Dolores Gray Live in London 1963 (Part 1 of 6)

Recorded live in London in 1963, Dolores Gray's show, "Let Me Entertain You" at the Talk of the Town Nightclub was a huge success. This opening section includes the song, "Once in a Lifetime."

This is from a review by Ken Mandelbaum of the Talk of the Town recording on Broadway.com in 2005 :

There's much more patter and audience interaction on Let Me Entertain You: Dolores Gray at the Talk of the Town. This Philips LP captures the great Broadway belter in prime form at London's most glamorous theatre-restaurant, the Talk of the Town, in 1963, a few years after Gray's Broadway run in Destry Rides Again and a few years before her return in Sherry! Gray was a London favorite from her three years spent there starring in Annie Get Your Gun. In the '70s, Gray would return to London to replace Angela Lansbury in Gypsy. In the '80s, she made a final West End appearance, singing "I'm Still Here" in Follies.

In sensational voice in '63, Gray opens with a current show tune, "Once in a Lifetime," when "a girl has a moment." She pays tribute to the venue and the crowd with "Around the World," followed by a powerful "Cry Me a River." Warning the crowd with the words "Hang on to your hats, here's where the fun starts," she repeats her Designing Woman song, "There'll Be Some Changes Made," during which she elicits participation from a male audience member, who helps her unzip part of an outfit.

With "Lucky Day," Gray recreates a problematic appearance flubbed light and sound cues at the JFK inaugural ball. Then Gray and her pair of boys stage a salute to the folk music craze with a rousing rendition of a Southern spiritual, "Mornin' Train."

Following a mellow medley including "A Foggy Day," "It Never Entered My Mind," and "S'posin'," Gray arrives at her biggest set piece, a salute to the straw-hat circuit back home in America and to the four musicals that she performed the previous summer in stock, at venues like the St. Louis Muny. During Gray's costume changes, the boys spell the star by introducing each show with special lyrics to "That's Entertainment." In succession, Gray performs "C'est Magnifique," "My Ship," "Shall We Dance?" just try to imagine Gray's Mrs. Anna in The King and I, and "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun."

For an eleven o'clock vocal display piece, there's an item called "Toreador," which Gray continued to feature in her '70s cabaret appearances at New York's Brothers and Sisters club. Gray ends her Talk of the Town show with a sincere "I Wish You Love."

Gray's in terrific voice throughout, and particularly amusing are her spoken comments about what it means to an artist to play before such a warm audience, remarks that have inevitably found their way into the soundtrack of the shows of Lypsinka.

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