Marilyn Maye's THE HAPPIEST SOUND IN TOWN Plays Feinstein's, Now thru 5/5

FEINSTEIN'S AT LOEWS REGENCY continues its Spring 2012 season with the return engagement of Grammy Award nominated singer and entertainer Marilyn Maye.

Her new show – “The Happiest Sound In Town” – is her annual birthday celebration and features some of her most-requested numbers including “Guess Who I Saw Today,” “Bye Bye Country Boy,” “Rain” and “Golden Rainbow.” Another highlight of the show, “Come In From The Rain,” was a personal favorite of Johnny Carson; Maye performed it many times on “The Tonight Show” at his personal invitation. Maye’s recent local appearances have been received with rave reviews and full houses. Stephen Holden’s New York Times review of her Feinstein’s show last season stated “By the end of the evening, as is usually the case with her shows, I was walking on air, infused with a giddy certainty that life really is a cabaret.”  To quote Rex Reed in The New York Observer, “Her show is not to be missed.  It’s a master class in singing conducted by a polished pro who majored in unforgettable.” Maye will be joined by pianist/conductor Billy Stritch, who has accompanied her over a period of 20 years, bassistTom Hubbard, and Jim Eklof, her drummer, who recently celebrated 50 years with Ms. Maye. The show runs tonight, April 24 to Saturday, May 5 at the Loews Regency Hotel (540 Park Avenue at 61st Street).

In her early years, Marilyn worked in a variety of nightclubs around the midwest, including an eleven-year engagement in Kansas city at a club, The Colony.  She was ultimately discovered by Steve Allen, who invited her to appear on his primetime television show.  Soon after, Marilyn signed a recording contract with RCA which resulted in seven albums and 34 singles. In 1966, after Ed McMahon heard her at the Living Room in New York, she began appearing on “The Tonight Show,” starring Johnny Carson. She holds the singer’s record of 76 appearances. In the 1970s, Marilyn made the transition to theater, starring in productions of Can Can, Follies and Jerry Herman’s blockbuster musicals Mame and Hello, Dolly!

Her recording of the song “Too Late Now” – from her RCA album The Lamp Is Low – was chosen by the Smithsonian Institute and included in its 20^th Century Permanent Collection. Add  her 76 appearances on “The Tonight Show,” multiple appearances on national prime-time television shows, such as Ed Sullivan, Hollywood Palace, Jackie Gleason, Dick Cavett and more, a Grammy Award nomination as “Best New Artist,” a bevy of awards reflecting her showmanship, and you have an illustrious singing career that is still going strong after a lifetime spent entertaining audiences. 

After a fourteen-year absence from New York, though she never stopped working in other parts of the country, Ms. Maye returned to appear as a special guest of the annual Mabel Mercer Cabaret Convention at Lincoln Center. A series of glowingly-reviewed New York performances was followed by more concerts. As a result of this resurgence in New York, Maye has never been busier. She has  performed twice with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, with Michael Feinstein at Zankel Hall, with Doc Severinsen and the Phoenix Symphony, the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, Catalina’s Jazz Club in Hollywood, the Rrazz Room in San Francisco, Dakota’s in Minneapolis, as well as other major symphonies, clubs and theater concerts around the country.