, Going My Way.

Another case of the Academy making the wrong choice...and they didn't even nominate "The Boy Next Door" or "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". What is surprising is that it took until 1980 with Fame for a film to receive more than one Best Song nomination.

Years ago, I was on a date with a guy I had met up with a couple of times. I lived in Astoria, Queens while he lived in Forest Hills, Queens. For those unfamiliar with the geography, his stop was basically at the end of the line...and I often would stay on with him and then take the Manhattan bound train back.

This song sort of became our anthem whenever it would happen.

And even though that guy eventually turned out to be a jerk in the end, I suppose it is a fond memory!

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The Man That Got Away

For the longest time, I considered this to be my favorite vocal performance ever. I don't know if I am prepared to make such a hyperbolic statement on the matter these days, but I do think this is a solid answer if I am forced to choose.

A Star is Born, as I eluded to earlier, is a master class of acting.

Aside from her truly remarkable musical moments, Garland truly nailed the dramatic weight of the role and gives...by far...the best performance from any of the Star films and frankly one of my favorite performances ever.

The twist to the story in a lot of ways is that Garland's character Esther/Vicki is bemoaning the alcohol abuse of her husband actor Norman Maine (played in this version by James Mason) and it cultivates in a monologue that is easily the finest acting moment of Garland's career and one of the best performed monologues in film history. The "twist" is that the parallels between Norman Maine and Judy Garland were indisputably clear....so much so that director George Cukor approached Garland delicately before the take and for her motivation said: "You know this. You really know this".

It only makes the moment all the more tragic despite its brilliance. 

Here it is:

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But despite her many great film moments, I think the best volume of her work in terms of quality content has to come from two places:

The Judy Garland Show

and

Judy: At Carnegie Hall

Let's discuss the album first:

In this case, I will be hyperbolic.

This is easily my favorite album ever. The excitement and energy here is unmatched...and it is easy to see why the night is often dubbed "the greatest night in show business history".

If there was ever a live performance from the past I could attend, it would easily be this one.

Classic after classic, definitive performance after definitive performance, it is no wonder that audiences wanted to swarm the stage and begged for encore after encore and even getting her to repeat songs she had already sung.

Hey...if I was in that room, I would be fully prepared for a 7 hour concert. If I can sit through productions of Angels in America, The Coast of Utopia, and Nicholas Nickleby, I most assuredly would be ready to never leave Carnegie Hall until absolutely necessary. 

In 2001, Capitol released a new CD which was considered the "warts and all" version. This contained all of Garland's asides, the scuffing heard as the orchestra would prepare, and even the false start to the performance of "Come Rain or Come Shine". All of it was meant for us to hear what those lucky people heard in full during that amazing night at Carnegie Hall. 

I could easily say to just listen to the whole album...and yeah, here I go...JUST LISTEN TO THE WHOLE DAMN ALBUM!

But I do want to single out a few selections I am fond of that aren't the songs I have already mentioned:

When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You)

-This is audio from the recording paired with video from a different TV broadcast.

This is the first song Garland performed in the set and it is a lovely rendition...particularly her belted G on "smiles" at the end.

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You Go To My Head

-I feel like this is a song that doesn't get as much attention as some of the other classics, but the bouncy cha-cha vibe is truly infectious here.

It is probably my favorite version of the song, not surprisingly, even though it had been covered by the likes of Sinatra, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday.

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Rock-a-bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody

-Yet another song that had been made famous by Al Jolson.

I feel like Garland blew this one out of the water...aside from the fact that the term "Dixie" is problematic these days.

I think what I often love about Garland is how she often builds her songs to such a flourishing end that you can't help but leap to your feet to give her a standing ovation.

And maybe I have done that alone in my bedroom while listening to songs such as this...

...DON'T JUDGE ME!!

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Let's go ahead and dive into The Judy Garland Show:

The whole reason that Garland opted to do a variety series was due to her financial struggles...and despite the very wealthy payout for the time (roughly $25-30k per show), she never managed to truly find financial stability in the remaining 5 years of her life.

The show was cancelled after only one season (1963-1964) and had faced stiff competition in the ratings from NBC's enormously popular Bonanza. 

For just a single season of 26 episodes, The Judy Garland Show is basically a swirl of course corrections.

 

When the show premiered, there seemed to be a true focus on the concept of "variety" which led to the hiring of Jerry Van Dyke (the younger brother of the beloved Dick) to be the comic relief.

Or I should say "comic relief".

It was heavily apparent right off the bat that Van Dyke wasn't working even behind the scenes and once the shows started airing, the vitriol towards him was so instantaneous that he was let go pretty much on the spot after only being featured in 10 episodes. 

From here, the show shifted towards focusing strictly on Garland as a vocal performer with only the occasional interactions with her guests...and I must admit, I do love the bit that often repeats where she keeps trying to force her guests to have tea and they never seem to want any.

It sort of makes me think of Marge Simpson and her ice cream sundaes: "What's wrong with my sundaes!?".

The ratings were so low, despite the increased critical praise following the departure of Van Dyke, that CBS cancelled the show in late winter 1964. With that in mind, they allowed production to continue for the season to which the show's THIRD producer Bill Coleran decided to forego any real comedic element and strictly treat the final 7 episodes as Judy Garland: In Concert.

A lot of these episodes strictly featured Garland alone but she did have guests such as Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, and Mel Torme. 

As what comes to no surprise to absolutely anyone reading this, I agree with the consensus that this show was cancelled far too soon and I wish that CBS had given it more of a chance or moved it to a new timeslot. 

I also have to wonder if maybe by some miracle it could've helped extend Garland's life if not for just a little bit longer too.

Here are some performances from the show that I happen to love...and a small sampling as I feel like I could be here until July if I didn't stop myself.

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As Long As He Needs Me

-One of the "Torchiest" Torch Songs to have ever...well.."torched".

"As Long As He Needs Me" had basically just entered the lexicon at this point as Oliver! had premiered on Broadway a few months prior. 

I also love the setup of this song as each episode often ended with Garland performing a song with the great catwalk lighting setup. It always felt so grand and dramatic...but this was always my favorite rendition of this song.

I also love the end where Garland's penchant for never really knowing what to do with her arms is on full display here.

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Come Rain or Come Shine

-From one of the earliest episodes to air, her iconic rendition of this song (made famous on the Carnegie Hall album) is blazing with brilliance.

It is no wonder that the people who did watch the show absolutely adored these portions and would quickly succumb to boredom and annoyance when Van Dyke would appear.

A song like this should pull anybody out of a Van Dyke stupor!

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Ol' Man River

-For what is usually considered one of the most well known Bass songs in history, it might seem unusual for Garland to tackle a song such as this.

However...as is no surprise to anyone...it is easily one of her finest efforts. 

It is deeply intense and passionate...and the layers she gives it are simply unmatched.

It also ties in to the whole idea that she consistently leaves you wanting more with such a powerful ending.

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Happy Days are Here Again/Get Happy

-The iconic duet.

I am someone who can be VERY reserved when it comes to Barbra Streisand. Her early work (which is smack dab during the era in which this aired) is simply iconic and her brassy vocals are clearly impressing Garland as she performs with her. In fact, you could argue that she feels/looks overshadowed (although Garland had zero resentment for Streisand). 

Streisand's demeanor, more so as she got older, could be cold and aloof...which has always rubbed me the wrong way.

Garland, on the other hand, always seemed to be warm and ready with a quip. 

She was old school...and this was her meeting "the new school"...and it is GLORIOUS.

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West Side Story Medley

-Roughly two years after the release of the film, West Side Story was arguably one of the more beloved musical properties at that time.

While the material certainly wasn't meant for people like Garland or her colleague Vic Damone, I think both of them do a lovely job here.

Particularly thrilling is the final song of the medley: "Tonight"

Garland's belting of the final notes is so thrilling and possibly the highest I've heard her belt in a song. I don't know how it happened, but I somehow never saw this medley until my friend/former roommate Daniel and I acquired DVDs of the show and we would watch them together...with copious amounts of wine.

I recall getting to the moment and thinking to myself with the key change: "Wait...is she going to hit the note I think she is going to hit?"

When she did, Daniel and I looked at each other stunned.

Simply fantastic.

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The Battle Hymn of the Republic

-When Garland says to the audience that she would be singing a song that is seldom ever heard on TV, I suppose that was an apt assessment. 

Choosing to sing "Battle Hymn" does seem odd at first glance but the real reason for this was due to the fact that President John F. Kennedy, with whom she was a good friend, had just been assassinated three weeks prior. 

As an homage, she sang the song despite not directly mentioning the reason why on air. 

The result might be one of the best TV moments ever. It is a passionate and powerful rendition that never ceases to give me a chill every time I watch the clip.

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LASTLY...

I feel like I can honestly say that not a day goes by that I don't think about or reference Judy Garland in some capacity.

I often talk about people who have left an indelible impression on my life, such as Stephen Sondheim or filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman or David Lynch, but Judy Garland is really the first major example of someone who just spoke to me and I felt a strange sort of kinship that I could never really explain.

As I got older, it really felt like that Garland connection was kismet.

I responded to her in ways that similar people like me also shared...and one has to wonder why it is that she was such an icon for the LGBT community.

In fact, the whole concept of her being popular with gay men was noticed as far back as 1967.

In a review written for Time Magazine, the writer notes that a "disproportionate part of her nightly claque appears to be homosexual" and would go on to describe them as "the boys in tight trousers". The article does try to justify this and despite how disparaging and insulting the previous comments were, I would say that their description for the adoration is pretty accurate...at least from my own sort of personal vantage point:

"The attraction to Garland might be made considerably stronger by the fact she has survived so many problems; homosexuals identify with that kind of hysteria".

Writer William Goldman also writes of a similar theme for Esquire and makes some even more disparaging comments (that he would later apologize for) that her concerts frequently feature "fags who just flit by" and chatter inanely. 

He would go on to add:

"Homosexuals tend to identify with suffering. They are a persecuted group and they understand suffering. And so does Garland. She's been through the fire and lived – all the drinking and divorcing, all the pills and all the men, all the poundage come and gone – brothers and sisters, she knows".

A lot has been said about Judy Garland's death coinciding with the Stonewall Riots. 

This is one of those things that is truly debatable as to how direct her death was to the riot, but you can't really deny that the amount of people in the community affected emotionally by it were already on edge while drinking there that night.

Although, as is sadly the case, a lot of the Stonewall Riot lore has been whitewashed over the years. Most involved were actually trans and/or people of color. Of those people, it was once said that they were "not the type to moon over Judy Garland records or concerts. Many were looking for a place to live or where there next meal was coming from".

Aside from that speculation, there is no denying that Garland was a devout supporter of all human civil rights and would frequently go to gay bars with many of her gay friends, including her Star is Born director George Cukor.

There is famous quote where a reporter asked Garland, seemingly hoping for a juicy negative response, what she felt about having a seemingly large gay following:

"I couldn't care less. I sing for people!"

Although...if I am being honest...sometimes I feel like she is the only performer in history where when I listen to her, I like to imagine she is singing just for me.

I love you, Judy.

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I leave you with two more songs:

The amazing rendition of Over the Rainbow from the Carnegie Hall concert.

AND...

Garland's take on the perennial Rodgers & Hammerstein ballad You'll Never Walk Alone