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March 21, 2005
TT: Bobby Short, R.I.P.
I got word while packing of the death this morning of Bobby Short, the great cabaret singer. (Here's the Associated Press obituary.) I met him on my very first trip to New York City, an encounter I recalled in City Limits: Memories of a Small-Town Boy:My biggest adventure consisted of going by myself to the early show at the Café Carlyle, neatly dressed in a black suit that my mother and I had picked out at a factory outlet store in Bloomfield.
I went to the Café Carlyle because I was, believe it or not, a fan of Bobby Short, a cabaret singer who performs there regularly. I first read about Bobby Short in a piece Rex Reed wrote for Stereo Review back when I was in high school. Hungry for a taste of the glamorous life, I ordered Bobby Short is Mad About Noël Coward and Bobby Short Loves Cole Porter from Collins Piano Company, the only place in Smalltown, U.S.A., where you could place special orders for records. Going to see my idol in person seemed to me the perfect way to round out my trip to New York, so I booked a table for one and turned up half an hour before show time, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the Café Carlyle is an elegant watering hole intended for well-to-do New Yorkers, not teenage boys in ill-fitting black suits.
Not being much of a drinker, I decided to consume my minimum by having a late supper at my tiny table. I tore into my shrimp cocktail with gusto, unaware that anything was wrong until I put down my fork, looked around, and saw that no one else in the room was eating. I might well have died of embarrassment had it not been for the fact that Bobby Short, formerly of Danville, Illinois, spotted me for an out-of-towner the moment he walked through the door and came straight to my table to say hello, an act of kindness for which I am still grateful. I talked about it for weeks, though I knew only three or four people who knew who Bobby Short was, which took most of the starch out of the story after the first few tellings....
I never went back to the Carlyle to see him again, not wanting to disturb that perfect memory, though I continued to listen to his lovely, elegant recordings. I wish I had time to pay fuller tribute to his artistry, but I have to catch a train for Washington. On the other hand, perhaps this reminiscence of a small-town boy at large in the big city is the best possible tribute I could pay to a sophisticated singer who was also, at least to me, a very nice man.
Posted March 21, 2005 10:36 AM
