Music Review: Rufus Wainwright - Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall

Though Judy Garland died a few years before I was born, I have been a fan of hers most of my life. I watched The Wizard of Oz just to hear her sing “Over the Rainbow.” Garland’s 1954 version of A Star is Born remains one of my favorite films. In my adult life, I began collecting some of her CDs.

One day, sometime in 2001, I was flipping through the Judy Garland section at a local music store when an older man standing beside me said, “You have to buy Judy at Carnegie Hall, her voice is mesmerizing.” With a smile, he handed me the CD, and walked away. From my first listen, Judy at Carnegie Hall: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition would become one of my favorite albums.

Naturally, it was with both curiosity and trepidation that I listened to Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. I wondered if another person could truly recreate the excitement managed by Miss Garland for two nights in June, 1961. Despite her well-documented battles with pills and alcohol, Garland pulled herself together for those shows, producing an album that stayed on the billboard charts for 95 weeks and won five Grammy awards. 

Of course, it is no secret that Judy Garland has long been a gay icon; nor that Rufus Wainwright has had his own issues with the temptations of celebrity culture. Wainwright’s devotion to his subject is total. The mere fact that Wainwright is willing to recreate such an iconic moment in music history says something about his confidence in his ability to pull it off.

Wainwright clearly approached this project with artistic seriousness. He could have done an over-the-top version of Garland — the swaggering, clearly inebriated figure the public occasionally saw — but instead he has employed a 36-piece orchestra to assist him in paying homage to the legend. He gets a bit campy when after singing “Almost Like Being in Love” he says, "I’m going to speak now, because on the album Judy speaks here. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Dorothy.” Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but Judy was a bit campy herself, she probably would have laughed at the comment.

Article Author: Rebecca Wright

Rebecca is a freelance writer, concentrating in the areas of film, television and music criticism. Her B.A. is in the Humanities with an emphasis in film and writing.She holds an M.A. in American and British literature with an emphasis in dystopian …

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