BWW Reviews: Carole J. Bufford's New Show 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' Is a One-Night Tour de Force at 54 Below

Cabaret Reviews and Commentary by Stephen Hanks

Having written extensively about skyrocketing-to-stardom singer Carole J. Bufford over the past three years (a January/February 2014 cover story for Cabaret Scenes Magazine, and rave reviews of her past three major show runs (here, here, and here), I felt as if I had exhausted my entire repertoire of descriptive metaphors and superlatives in assessing her stirring cabaret performances. Even though she's still but a babe in cabaret years, and has a long, successful career ahead of her, I wasn't planning to review any more of her shows because, well, there didn't seem to be anything more to say.

But, dammit, every time I try to get out, Carole J. Bufford pulls me back in.

I attended her most recent one-performance show this past Thursday night at 54 Below to determine if it might be a candidate for a 2014 BroadwayWorld Cabaret Award for "Best One-Show/One Night Special Event." I figured it would be much like her one-off at the same venue in January when she staged sort of a practice run of what would become her outstanding Shades of Blue show at the Metropolitan Room. Not only was her first reveal of her new show, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, not a try-out-the-new-material-for-a-future-show performance, it became a candidate for that BroadwayWorld Award before it was even half over. Carole J. Bufford is a force and this new show is a tour de force.

Featuring an eclectic mix of songs spanning almost a century that offer tales of star-crossed lovers, betrayed women, obsessive personalities, and gigolos and gigolettes, Boulevard of Broken Dreams allows Bufford to exhibit almost the total range of her singing talent (and I use the word "almost" because there's no doubt the vocal bar will be raised even higher soon). With her on-stage confidence off-the-charts, Bufford can transition from soulful to sensitive to sensual to saucy whenever those interpretive qualities are required. She has proven herself a master at everything from Porter to Piaf, from Sophie Tucker to Janis Joplin. Her instrument is so powerful and her mouth so elastic, she can seemingly manipulate any word into a multi-syllabic message. The Georgia native's sound--which has become so distinctive you'd know it was her voice hearing it a mile away--is something of a cross between a countrified Celine Dion and a contemporary pop Patsy Cline. And her effervescent passion for performing is so palpable you can't help but smile seeing the joy in her adorable face as she lets loose on a song.

This new show (which will no doubt have a significant run soon in a cabaret club near you) almost seems like a natural extension or a culmination of the three that came before it. With Boulevard of Broken Dreams coming on the heels of speak easy in Spring 2012, Body & Soul in Winter 2013 and Shades of Blue in Spring 2014, Bufford and her Producer Scott Siegel have fashioned a cabaret show tetralogy. The genetic connection among the four shows was even more apparent with the inclusion of one number from each of the preceding efforts (the deliciously suggestive "You've Got the Right Key, But the Wrong Keyhole" from speak easy; the hauntingly obsessive lyric of Randy Newman's "Suzanne" from Body & Soul; and the 1994 country rock Reba McEntire hit, "Why Haven't I Heard From You" from Shades of Blue. Since Bufford is superb each time she performs these songs, this is another example of recycling being a great public service.

For the opening number, Bufford emerged from the maître d' side of the room singing the show's soulful title song soliloquy (written in 1934 by Al Dubin and Harry Warren). She slowly sauntered to the stage wearing a variation of her shimmering metallic gown from Body & Soul, this one a gleaming Art Deco silver, thigh high, and as tight as a mermaid's skin against her lithe, curvy body. (If only the great caricaturist Al Hirshfeld were still around to render one of his classic black and white drawings of Carole.) Each succeeding number was presented as a musical vignette, with a thematic title, place, and time period projected silent-movie design style on a screen at opposite ends of the stage. Along with some short evocative quotes as set-ups, Bufford was able to give the songs some context and connective threads without taking up a lot of time with patter.

With her great go-to Musical Director Ian Herman on piano, Danny Weller on bass, and Howie Gordon on drums, there wasn't one song in this musical adventure along Bufford's Boulevard that didn't hit the mark. When someone as young as Carole brings down the house delivering songs of the 1920s and '30s, such as Trixi Smith's 1922 sexually metaphorical and bluesy "My Man Rocks Me," or the depression-era "Brother Can You Spare a Dime," you feel satisfied that the classic tunes of the early 20th century are in good hands and might actually live forever. Carole can even take a recent tune and make it sound vintage, such as "Cautionary Song" (written in 2002 by Colin Meloy's of the progressive rock group, The Decemberists), a lyric about a single mother who prostitutes herself to a gang of hostile sailors so she can feed her children. (The projected title card for this read: "Maternal Strumpet, Shanty in Boston, 1845.") But the mesmerizing, you-could-hear-a-pin-drop surprise of the set had to be Bufford's tender, almost heart-aching rendition of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (which she first introduced as a contestant at the 2009 MetroStar Challenge at the Metropolitan Room). Bufford's sensitive interpretation and Herman's lovely ballad arrangement only reinforced the notion that even the Beatles' early, seemingly simplistic up-tempo pop songs had an underpinning of beautiful melodic structure.

After a reprise of the title song for the set's closer, Bufford's encore, "Wayfaring Stranger" ("One of my favorite songs," she revealed), brought this tight, extremely well-crafted show full circle with a lyric that could describe each of her collection of broken characters with their broken dreams, but who always hope to find the light:

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
I'm traveling through this world of woe
Yet there's no sickness, toil nor danger
In that bright land to which I go
I know dark clouds will gather 'round me
I know my way is rough and steep
Yet golden fields lie just before me
Where the redeemed shall ever sleep

Boulevard of Broken Dreams. It's bodacious. It's boisterous. It's beautiful. It's Bufford. Enough said.

Photos by Gia Molla.

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