Susan Winter, a MAC nominee for Best Female Debut Artist last year, has big, clear vocal chops. In her new show (only her second,) Love Rolls On..., directed by Lina Koutrakos, with Tedd Firth on piano, Tom Hubbard on bass, and music arrangements by Rick Jensen, at the Metropolitan Room, she opens with a strong rendition of "Lucky to Be Me" (Bernstein-Comden & Green), establishing that powerful voice and an unusually direct interpretation of both lyrics and music. She is able to sing each of Bernstein’s skillful melody notes and yet interpret every nuance in the simple but unique lyrics of the song. Without a pause, against the sound of Hubbard’s soft, subtle bass playing, Winter goes right into "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" singing sweetly as she slowly builds the song into a burst of happy joy.

Only after that double play did Winter begin her show’s narrative. She tells us how stunned she was at her age to be nominated for Debut Artist. Yes, she admits, she spent 34 years on the "fall back" job she took when she was younger—employment by the Board of Education! She hints at some unfortunate love affairs along the way but she also tells us about her current husband, the one that lasted. Winter sings "It Amazes Me" (Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh) with beautiful phrasing, including the verse, and by getting all the meaning out of a phrase most singers throw away ("I’m the one who’s worldly wise and nothing much phases me"), Winter is acting a stunning three-act drama with the familiar words. She enhances that narrative with a knowingly ironic song, "I Can’t Be New" by Jane Paul and Susan Werner whose funny lyrics at one point turn sad:

"I can be your girl through the best and worst times
But I can’t be the girl you notice for the first time
There’s so much I can do,
But I can’t be new....

I can be the sky, the very wild blue yonder
Still I can’t catch your eye when it starts to wander
As I’ve seen it do
Oh, at least a time — or two
I’ll be anything for you — baby
But I can’t be new."

Winter switches gears with "An Older Man Is Like an Elegant Wine" (Lee Wing), a song about how older men are better lovers than younger men, with lyrics full of references to wine ("I’ll hug him, I’ll kiss him, I’ll decant him") and a robust "I’ve Still Got My Health" (Cole Porter.)

The centerpiece of Winter’s act is the her parents’ love story. When her mother died, she discovered all the love letters between her father and her mother written during World War II. Her father was drafted and was stationed in New Orleans where they were married. They had six weeks before he was sent overseas and she returned to Brooklyn to live with her family. Every day they wrote each other a minimum of three letters. The first song is "All My Tomorrow’s" (Cahn-Van Heusen) as if they pledged themselves to each other with those lyrics. Her mother, for privacy, would spend many nights at a girl friend’s house and sit up all night writing these letters. "After Hours" by Robert Bruce, Buddy Feyne, Avery Parish has a lyric that states:

"After hours, while the whole town is sleeping,
I find my heart keeping a rendezvous
with the ghost of you....

..So, to bed
Though my vigil is ending, I’ll still keep pretending
You’re with me the rest of my days.
For I’ll keep loving you, after hours, and always, always."

Winter told us that her father was a stern man who rarely spoke. He warned her in one sentence about her first husband and did not speak to her for months after that. But Winter reads one of his letters, about longing for his wife and his gratitude for those six weeks they had together. Winter’s heartbreaking rendition of "Isn’t It a Pity" is directed, not to a lover, but to her father! The feeling and the expression of her parents’ great love that lasted sixty-two years is fully dramatized in this seamless section. We are astounded at Winter’s performance of this story.

Winter brought Geoff Stoner up to the stage and she sang the oldie "I Love The Way You’re Breaking My Heart" to his ukulele accompaniment. Demonstatring again how an artist can take a familiar standard and make it sound like you’ve never heard it before, Winter, with only Firth on piano, sang a plaintive "Small World" (Styne/Sondheim) unlike any other singer, including the famous "Roses," then spun around and mockingly sang Paul Simon’s "Still Crazy After All These Years."

The finale is the act's title song written by Dave Frishberg, a survival song appropriate to the times.

"Our love rolls on
We can rise above it 'cause our love rolls on, and on, and on."

Susan Winter’s Our Love Rolls On... is a gem of an act, a lesson in structure and music.

Our Love Rolls On... plays again at the Metropolitan Room on Tuesdays December 16 and 23, at 7 pm.

Joe Regan, Jr.
Cabaret Scenes
December 9, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org