- Dallas Music Hall -

Music Hall Struck Again By Rockabyes, Rainbows
By Virgil Miers, Dallas Times Herald

Now we know. 

Lightning can strike twice on the same stage within a short period of time, given such a mighty thrower of lightning bolts as Judy Garland. Judy sang again last night at the Music Hall, where less than three months ago, on Feb. 21, she had excitingly begun an American theater tour that was to rival just about any star tour of the century.

It was a risky business, almost everyone agreed including Miss Garland, to return so soon to the scene of a triumph where ears still rang from a near-hysterical reception. But swept along by public clamor and a determined Texas sponsor, Mrs. Iva D. Nichols, Judy threw caution to the wind and came back singing last night in a whoppingly entertaining encore engagement.

Was it such an event as the one last February?  Nearly, but not quite. This time Miss Garland had to contend with a slight throat fuzziness that would throw a note off balance now and then, with a microphone that decided to get in the act and that was also a bit fuzzy, and with an orchestra that blared to loudly, even louder than before.

But hearing Judy get under "Stormy Weather" and raise it cleanly and emotionally to the skies, or hearing her slam across "Rockabye Your Baby to a Dixie Melody" as that song has not been rockabyed since Al Jolson left us, you knew that lightning was striking twice just as pretty as you please.

Where there is lightning, there is thunder, and if you didn't hear the Music Hall audience last night wherever you were, you are either an incredibly sound sleeper or you had the hi-fidelity on full blast. For the audience, made up apparently of many returnees, did indeed match that loud, happy Feb. 21, one.

There was more of it for one thing. Whereas in February the hall was about four-fifths filled, last night there wasn't a seat to be had. In fact, the audience overflowed right into the deeply sunken orchestra pit, where dozens sat with heads held very, very high.

These, who may have sore necks but happy memories today, stood for the entertainer like almost everyone else, not once or twice or three times, but seven or eight times during the evening. The applause? It made being under a tin roof in a hail storm sound peaceful. Bravoes? Yes, and about every sound that the human voice can make.

Miss Garland, again sharing the stage with a large orchestra led this time by Mort Lindsey gave the same program as before, powerhouses like "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "The Man That Got Away" to sweet stirrers like "How Long Has This Been Going On?" and, of course, "Over the Rainbow," and as before, her wildly grand "San Francisco had to be repeated.

As before too, significant was the solo purity of the evening - no one besides star and orchestra on stage, no gimmicks, and only the one costume change at intermission. Few entertainers could go on for more than two hours with such a vocally taxing program and perhaps Miss Garland shouldn't.

But the audience made it clear that for their part, at least, she could have sung all night. This has been the rule rather than the exception wherever this tour has taken her, on to the shattering Carnegie Hall appearance made a fortnight ago.

Miss Garland is much too kind in crediting Dallas with creating the new Garland impetus now whirling about America in concert halls, recording studios, movie and television sets, on magazine pages, etc. Credit Dallas with merely knowing lightning phenomena on stage when it sees it. It has seen it twice now in a revitalized Judy Garland, and twice it has thundered its head off.