Lari White

A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Broadway

THE NEW YORK TIMES
March 1, 2007
Music Review | Lari White
A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Broadway

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
The Broadway-country-gospel singer Lari White pulled a fast one in the opening moments of her New York cabaret debut in the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel on Tuesday evening. Bouncing onto the stage Ms. White delivered a jingly ode to “country sunshine” that augured an evening of forced cheer and perky homilies. When she suddenly broke it off to announce how exhausting it was to do “the down-home Southern hospitality thing,” you could almost hear the audience’s collective “whew!”

Ms. White, who comes from what she calls a “fire-and-brimstone” Baptist background in Florida and is now based in Nashville, starred in the short-lived Johnny Cash Broadway musical “Ring of Fire.” She became the unlikely darling of an urban niche market after her acclaimed appearances in the Broadway by the Year series and the Broadway Cabaret Festival. Her country-gospel medleys of songs from “Yentl,” which she described as “Baptist shiksa” during two recent tributes to the lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, have elicited enthusiastic ovations.

Ms. White, who was accompanied by Don Rebic on piano and Steve Doyle on bass, is a belter. Her interpretive savvy keeps her on the right side of the “American Idol” approach to country, in which voices that are big and bland are valued over those with stronger personalities. In other words, she knows when to say when and relax into a storytelling mode.

On Tuesday her impulse to be natural found its most focused expression in Carol Hall’s “Doatsy Mae” from “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” whose title character is a waitress daydreaming about what her life might have been like had she dared to be less respectable.

A Richard Rodgers sequence culminated with a rendition of “A Cockeyed Optimist” that, while lacking the hard twang and grit of Reba McEntire’s version in a recent concert version of “South Pacific,” reinforced the notion that the role of Nellie Forbush would be ideal for a country singer. I would bet that sooner or later Ms. White will find herself on a stage somewhere washing that man right out of her hair.

Posted 03/01/2007

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