Bette Midler: Live At Last (1977)

For the record, in case you didn’t know already, Bette Midler's Album Discography includes: The Divine Miss M (1972), Bette Midler (1973), Songs for the New Depression (1976), Live at Last and Broken Blossom (1977), Thighs and Whispers and The Rose soundtrack (1979), Divine Madness (1980), No Frills (1983), Mud Will Be Flung Tonight! (1985), Beaches soundtrack (1988), Some People's Lives (1990), For the Boys soundtrack (1991), Gypsy soundtrack (1993), Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits (1993 reissued in 1996), Bette of Roses (1995), Bathhouse Betty (1998), Bette (2000), Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook (2003), Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook (2005), Cool Yule (2006), It's the Girls (2014) and the Hello, Dolly! Broadway Cast Recording, bringing Bette's performing career full circle in the revival of this beloved classic.

Today I'm going to be looking at Bette's double album live classic "Live at Last", issued on the Atlantic Records label in June 1977 and recorded during her 1976 Depression Tour on a date at the Cleveland Music Hall, Ohio.

If there's nothing else I want to convey from this review, because the energy and talent of this lady, this consummate entertainer, blows my mind, I want you to picture this: Bette is about halfway through her act here, probably on the first disc of the album, probably during "The Vickie Eydie Show", and suddenly all the lights go out in the theatre. There's been an electrical outage. It lasts for about, I don't know, half a minute, but Bette is still going. Maybe the band (credited as Betsy and the Blowboys) and her backing singers (credited as the Staggering Harlettes) haven't noticed it either, I truly couldn't say, but suddenly all the lights come back on, and Bette hasn't missed a beat.

She's still going! Was she aware of it? I don't know. Could she have stopped even if she wanted to? I guess so. But she just keeps going! And going! Listening to Bette Midler here and her singers and band, the feeling is like being in a thunderstorm, and I can only imagine if someone didn't know how to prepare for this kind of show how they must have felt after it. I reckon I'd be on the floor. I'd be an emotional cocktail.

Bette brings humour to the proceedings. She brings fearlessness. She brings emotion. She's connected with her audience and the audience is connected with her. There's a reason she has become a musical treasure all these decades later, I'm sorry five years later because this album didn't come out all that long ago (I'm sorry, please), and where better to demonstrate this than "Live at Last". It's all here, ladies and gentlemen. Sure, you can see why so many are fond of Bette from "The Divine Miss M", “The Rose" and "Beaches", but this is a milestone too.

So what do we have here? The material of the album covers pretty much those first three albums, with a smattering of new material you won't find anywhere else. There's even a studio recording during the Intermission called "You're moving out today" which is a real favourite from her 70s work for me.

Credits: Bette is joined by the aforementioned Staggering Harlettes on backing vocals consisting of members Sharon Redd, Ula Hedwig and Charlotte Crossley. We have the band Betsy and the Blowboys including: Don York the Musical Director also providing Keyboards, Lou Volpe on Guitar, Miles Kasner the Trumpet, Richard Trifan on Keyboards, Francisco Centeno playing Bass Guitar, Ira “Buddy” Williams on Drums, Joseph Mero with Percussion and Vibraphones, Jaroslav Jakubovic with Reed Instruments, and Elizabeth Kane on Harp. Lew Hahn is Record Producer with Aaron Russo producing the show for the stage. For more credits, check out the album. Thank you for bringing this to me.

Chart wise, following on from Bette's last three albums, this of course being the first one to be live, it reaches #49 on the US Billboard 200 and #39 in Australia. Again, I feel like this is a milestone album, sitting just nicely between "The Divine Miss M" and Bette's first major screen role in "The Rose".

Let's have a look at the album itself. I was lucky enough to find this both on LP and CD. A friend of mine owns a copy on Cassette and has informed me that some of the track list is quite different. I've never heard that version. This is going to be based on the LP/CD.

CD 1:

"Backstage"---we begin with what sounds like Bette arriving at that evening's show. A brief track, but the show is ready to begin.

"Friends/Oh My My"---we get hit from the beginning with this neat version of the song that closes out both sides of "The Divine Miss M", leading into "Oh My My" co-written by Richard "Ringo Starr" Starkey. Oh cool!!!!!

"Bang you're Dead"---Wikipedia informs me that Bette was originally going to perform "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman" (which she does record on 1998's "Bathhouse Betty"), but the songwriters wanted Bette to release their song, so she included it here. Apparently it wasn't performed at this show. I would never have known until I read this! I'm not even sure that it's true.

"Birds"---I love Bette's banter between the songs here. And she keeps it going, this burning ball of energy. And then she gives us this song from Neil Young, one of the new songs from this release, along with most everything we've heard already.

"Comic Relief" ---this is all dialogue from Bette now. If you want more of this, definitely check out "Mud Will Be Flung Tonight!" if you haven't already. The whole album is pretty much comedy with about four original songs throughout.

"In the Mood"---now we get this version of "In the Mood" from "Bette Midler". On the album, Bette I believe is singing all of this in the studio herself, but here it's brought to life by Bette and the Staggering Harlettes. It certainly manages to live up to the studio.

"Hurry on Down"---here we have another song that's unique to this album. I would have loved to have heard it in the studio actually, but I guess since it was included here, they weren't really going to do that. Still, if "Shiver Me Timbers" could make it to three albums, why not this?

"Shiver Me Timbers"---the first full length Bette album I remember hearing is of "Experience the Divine" and that included this version of "Shiver Me Timbers". That's the only moment I'd ever heard from this album. It was also the only version I'd heard of this song. Not just for nostalgic reasons, but because of the delivery and the excellent writing and playing, this is still one of my highlights from this.

"The Vickie Eydie Show"---at an astonishing thirteen minutes, Bette takes us on a journey through "The Vickie Eydie Show". I feel almost overwhelmed, but "Lullaby on Broadway" at the end is the sting in the tail. Brilliant!

"Intermission: You're Moving out Today"---now we get this song co-written by Carole Bayer Sager and produced by Tom Dowd, recorded in the studio. Like I said before, this is one of my favourite 70s Bette moments. You actually get a longer fade out, by a minute or so, on the Australian compilation "The Best of Bette". I hope you can find a copy if you haven't heard it.

CD 2:

"Delta Dawn"---we begin with this live version from Bette's debut "Divine Miss M". It freaking soars!

"Long John Blues"---Bette gives us the "Long John Blues". The show is still trucking along. This reminds me of "Empty Bed Blues" from the same year's "Broken Blossom", but being the blues it's bound to do that. This is another new one for Bette, originally recorded as a B side by Dinah Washington in 1949.

"Those Wonderful Sophie Tucker Jokes"---like Vickie Eydie on Disc 1, the Sophie Tucker Jokes also make an appearance on "Mud Will Be Flung Tonight!" and believe me they all have their moments.

"The Story of Nanette"---Wikipedia identifies this as a song cycle, whereas "The Vickie Eydie Show" is a mock lounge act. Both are astonishing pieces of entertainment at about fifteen minutes each. This one includes "new and old" songs alike, like "Alabama Song" from Brecht and Weill (which made me go out and listen to the 1967 Doors album), to "Drinking Again", "Mr. Rockefeller" and even "Do You Want to Dance?" seguing nicely from "Ready to Begin Again".

"Fried Eggs"---this awesome little monologue takes us into the next song which I could barely imagine live in the first place. It's such an intimate little song. You have to convey those lyrics to the person in the back row of a theatre size which could be enormous.

"Hello in There"---and she pulls it off!!! This stands equal to me with the album. They should have put it on another compilation, so audiences being introduced that way could hear the contrast with how it was done in the studio.

"Finale"---the proceedings draw to a close with a dramatic finisher including the Supremes "Up the Ladder to the Roof", which also would have made a great album track for Bette, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", an exceptional choice for a finale, and of course a reprise of "Friends".

Bette and the band and the back-ups take their bows to the Cleveland audience, and I find myself over forty years later (shush!) applauding along with them in my mind.

Thank you,

Ryan.