Two favorite singers, Lauren Ordair and Vita Summers, have returned to Cherry’s to pour out their hearts and voices in song, late in the evening, in their shows billed as “Bitter Sweet Sundays,” assisted by DJ JizzaBella.
On June 17, Lauren and Vita began with “All About that Bass” and invited the audience to sing the line “No treble.” Vita sang “Hold On (for one more day),” with Lauren joining in near the end. Another chance for the audience to participate was Lauren and Vita’s “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” and additional choices, beside “happy,” were “gay,” “vers,” “top,” and “bottom.”
Lauren’s next songs were “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” with a long-sustained high note near the climax, and Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic.” Vita lamented, “Everybody’s Fucking but Me” and, especially for Brenda Dharling, gave us her tear-jerking “breakup medley.”
The singers alternated singing lines of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” according to whom audience members tipped and when. Lauren sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” with many ascents into head voice for the refrain. Vita and Lauren harmonized mellifluously on “In His Eyes,” from “Jekyll and Hyde,” and recreated the Judy Garland-Barbra Streisand duet “Get Happy” and “Happy Days Are Here Again,” with Vita as Judy and Lauren as Barbra. They collaborated on “Redneck Woman;” Lauren offered a fairly classical “Falling in Love with Love,” from “The Boys from Syracuse;” and Vita closed with a mash-up that included “The Man with the Bag (Christmas is coming again)” and Mary Poppins’ “Spoonful of Sugar.”
Hear Lauren and Vita at Cherry’s on the Bay on Sunday nights at 11 p.m.