Youthful Stearns Matthews reprised his solo debut show, I Was Here, at Don’t Tell Mama. Matthews, a lyric baritone, recently graduated from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. After one debut show, Matthews entered the Metropolitan Room’s Metrostar Talent Contest, went all the way to the finals and placed as first runner-up. He will perform an opening set for the grand prize winner, Anne Steele, at the Metropolitan Room this winter. Besides having a glorious vocal instrument Matthews demonstrates exquisite taste in repertoire, a talent rare in young singers. There were songs from very recent musical shows and from the American Songbook past (but not the ones done to death by other cabaret singers.)

Matthews’ opened with "Better" from the Broadway show A Class Act by Ed Kleben. It’s a very clever piece, a list song of opposites ("good is good, bad is better....I’ve been naughty once or twice/twice is better") and Matthews underplayed all the wicked jokes and established his pleasant personality. Later, he sang "Paris Through the Window," another rarity from the same show, about a car trip with three male friends and a young man’s discovery of a new world through the car window.

Matthews’ version of "It Never Was You" (Weill-Anderson) from Knickerbocker Holiday showed up his ability to interpret simple, lovely lyrics without overly dramatic embellishments. It was musically and lyrically pure and very poignant.

In his patter Matthews described growing up and discovering the joys of music though his grandmother who used to play the player piano. She introduced him to old standards. The two he sang were "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" and "Chlo-e---The Song of the Swamp." He told of his bewilderment of the title of the latter song, because the name of the girl is not in the familiar chorus (maybe known to some only through Spike Jones’ parody version) until he found the original sheet music on ebay and discovered the verse which included the name "Chloe." So he sang it again, this time with the verse!

The next humorous moment was a new song entitled "Paul," by Brett Kristofferson, about a romantic encounter with someone at the gym that had an unexpected ending. Matthews also told how terrible he was at sports as a kid, forced to compete in a swim meet, and revived the hysterically funny song "Last One Picked" from Whoop Dee Doo by Dick Gallagher and Mark Waldrop.

There was a story of how as a kid sitting in the back seat of his parents’ car Matthews used to pass the time noticing how the turn signals of his parents’ car never matched the flashing lights of adjacent cars. As a young driver himself one afternoon he was behind another car and, lo and behold, his turn signal matched exactly that of the car in front of him! He knew instantly that that person was the one for him and it led to a magic moment of the act, a touching rendition of "When It Happens yo You", the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill rarely-sung treasure from The Red Shoes.

Matthews next to closing number was "I Was Here" from The Glorious Ones (Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens). This was originally sung by Marc Kudish as the leader of the traveling actors troupe and is a show business anthem song. The only other performer that I know who sings this song is Karen Akers. Matthews pulled out all the stops singing this great song, alternately softly and strongly, fully acting the message of the song for a "glorious" finish.

Taking the piano, unamplified, Matthews’ encore was the oldie "Why Don’t We Do This More Often" (Charles Newman-Allie Wrubel) and "Till Tomorrow" (Bock-Harnick) from Fiorello.

I Was Here will be repeated at Don’t Tell Mama on Sunday, November 30th, at 8:15 p.m.

Joe Regan, Jr.
Cabaret Scenes
November 19, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org