A Singer Harmonizing With Demons

Baby Jane Dexter is not the first singer to suggest that “The Candy Man,” that annoyingly cheery 1972 Sammy Davis Jr. hit from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” has a dark, alternative subtext about drugs. But in her new cabaret act, “You’re Following Me!,” at the Metropolitan Room through Saturday, she goes further than anyone in turning the song inside out. Accompanied by a rock trio, Ms. Dexter slows it down, gives it a bluesy edge and sings it from the bitter, frustrated point of view of an addict.

New York Observer

By Rex Reed

Holding court at the hot new Metropolitan Room at Gotham through Feb. 24, Baby Jane Dexter reminds me of colored lights, forbidden absinthe and big brass beds. If she’d lived in the New Orleans red-light district in a previous era, she would have been the most popular white girl in Storyville. Her specialty is hotfoot barrelhouse and wrist-slashing blues, which she wails like nobody’s business, and her fans lap it up like howling hound dogs, hungry for more.

I always liked her raucous style, but I never expected to hear standards from the Great American Songbook in her repertoire. On this, the very best act of her career, she’s finally discovered classics by Kern, Hart and Johnny Mercer, too. And I’m happy to report that her lived-in baritone gives them a personal spin as unique as it is intense. On “Make Believe,” she phrases behind the beat.

On “Some Enchanted Evening” there’s no beat at all; she doesn’t even follow Richard Rodgers’ melody. But she makes you feel the subtext of the emotions hiding in Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics. She sings a Harold Arlen song about a reefer man, a Leslie Bricusse–Anthony Newley song about a candy man, and a Lieber-Stoller song about a “Love Potion No. 9” with equal grit and aplomb. She also tells about her own 12-step program to overcome a fatal addiction to … frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity. Simply hilarious.

Then, without a bathroom break, she wafts dreamily into a rapturous “Fools Rush In” heartbreaking enough to knock your socks off. The best way to appreciate her unusual musical candor is to stop resisting her and give in. Baby Jane just kind of overwhelms you. And bless her pointed head, she does not sing “My Funny Valentine.”

BACK STAGE  The Main Event    October 12, 2006

 Having attended Baby Jane Dexter's Time Travel (A retrospective,) on its opening night when it first ran at the Hideaway Room at Helen's in November 2005, I decided to revisit the show last week to view the live recording event at the Metropolitan Room and simply enjoy it without taking notes. I remember it was filled with great material performed by one who isn't capable of not being the real thing. Besides, since I am broadening my easel into the world of producing live recordings, I was curious. After all, this room has turned into the major event of the cabaret season with a promising future ahead.

Before I hit the door, I was engaged in a lengthy conversation with Joy Behar about the late Bistro Bits columnist Bob Harrington waxing about how much a Back Stage review meant to her when she was just getting started. Nice. She had just hosted her new children's book release party at the club and a sea of people were causing a traffic jam in front of the club (including a fleeting Bette Midler trying to make her exit unnoticed.) BTW: Earlier, at the book party, Midler was overheard asking Baby Jane, "Didn't we play this place ages ago??") Dexter laughed and told her old pal, "It just opened a couple of months ago!"

Once inside, we were finally seated and the evening's star made her way to the stage greeting well-wishers along the way. Once the room fell silent, Dexter slowly began the melancholic, words to For All We Know (Lewis-Coots,) and then segued into a sizzling Until the Real Thing Comes AlongHoliner-Nichols-Chaplin and Sammy Cahn). The room erupted into what would be the first wave of spontaneous applause and cheers that was ongoing. It was only the beginning of what would be one of those truly extraordinary nights that only happens once in a blue moon in a cabaret setting. A night that cabaret was once so full of in all the clubs. The ovations (and there were many) were led by Julie Wilson, Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano among many visiting press types along with fans and many (

familiar faces in the crowd. Adding to the pastiche, like a scene straight out of Follies, was the stunning Karen Akers who would later recall the days when they were back at Reno Sweeney in the mid-'70s.

After a few hiccups in her professional and personal life, Baby Jane Dexter has climbed the ranks in the clubs, found a new voice (after a long hiatus) and juxtaposed a waning career into one of the single most beloved and in demand night club artists of our day. While she may seem like the last of a dying breed of singers from the school of greats like Sylvia Sims and Blossom Dearie - Dexter remains without peer in a confusing world of wannabes, monied dilettantes and newcomers who need to experience one of her shows to know what the real thing is really about. At a time when many are seeking a new ambassador or a new voice to save cabaret from expulsion, the best example out there, by far, is this gravely voiced contralto with the huge heart whose status cannot be ignored. That is not to say that others aren't also in the mix of those climbing the ranks. But Baby Jane Dexter proved with this one sold out show that the magical journey from Reno Sweeney to that night last week was worth her lifetime of blood, sweat and tears. she is raw. She is bold and beautiful in a way that we may never see again in our times. By the time she closed and sang her own version of More, one of several closing numbers, most of the room was on its feet with those up front reaching out to touch her, much the way Garland's audience once did at her concerts. This scene was a first for me in cabaret. It was reassuring, it was life-affirming and it was moving. Whatever else is wrong with cabaret today is fixable and replaceable. But there is only one Baby Jane Dexter. And that's all there is to know.
--John Hoglund, October 12, 2006, BACK  STAGE