REVIEW

BRONWYN RUCKER GIVES SPEAKEASY SINGERS NEW LIFE                             
Entertains With Joe Franklin in 1920s and ’30s ‘Memory Lane’  

By Harold Egeln - Brooklyn Daily Eagle 
May 28, 2010

It was a magical, musical trip down “memory lane” thanks to cabaret star Bronwyn Rucker, who recently entertained at a live show celebrating her exciting new CD release Bronwyn’s Speakeasy that got rave reviews from Brooklyn fans.

“What was the password that got you inside a speakeasy?” Bronwyn asked pioneering television talk-show host Joe Franklin. “Joe sent me,” he replied at the sold-out show recently at the Metropolitan Room off Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Franklin, the entertainment industry living legend, is famed for hosting his “Memory Lane” TV and radio programs for 60 years and is credited as creating the television talk show genre. Bronwyn, also an actor and playwright, collaborated with the “Nostalgia King” on the thoroughly entertaining CD celebrating women singers of the 1920s and 1930s. It was written and produced at Millrose Music with art direction by Joe Bly and associate producer Brian Gari, grandson of the great Eddie Cantor. The stage production was wonderfully directed by the award-winning Jay Rogers.

“With the passage of the 18th Amendment bringing prohibition on January 26, 1920, overnight a society of illegal speakeasies was born, an era that lasted until early 1933,” Franklin noted. Bronwyn then added, “So many of the people whom I explored got their start in those years at speakeasies.”

Bronwyn performed all aglow with heartfelt exuberance, passion, humor and pathos, tenderness and intensity in recreating performances with her own unique singing voice that propelled the audience through a singing time machine into a long-gone era when stars were born. Adding to the joy and energy of the evening were Jerry Scott on piano and Saadi Zain on bass, wonderfully framing Bronwyn’s music with the close-to-the-heart hallmark talent that her audiences love, bringing them back and making fans of new ones.

“It was an amazing performance!” said Kenneth Adams, the former Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce president who is now head of the statewide Business Council. “She made the singers all come alive as she sang a history lesson in a very entertaining way. Her knowledge of the era is fabulous.”

Martin McQuade, a consultant to Bing Crosby Enterprises and a pop singer, attended the show and remarked, “Brownyn, so evocative of the gilded age of American entertainment, took this veteran of American songs on a voyage to songs he didn’t even know. Her musical history lesson expanded my musical knowledge and her deliciously unique sound had me craving for more from this wonderful chanteuse. She infuses the evening with elegance. And who could ask for anything more?”

With a performance style savored by fans, Bronwyn wistfully sang “Melancholy Baby” by Ruth Etting, once called “American’s sweetheart,” and then went on to sing the bouncing happy song “Red, Red Robin” as sung by Lillian Roth in Earl Carroll’s Vanities. The happy song “Honey Bunch” as sung by vaudevillian Jane Green was followed by the sad but hopeful determinism of “I’ll Get By” as sung by café singer Aileen Stanley. With each song Bronwyn told the singers’ stories, evoking their styles, such as Billie Holiday in “Sophisticated Lady” with Holiday’s cadence and longing tone. The bohemian nightclub life in Harlem and Greenwich Village was the backdrop for several of the singers. Franklin later noted. “Who better than Bronwyn to sing these tunes?”

Bronwyn, a Brooklyn resident, has several CD recordings. They include Bright Blue from 2004 and Radon Daughters – A Radioactive Musical written with Woody Regan, her long time collaborator on Original Cast Records. Brownyn’s Speakeasy is the latest release on the OC label, and all her albums are available at J&R Music on Park Row.

Bronwyn was a pioneer in the forefront of solo woman performance artists with her autobiographical “Subway Named Desire” revue which was a regular at The Duplex, Eighty Eights and Don’t Tell Mama (where this reporter saw an earlier version of “Speakeasy”), as well as the Manhattan Punch Line Theatre.

Bronwyn Rucker, Collaborating With Joe Franklin, Pays Tribute to An Era

By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

“When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along” had the audience singing along in the spirit of female singers of the 1920s and 1930s who made their mark in speakeasies, as cabaret star Bronwyn Rucker brought back that era in her latest show. Her nearly two-hour-long uplifting performance to a packed house was aglow with heart-filled vibrancy, joy, passion, humor, pathos and show-biz history.

The venue for her tenderly charming and elan-charged engaging tribute show “Speakeasy...Shhhhh...” in collaboration with the legendary Joe Franklin, was Don’t Tell Mama on Manhattan’s Restaurant Row. The show was directed by the award-winning Jay Rogers.

“She’s another Rosemary Clooney,” said Franklin, who wrote the show’s book with Ms. Rucker, who hails from Brooklyn. Franklin, whose long era on television and radio stretched from around 1950 into this new century, personally knew some of the era’s singers and had them as guests on his TV program.

Evoking Helen Morgan, Billie Holiday, Sophie Tucker and Kate Smith, among other well-known and lesser-known singers, Bronwyn made each come alive again with the songs they sang during the wild Prohibition era, ending with the speakeasies’ demise during the Great Depression in 1933.

“What was the password phrase used to get into a speakeasy?” asked Bronwyn, looking at Joe Franklin, who replied smiling, “Joe sent me.” (Editor’s note –one could also say “swordfish,” the password used in the 1929 Marx Brothers movie “The Coconuts.”) And the audience then entered through the door into the past with Bronwyn as their guide, with her gift of storytelling and singing in the style of the singers she described and the texture of their lives.

Making the speakeasy years all the more real were Jerry Scott on piano and Saadi Zain on bass in the intimate red brick backroom. Scott would add his own often spontaneous and sometimes funny commentary, adding to the close-to-the-heart, touch-the-audience talent that is a hallmark of Bronwyn’s performances.

“When the 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920, speakeasies opened and thrived out of sight of the law,” she said. The speakeasy singers sang many popular songs that originated in a variety of Broadway venues, Ms. Rucker noted, which included musicals, “follies” and “gaieties.” She began her show with Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers’ “Manhattan” from the 1925 musical “Garrick Gaieties.”

Bronwyn’s show repertoire also included favorites such as “I’ll Get By,” “Mood Indigo” and Blue Skies” and lesser-known songs such as “Poor Butterfly” and “Honey Bunch.” When she sang “Tea for Two,” I noticed Franklin tapping his fingers on the table, like dancers. When she ended her show with Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” she made Kate Smith, who made the song her anthem in the late 1930s, come alive again.

In the audience was Michael Block, son of radio pioneer Martin Block of “Make Believe Ballroom” fame, who was obviously thrilled with the performance, seated next to Franklin and jazz legend Ray Rivera.

Bronwyn, a Brooklyn resident, has produced several CD recordings including “Bright Blue” from 2004, produced by Rick Russo and Brian Gari, a noted songwriter who is Eddie Cantor’s grandson, with liner notes by Joe Franklin; and “Radon Daughters – A Radioactive Musical” written with Woody Regan, her long-time collaborator, on Original Cast Records.

Of “Bright Blue,” Franklin says in the CD’s liner notes: “When you listen to Bronwyn, you feel she is touch with her childhood memories. She evokes heartbreak and loneliness with a vocal artistry that, believe it or not, uplifts us rather than letting us feel heavy.” Her 21 songs include “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” “Pennies From Heaven” and “Stardust.”

Two new CDs are now in production, one with famed jazz masters Billy Taylor and Ray Rivera, and the other titled “Speakeasy,” which features songs and segues from her new show. In the early 1980s, Bronwyn was at the forefront of solo woman performance artists with her autobiographical “Subway Named Desire.” She has appeared in movies with Mickey Rooney and Scott Baio and several soap operas in additional to theater productions in local and regional tours.

Bronwyn Rucker will give an encore performance of her new show on Monday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. Don’t Tell Mama is located at 343 West 46th St. between Eighth and Ninth avenues. For reservations, call (212) 757-0788