No tuxes. No gowns. No Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or Rodgers & Hammerstein.
Quality Hill Playhouse, where executive director J. Kent Barnhart has created scores of revues celebrating Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and the Great American Songbook, shifts into a bit of baby-boomer nostalgia for his current show.
In ?You?ve Got a Friend,? Barnhart cherry-picks music from the 1960s and ?70s and meshes it all into a largely satisfying whole. Barnhart brings together three experienced Quality Hill singers ? Jessalyn Kincaid, Molly Hammer and Tim Scott ? and backs them with the crack rhythm section of bassist Brian Wilson and drummer Ken Remmert.
The program is heavy with James Taylor compositions in the first half (?Fire and Rain,? ?Sweet Baby James,? ?Carolina In My Mind?) and Carole King tunes in Act 2 (?Up on the Roof,? ?I Feel the Earth Move,? ?Tapestry?).
But it also includes the work of a range of songwriters. Bob Dylan is represented by a four-part harmony version of ?Blowin? in the Wind? and Janis Ian is justifiably evoked with ?At Seventeen.? Memories of John Denver are revived with ?Leaving on a Jet Plane,? and Bill Withers fills a slot with his classic feel-good soul-pop ballad, ?Lean On Me.?
Also in the mix: ?Abraham, Martin and John,? ?Puff the Magic Dragon? and a rousing conflation of ?Aquarius? and ?Let the Sunshine In? to close the show.
The audience Monday night certainly appeared to be the target demographic, and the theatergoers responded with repeated torrents of applause. Some of the folks looked to be older than baby boomers, technically speaking, but they were nonetheless energized by the carefully selected program.
They went wild for Scott?s rendition of an abbreviated ?American Pie,? a song whose lyrics have never made the slightest bit of sense to me. An ensemble performance of the tunes from ?Hair,? which never fail to stir listeners, had people on their feet.
Too bad there was no room for Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro or Otis Redding, but hey, there?s enough music out there for Barnhart to do any number of shows like this.
The highlight of the evening was a blending of ?(You Make Me Feel Like)A Natural Woman,? sung by Kincaid, and ?Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,? performed by Hammer. The songs were cleverly combined to effectively become a duet, and the ladies were at their best.
Listening to two of the best singers in Kansas City have their way with these tunes was a special experience.
Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/23/4197251/quality-hill-revue-youve-got-a.html
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