Peter Allen's second live album reflected the changes in his career since his first,
It Is Time for Peter Allen, released eight years earlier. Back in 1977,
Allen was emerging from being a cabaret singer into being a pop/rock entertainer capable of filling theaters, though the core of his act remained a set of heartfelt ballads. In a sense, he was the same kind of artist by the mid-1980s, but he had become somewhat more flamboyant, and his audience had grown.
Captured Live at Carnegie Hall had an ease and assurance that the previous set, for all its excitement, lacked. Now,
Allen was an Oscar winner, and he played "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (a song to which, in truth, he had contributed only one line) without comment. Also in the set were some of the pop/rock songs he had been putting on recent albums, such as his lone pop chart single, "Fly Away." And he was performing several songs that he had written for his upcoming Broadway musical, Legs Diamond.
Allen's wildly enthusiastic audience enjoyed these additions to his set, but they really went crazy for the older material, such as when "Fly Away" segued into the crowd pleaser "I Go to Rio," and when, near the end of the show, he performed older songs like the hit "Don't Cry out Loud" and his tribute to his ex-mother-in-law
Judy Garland, "Quiet Please, There's a Lady on Stage." But they loved everything he did -- "Who do you think I am,
Bruce Springsteen?," he asked at one point -- and why not? He had made his name in New York City, and Carnegie Hall is, in a sense, the most prestigious nightclub in town.
Peter Allen is likely to be best remembered as a songwriter, but as a performer his ideal recordings are his two live sets, since they give him a chance to balance his talent for ballads with his taste for more bravura material, and they demonstrate his appeal to audiences.
Captured Live at Carnegie Hall was a worthy successor to
It Is Time for Peter Allen. [Note: Originally released as a double-LP set,
Captured Live at Carnegie Hall was edited to fit onto a single CD.] ~ William Ruhlmann