On her debut solo album, Broadway veteran
Dorothy Loudon performs a set of theater songs she was too young to do on stage. The exceptions are the title song, from Follies, which she sang memorably at the 1984 Tony Awards show, and "Bobo's" from The Act. The rest of the album consists of material from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, written by the classic songwriters of the day -- DeSylva, Brown and Henderson, Porter, Berlin, Arlen and Mercer, Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin. As much an actress as a singer,
Loudon invests the lyrics with character and sings in a voice that can have the honeyed tones of a
Barbara Cook, but can also descend into the raspy, nearly spoken tones of an
Elaine Stritch.
Loudon was appearing in top nightclubs by the late 1950s, long before her triumphs in Broadway musicals of the 1970s, and this is an excellent forum for her talents. ~ William Ruhlmann