Judy fans will know immediately what clip I have posted below – will know the year, the circumstances … Mitchell was the one who first showed me this clip, years ago, and he actually made me watch it once with the sound down, just so he could show me how eloquent and simple she was in her gestures and singing expression … There are moments when (if you watch it with the sound down) – you could almost believe that she was just speaking. Hard to imagine any of the young singers who contort their faces to get the sound out today being so quiet and simple and at ease with their own instrument.
The clip speaks for itself.
It’s one of the most moving things I have ever seen, and I can only imagine what it was like to be there live. Garland was one of those rare singers who could fill up with emotion as she sang – without the throat constricting. It’s remarkable, and I would imagine it was a mix of a gift of flexible and strong vocal cords – as well as an act of will. She will get the song out.
Here … her sense of will … takes on an almost life-or-death intensity which makes it difficult to watch at times. She is struggling against so much – her own emotion, the free-floating emotion that had to be present in the audience at that time, and the larger national sense of grief and loss … But she keeps going.
It will not change the world. She is not a statesman. She is not a Nobel Peace winner. She is not a diplomat, an ambassador, a senator, or poet laureate. She is a singer. So in such a moment … there is only one thing she can possibly contribute. A song.
Thank God it was on live television so that we can still watch it now.
I am in awe. I am also struck by how awkward she is, physically, and how much that works for her. Her gestures are sharp, choppy – she randomly hugs herself – flings her arm in the air … and none of it feels planned. It’s almost scary (but I know I am only saying that because we know how overly managed most singers are today … they have TEAMS of people to make sure they never look awkward and to hide those “flaws” that actually might make them brilliant and original). Garland is not doing anything here – except living that song – and pouring her emotion into her voice and letting it out. The gestures were all from her heart – completely her own – and give the performance a ragged realism which still, after so many times watching it, has the potential to shock me.
(Alex has some more thoughts here.)
“I can only imagine what it was like to be there live.”
I think I’d be a different person because of it.
I dont know many details about Judy G. but you are correct in that performers today are filled more with attitude than with real thoughts or emotions or something we might call soul.
As usual, I’m blown away by Judy’s performance of this song. You’re right, she doesn’t sing this song, she lives it. I’ve known singers to study their entire lives to have this kind of participation in their music, and don’t come 1/10 of the way that Ms. Garland did at a very young age.
That level of participation cannot be entirely learned. There was something innate in Judy that brought such light to the performance of her music. I always sort of giggle with the way she deals with her microphone, but something about it is both endearing and brilliant.
Thanks for sharing this, Sheila.
Travis
Travis – yes to your comment about the microphone! Nobody else uses a microphone like that … she’s casual with it, sometimes she almost embraces it … half the time she even forgets it’s in her hands … so unstudied, so fascinating. Her focus is on other things.
love this clip..but slight correction..the video that we watched without sound is Judy singing Ol Man River on her tv show…the one you posted, is the one..i believe, where we both exclaimed “keep it together Judy”..when she sings the line “… as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free”….and she does keep it together and then takes it to another level…she was the best ever.
Mitchell – I am very impressed with your memory!! I also remember that Ol Man River clip and it’s freakin’ unbelievable!!
Yup – it’s the look that flashes thru her eyes when she sings “he died to make men holy” where you catch your breath – realizing that you are looking at something else … It takes my breath away.
and then she siiings!!! its other worldly
I find it painful to watch her and yet such a pleasure at the same time. She brings me to immediate, involuntary tears simply by doing what she does: singing. And, no, I don’t have that reaction to anyone else.
What an amazing performance.
Such overwhelming talent, to make the performance about the song and not about her, which allows her to inhabit the song and become the Goddess of Retribution without Judy Garland getting in the way.
I was worried I would break in to tears here at work.
Not a jab at the performance, but is she completely wasted or is that just how she always talks and wobbles?
Her wobbly unsteady walk and choppy bizarre gestures were part of her signature style (if you think of her performance in A Star is Born – especially her singing of “The Man that Got Away” … it’s just her, and who she was as a performer – raw honesty, unstudied). I can’t say if she was sober or not – but I do know she was shattered by what had happened in the country a month before and it was all she could do to just keep it together to get thru the song.
Some of the files currently posted over at Yahoo’s The Judy Garland Experience are:
Judy’s complete Orchestra Hall closing night performance from September 1958, Judy’s appearance at London’s Russell Hotel on November 29, 1964, an episode of the Bing Crosby show from February 7, 1951 that features Judy, Carol Burnett singing selections from the Judy Garland Songbook, Billie Holiday’s last concert appearance in California (Oct, 1958), JOan Crawford in the lurid 1950’s radio drama When The Police Arrive, The final chapters of our audio documentary The Rainbow That Got Away, and an installment of Interpretations featuring Judy, Barbra Streisand, Ann Richards, and Chris Connor.
To hear all of this and more, please visit The Judy Garland Experience on Yahoo:
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/thejudygarlandexperience/
Don’t delay, these files won’t be up for long, new ones will be posted early Sunday morning.
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/thejudygarlandexperience/
I wanted to research this subject and write a paper. Your post what a thousand words would not. Nice job.
I love this video. However, some 10 years ago there was a “Judy Garland” program on one of the national networks, and they played an old video, of a much younger Judy Garland, performing this same “battle hymn of the republic”, but in a totally different style. She was all over the stage, rushing from side to side with electrifying energy. This is a vision I cannot forget.
Can anybody find that old recording? I believe the performance must have been some time in the 1940’s.