“I am my own generation gap,” Sarah Boone laughed at the Metropolitan Room, “a little bit out of step, and a little bit retro.” She has an iPod, all right, but it’s brimming with the likes of Doris Day, Petula Clark and Amanda McBroom. The act, aptly named Songs at a Crossroads, uses the music of the past to illustrate the trials of the present, and guide the rest of us generation-gappers as we stumble through it.

Fortunately, the repertoire was as varied as life’s ups and downs, with each song serving as the antidote or explanation to whatever might come along. From escapist hymns like Tony Hatch’s “Downtown” to little-known portraits of quotidian crisis in Maury Yeston’s “A Bookseller in the Rain,” Boone declares solidarity with a quietly confused subculture. Remembering her early days in New York and evenings in late great clubs like The Upstairs at the Downstairs, Boone unearths forgotten nightclub gems, like Murray Grand’s “I Always Say Hello to a Flower.” Accompanied by Eugene Gwotes at the piano, who flutters deliciously across the keys, Boone led a collective sigh for the good old days.

The crossroads Boone described were not only turning points in her own life, as one would expect in an intimate nightclub act, but the void that lovers of the great songs feel when we turn on the radio or television every morning. We are at a musical crossroads, and must be grateful to people like Sarah Boone who stand up proudly and lead the way.

Patrick Monahan
Cabaret Scenes
January 25, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org