Fort Lauderdale and Fire Island’s Jennifer McClain, the golden singer with the silvery voice, gave a show at the Ice Palace, assisted by DJ Chuck McTague, on August 30, having given a preview the previous night, at Broadway Sessions at the Beach, with a virtuoso “Let It Go,” from “Frozen.”
Jennifer opened powerfully, confiding about all the conniving that it takes to get to “The Big Time.” She made the mysteries of Cher’s “Dark Lady” her own, snapping a red fan and interpolating a pertinent quote from “Cellblock Tango,” from “Chicago,” and made that show’s thrice-familiar “All That Jazz” sound fresh. She turned to country with Reba McEntyre’s advice-from-Mama song “Fancy (don’t let me down)” and juxtaposed it, with pathos, with the song of another louche lady, in Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer.” She looked ruefully at an additional checkered love life in “You Can Always Count on Me,” from “City of Angels.”
Our singer lamented ill-starred experiences in “Always a Bridesmaid,” from “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” but asserted independence as well. She got the audience singing along with her in Kacey Jones’ rollicking country plaint that “Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay or Dead,” and serenaded her lesbian fans with “(I gotta) Girl Crush.” Chuck joined Jennifer for an endearing “Suddenly Seymour,” from “Little Shop of Horrors,” and Jennifer further expressed devotion in a sincere “Love You I Do,” from “Dreamgirls.” Her tour-de-force, which followed, was “I Hope You’re Happy … Defying Gravity,” from “Wicked,” in which she sang most of both Glinda and Elphaba’s parts. “(You make me feel like) A Natural Woman,” the Carole King and Gerry Goffin song, first sung by Aretha Franklin, followed, with most of us singing along.
Jennifer went country again to let us know, in Miranda Lambert’s song, what happens when a daughter’s antics result in “Mama’s Broken Heart,” and waxed pensive in Adele’s “When We Were Young.” A request for Judy Garland yielded the torch song to end all torch songs, a no-holds-barred “Man That Got Away” and, responding to one for Mariah Carey, Jennifer rushed the seasons for a merry “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Porsche’s request brought us some vengeful country, Carrie Underwood’s “(Maybe next time he’ll think) Before He Cheats,” and then Jennifer and Porsche blended voices beautifully in “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough).”
Jennifer concluded by contrasting two very different songs with the same title, “Bang Bang,” the sad song that Nancy Sinatra sang (“My Baby Shot Me Down)” and the lusty one (“into the room”) recorded by Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj.
Catch Jennifer McClain at Georgie’s Alibi in Wilton Manors, Florida.