Robin Brooks Sullivan is one of the best-kept secrets in New York cabaret. A combination of sunny and sultry, sophisticated and straightforward, Robin has been coming to New York once a year to do a single Saturday afternoon show at Don’t Tell Mama. Expanding on her original repertoire of country and western songs, she returned in May with a varied program that now included several numbers from the American Songbook. With the versatile jazz pianist Jon Weber as her accompanist, Robin, attractive in a natty pants-suit, proved herself more relaxed, and revealing more of her warm sense of fun, than in past outings—and singing even better. With her attractive mini-drawl, she performed easy-listening renditions of such songs as “The Nearness of You,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “For Once in My Life,” and, accompanying herself skillfully on Western-style guitar, “Love Changes Everything.” Weber shone as he backed her on such country numbers as “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “Desperado.” For a change of pace, and in a bow to her family audience (including Robin’s own family through marriage, the singing Sullivans, present in full force), Robin introduced her eight-year-old son, Montana, who offered a thumping piano rendition of the theme from Jaws. Robin herself, more at ease and outgoing in New York with each visit, belongs in town for a longer, better-publicized engagement. At that time, this reviewer will be first in line.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
May 21, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org