{"id":2148,"date":"2016-08-22T01:49:42","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T08:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=2148"},"modified":"2016-08-22T01:49:42","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T08:49:42","slug":"billy-big-mama-at-barbra-in-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2016\/08\/22\/billy-big-mama-at-barbra-in-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy & Big Mama at Barbra in Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week was Big Mama Masters<\/strong>‘ 75th birthday.\u00a0 As the dutiful son, I wielded what little clout I have and arranged to bring her to see Barbra Streisand <\/strong>in Boston.\u00a0 We were seated on the floor about halfway back – choice seats.\u00a0 Halfway through the first act, she excitedly whispered, “I wish I could see her up close”.\u00a0 From that point onward, I could hear her wheels turning, and half expected to see my mother crawling onstage behind the percussion section!\u00a0 During the intermission, I brought her to meet the director (and benefactor of our tickets), Richard Jay-Alexander<\/strong>.\u00a0 He said he was happy to make it a special birthday and hoped she was having a great time.\u00a0 My ever-gracious mother said, “It’s wonderful – I just wish I could see Barbra up close.”\u00a0 RJA was somewhat taken aback.\u00a0 “But you’re pretty close to the stage, and you can also look up at the monitors.”\u00a0 “Yes,” said Mama, “but I mean up close like I am to you!”\u00a0 And you people wonder where I got my balls?!<\/p>\n

As to the concert (and I’ll be brief since I already reviewed the show), I must correct myself.\u00a0 When I saw the dress rehearsal, I said Barbra was delivering about 80 percent prime Streisand – not bad for a 74-year-old woman.\u00a0 I must report that is no longer the case.\u00a0 After two weeks of shows, Barbra is up to roughly 95 percent!\u00a0 Where some rasp was detected around a B or a C, it now doesn’t creep in until about an E-flat.\u00a0 People often forget that the voice is a muscle and it must be kept in shape, and BJ <\/strong>(as I like to call her) is notorious for not practicing unless she has to; and she doesn’t warm up.\u00a0 The dress rehearsal reflected that.\u00a0 But now, I’m astonished that she seems to have turned back the hands of time.\u00a0 In my initial review, I had two major caveats with the show.\u00a0 First, I didn’t like seeing Babs as a magician’s assistant in the middle of the first act, and I didn’t like seeing the words to “Happy Days Are Here Again” projected for the audience to “Sing Along with Streisand” during the encore.\u00a0 Well, the mentalist is now opening the second act without Babs, and the words on the screen are gone.\u00a0 You’re welcome!<\/p>\n

Before Boston, Barbra was in Brooklyn – try saying that three times fast!\u00a0 Joining her as a duet partner in her hometown was Jamie Foxx<\/strong>.\u00a0 And he wasn’t there alone.\u00a0 We’re told that Foxx was joined backstage by his “special friend”, Katie Holmes<\/strong>. \u00a0The two have apparently been “close” for some time now…whatever that means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week was Big Mama Masters‘ 75th birthday.\u00a0 As the dutiful son, I wielded what little clout I have and arranged to bring her to see Barbra Streisand in Boston.\u00a0 We were seated on the floor about halfway back – choice seats.\u00a0 Halfway through the first act, she excitedly whispered, “I wish I could see<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2153,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions\/2153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}