Cabaret Influences

I had the pleasure of hosting the 14th annual MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) Awards at Town Hall on Sunday, April 9, and it really got me to thinking about the many dazzling performers I’ve seen in those boites over the years.

Who was the biggest influence on your cabaret career?

Charles Aznavour! Watching him perform changed my mind about what I wanted to do with my life. I had no intention of doing concert work;

I just wanted to be a dancer on Broadway. Peter Allen kept talking about this man who was so marvelous and who wrote great songs, so we went to see him in concert. From the moment he walked onto the stage, I was hypnotized! He was singing in French, and I only understood a little, but I knew something important was happening. Each song was like a little movie or a small musical. The characters in the songs were so specific and had so many different things happening to them. I thought, “That’s what I want to do!” Later, I learned that Edith Piaf performed in the same style and that Charles was her protégé. Talk about lineage! – Liza Minnelli

Yes, I was one of those guys who grew up loving show tunes! I especially loved Barbara Cook because, as a child, I was in a local production of The Music Man. After her Broadway success, Barbara re-invented herself outside the context of musical theater and started to play small, intimate rooms, singing music that was incredibly wonderful. I had her record As Of Today, and it really inspired me. I loved Wally Harper’s arrangements too; the idea that a musical director could take standards

and make them so personal really interested me. Keep in mind that I had a subscription to The New Yorker when I was 16 years old! I read that Barbara was appearing at a club called Reno Sweeney’s. I was just a child living in Chicago, but I couldn’t believe that people in New York were lucky enough to go out four nights a week and hear Barbara Cook sing live for $13. That’s the very first place I went when I got to New York. Later, when I saw Karen Mason create an evening that was so theatrically satisfying, I knew I wanted to get up there and give it a try. Karen was about my age, with enough talent to be in a Broadway show, but she was singing songs she loved in cabaret. That was the beginning for me.
– Jeff Harnar

It’s probably no surprise to anyone that Bette Midler was a huge influence on my life. I remember her very first appearance on The Tonight Show like it was yesterday. She sang “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” The next day, everyone in high school asked me if I had a sister named Bette! There was such a similarity in our look and personality, which I haven’t been able to escape ever since. To this very day, in the grocery store, no matter where I am, I’m compared to her. The thing is, I really adore her style, so I’ve never had any urge to fight against the similarity. She was the first performer I saw who painted the whole picture. She was intimate on a grand scale. She told stories, she was hilarious, and she picked great songs. She had heart. She could make you laugh and cry all at the same time. Does that sound smarmy?

When I first realized I could sing, the songs I gravitated towards were the old torch songs and those great Petula Clark songs from the sixties. I also loved French songs, the Piaf stuff. I threw in a few Portuguese fados for good measure. There weren’t many places to do that bizarre range of material, so the cabaret scene was perfect for me.

Plus, I could only afford to work with a piano player. If I would have had the money for a whole band, I would be a pop diva wearing spandex right now. Symbiotically, I was picking material and performing it in the clubs for months, and then Bette would record it. We had very similar tastes. Growing up, her favorite book was Eloise. So was mine. And I grew up with a Portuguese background, she grew up in a Portuguese neighborhood. We both had fantasies of royalty, too, which is frightening. At one point, I toured Europe with Bob Lockwood, a famous drag artiste. One of the pieces I did was in full Midler drag. I wore the costume from the Bette Live concert: pink bloomers and a red wig from hell. Those hideous German papers called me a “big white-legged woman,” which sealed my fate forever.
– Alexandra Haas

Click here to visit Jim Caruso’s website.