Liza Minnelli Albums (17)
What The Critics Say
The soundtrack to a 1972 TV special, Liza with a "Z" was by far her most popular album, reaching the Top Twenty of the charts. Inevitably, much of the impact of a program by a performer such as Liza Minnelli is lost in an audio-only document, and some fans might prefer the DVD of the special for that reason. As you'd expect, the musical selections for the program showcase her versatility, including standards such as "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "My Mammy," as well as Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child" and Charles Aznavour's "You've Let Yourself Go." Perhaps to prove she was keeping up with at least some trends in contemporary music, there are also covers of "Son of a Preacher Man" and (as even more of a stretch) Joe Tex's "I Gotcha," though she's not going to make anyone forget Dusty Springfield or Aretha Franklin when it comes to this kind of material. Of course, she was far more at home with show tune fare and, as expected, it's the ten-minute "Cabaret Medley" that goes over best. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Liza Minnelli is primarily a stage performer, and her discography is dominated by live albums. Indeed, looking over the list is like taking a tour of the Manhattan theater district: Live at the Winter Garden, Live at Carnegie Hall, Live at Radio City Music Hall (and that's not counting the LPs recorded in London and Paris). Following her 2000 stage show, Minnelli on Minnelli, a tribute to her father, director Vincente Minnelli, she suffered a serious attack of encephalitis. Hence, the title of her 2002 show, Liza's Back, which is reproduced on this disc, recorded at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre. The theme, simply, is the 56-year-old singer's recovery, and thankfully her performance demonstrates that recovery amply. In fact, she sounds much better than she did on Minnelli on Minnelli, a recording that betrayed vocal deterioration in her breathiness and a wobbly vibrato. Liza's Back suggests that those flaws had more to do with her physical condition than her age. Her voice isn't as strong as it was when she first recorded the songs from Cabaret and New York, New York, reprised toward the end of this album. But she is in surprisingly good voice, especially given her health challenges. The first half of the show consists largely of songs new to her repertoire, featuring a couple of forgettable specially written tunes from her favorite songwriters, John Kander and Fred Ebb; a medley of "crying" songs, including an abbreviated version of "Don't Cry Out Loud," co-written by her first husband, Peter Allen; a terrific rendition of "Something Wonderful"; and an audience-pandering performance of "Never Never Land" with a chorus of her mother Judy Garland's signature song, "Over the Rainbow," appended. It all makes for a typically bravura Liza Minnelli show, which is more than one might have hoped for by now. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
In December of 1999, Liza Minnelli staged a comeback of sorts by holding a tribute to the musicals of her father Vicente Minnelli, called Minnelli on Minnelli. It's no coincidence that the concert series was held at the Palace Theater in New York, since that's exactly where her mother, Judy Garland, staged a lavish comback concert of sorts in 1967. Also, it should not be forgotten that Garland met Minnelli while starring in his musicals, thereby adding another level of meaning to Liza's tribute. The setting, the music, the stage all were deliberately designed to evoke Minnelli's heritage as showbiz royality -- and, after a decade of failed crossover attempts, uneven recordings and personal health struggles, it was time for her to resassert her legacy and status. Minnelli on Minnelli pretty much does just that, as Liza embraces some of the greatest songs in Hollywood musical history with the assistence of arranger/conductor Marvin Hamlisch. The concert is divided into two acts, with the first devoted to medleys and the second to full-on songs. The sequencing wasn't just for dramatic effect -- the slow start allowed Minnelli to build her voice, which has grown a little shaky in recent years. There are times throughout the album that you can hear her quiver and quaver, at times she slurs or slips, but she continues to gain strength as the album progresses. Whether this is through performance or skillful studio editing may be a matter of debate, but the end result is a record that gains in momentum as it continues. That's due in some part to Hamlisch, who's wise enough to adhere to the original arrangements that made these songs famous, but it's impossible to discount the sheer power of charisma from Minnelli, either. Even hardcore fans will have to admit that her vocals aren't what they used to be, since there are times that it seems like a tune is about to slip out of her reach. However -- and this is a big however -- she succeeds in spite of these shortcomings. She still isn't a subtle singer, although the occasional murmured vocals gives an impression of nuance, but that's her strength -- she sounds the most convincing when she's passionately belting out a song. She does that here, most notably on the prolonged, powerful concluding note of "The Trolley Song," which should convince any doubters that Liza still has vocal chops. And the rest of Minnelli on Minnelli should prove to skeptics that Minnelli still has the magneticism and professionalism that made her a Broadway and showbiz legend. Nevertheless, this album is really for the fans, who not only will appreciate this comeback warts and all, but will love it because it captures Liza's talents as well as her humanity. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
If anyone is entitled to cash in on the renewed renaissance of classic pop (not to mention space-age bachelor pad) music, it's Liza Minnelli, who not only has a pedigree to match the likes of Natalie Cole but also has been at it longer. At 50, Minnelli no longer has to choose between her heritage and her generation, and the assurance with which she tackles material like George and Ira Gershwin's "Embraceable You" and Irving Berlin's "I Got Lost in His Arms" is striking. But she is equally at home with such rock era work as "Chances Are" (on which she's accompanied by Johnny Mathis, who made it a hit) and Leiber & Stoller's "Some Cats Know" (which was bringing down the house on Broadway in Smokey Joe's Cafe at the time of the album's release). If this album does not live up to its title or to Minnelli's liner notes description ("sentimental, romantic and sometimes foolish" songs sung "hopefully, tenderly, and most of all...gently"), that's only to say that among the many favorable things you could say about the material and Minnelli's performance of it, "gentle" is not one of them. The singer's intensity is always tempered with warmth, her power checked by careful attention to details of lyric meaning and the nuances of feeling available through her phrasing. But Liza Minnelli just isn't a gentle singer. Maybe she should have stuck with the title scrawled on the back of the CD booklet: "The Makeout Album." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Liza Minnelli: Live from Radio City Music Hall'
Release Date 1/1/1992
Tracks 17
Label Columbia
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
In one sense, it would seem Liza Minnelli has no need to release another live recording, this one being her fifth (not counting one with her mother Judy Garland and another with Charles Aznavour). But in another sense, Minnelli, despite her renown as a film actress and musical theater star, is primarily a nightclub and concert performer who has been refining and fine-tuning her act since she first introduced it in 1965. This version of that act, actually the audio companion to a home video, Liza Minnelli: Live from Radio City Music Hall does feature several songs heard on her last live album, Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall (1987) -- Stephen Sondheim's "Old Friends" from the Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along; Sondheim and Jule Styne's "Some People" from the Broadway musical Gypsy; a medley of Alan Jay Lerner and Kurt Weill's "Here I'll Stay" from the Broadway musical Love Life and George and Ira Gershwin's "Our Love Is Here to Stay" from the film The Goldwyn Follies; and the inevitable closer, "Theme from New York, New York" -- but most of the songs are new, at least insofar as Minnelli is concerned. That said, she has not strayed far, relying as usual on the catalog of songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb for some of their lesser known tunes, such as "Seeing Things" from the Broadway musical The Happy Time (pitched as a tribute to her father, Vincente Minnelli) and the now age-appropriate "So What," a song from the Broadway musical Cabaret not used in the movie version, in which she starred. "Sara Lee," a Kander and Ebb novelty, was written for an earlier nightclub singer, Kaye Ballard, and resurrected in the 1991 Off-Broadway musical revue And the World Goes 'Round before turning up here. Best of all is an otherwise unaffiliated Kander and Ebb ballad of mature romantic recrimination, "Sorry I Asked." These songs take up the first half of the show. The bulk of the second half is devoted to a "Men's Medley" featuring a singing/dancing troupe of women who invade the stage and join Minnelli, launching into a seemingly endless mixture of songs about the male sex as viewed by the female sex that range from "Someday My Prince Will Come" to "I Like 'Em Big and Stupid." During such sections and the tap dance routine that follows, the CD does not quite do the show justice and the video seems required. But there is more than enough new here to justify shelling out for another Liza Minnelli live album. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Although she had served briefly as a replacement in the musical Chicago in 1975, Liza Minnelli returned to Broadway in her own show for the first time in 12 years with The Act, which opened in New York on October 29, 1977. With music and lyrics by her favorite songwriting team, John Kander and Fred Ebb, it was a backstage musical concerning a fading film star attempting a comeback in Las Vegas. But the thin plot was really just an excuse to put the star on-stage in a bunch of new songs; except for one choral number, "Little Do They Know," Minnelli sang every song in the show. Kander and Ebb tended to enjoy their greatest successes with period works, especially those set in the 1920s (Chicago) or '30s (Cabaret), for which Kander could apply his expertise in hot jazz styles and Ebb could vent his negative world view. But The Act was set in the present day; while Kander threw in the occasional disco rhythm and electric guitar lick, he really didn't have a feel for the music of the 1970s, and it showed. Ebb's free-floating cynicism was at home in the era of Watergate, of course, but it ran counter Minnelli's "the show must go on" enthusiasm. As a result, the score failed her, and that's what one gets on a cast album which is little more than a Minnelli solo recording with the thinnest indication that the performances derive from a book musical. Minnelli sings the songs with her usual verve, vanishing only for "Little Do They Know" and its reprise, a song that addresses the star-vehicle nature of the project. Fittingly, Minnelli won a Tony award for her performance, but the show itself lost out. It ran 233 performances, closing after eight months. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Liza Minnelli's career as a recording artist essentially lapsed after the commercial failure of her 1977 album Tropical Nights, but recording was never one of her real priorities, taking a back seat to her work as a live performer and film star. After early records on which she was positioned as a middle-of-the-road pop singer in the '60s, she made some attempts to perform contemporary, rock-informed material, but her heart wasn't in that, and eventually she contented herself with occasionally updating her stage act on record, notably with 1987's Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall. Thus, Results, her first studio album in 12 years, seemed to come out of the blue. And for Minnelli's old-time fans, it was very different from what they might have expected. Simply put, the album was a Pet Shop Boys electronic dance disc with Minnelli serving as vocalist. Pet Shop Boys, the duo of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, were all over the record, writing seven of the songs (including a cover of their hit "Rent"), producing, and contributing synthesizer programming, with Tennant even chiming in on vocals here and there. Although they did place Minnelli in front of an orchestra on "Tonight Is Forever" and give her a jazzy arrangement for "I Can't Say Goodnight" at the end of the disc, for the most part the singer was swamped by the electronically generated beats and sounds. Sometimes, as on "Love Pains," she was even forced to compete with other female voices more accustomed to making themselves heard through such arrangements. Among the more interesting, if odd, tracks was a version of Stephen Sondheim's "Losing My Mind" from the musical Follies, which might have seemed a good song choice for a more conventional Minnelli collection, but that here was made to sound like Laura Branigan's 1982 hit "Gloria." That track, released in advance of the album, hit the Top Ten in the U.K. and made the dance charts in the U.S. The full LP made the U.S. charts, but its greatest success occurred in Great Britain, where it made the Top Ten and threw off three more chart singles. It was, however, a one-off. Pet Shop Boys went back to their career, and Minnelli went back to singing "Cabaret" in theaters around the world. Although she held her own against the arrangements, Results is more a Pet Shop Boys album than a Liza Minnelli disc. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Highlights from the Carnegie Hall Concerts'
Release Date 1/1/1987
Tracks 15
Label Telarc
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Having set a record by selling out 11 concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1979, Liza Minnelli bettered her own mark when she spent three weeks at the prestigious venue in 1987. Though Minnelli was successful on Broadway and in the movies (and even recorded the occasional album), the core of her career was always her stage act, written for her by Fred Ebb and continually updated. By 1987, the 41-year-old singer had committed several versions of her one-woman show to record already, but this one turned out to be nearly definitive. Performing before a full orchestra, she mixed vintage standards with theater songs of her own era including, of course, the songwriting team that penned so many of her signature songs, John Kander and Ebb. And she even found places for such contemporary pop tunes as "I Can See Clearly Now" and "Somewhere out There." The best part of the show was the extended medley of Kander and Ebb songs that came at the end and ran nearly 29 minutes, including the Cabaret songs "Money, Money," "Mein Herr," "Maybe This Time," and the title song, and concluding inevitably with the theme from the film New York, New York. The result was a concert -- and a recording -- that summed up Minnelli's career brilliantly. Telarc's all-digital 83-minute recording of the complete show was planned more for the LP era than the emerging CD one, coming in at just over the maximum length of a single CD. So, the label also issued this single "highlights" disc that trimmed the show by 18 minutes, deleting nine songs in the process and re-sequencing the remaining ones. The result was a somewhat more cut-and-dried recording and one that was even more dominated by the Kander and Ebb medley, which now took up nearly half the running time. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall (The Complete Concert)'
Release Date 1/1/1987
Tracks 24
Label Telarc
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Having set a record by selling out 11 concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1979, Liza Minnelli bettered her own mark when she spent three weeks at the prestigious venue in 1987, and Telarc issued a two-disc version of "the complete concert" later in the year. (A one-disc highlights version followed in 1989.) Though Minnelli was successful on Broadway and in the movies (and even recorded the occasional album), the core of her career was always her stage act, written for her by Fred Ebb and continually updated. By 1987, the 41-year-old singer had committed several versions of her one-woman show to record already, but Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall turned out to be nearly definitive. Performing before a full orchestra, she mixed vintage standards with theater songs of her own era including, of course, the songwriting team that penned so many of her signature songs, John Kander and Ebb. And she even found places for such contemporary pop tunes as "You Better Sit Down Kids," "I Can See Clearly Now," and "Somewhere out There." The best part of the show was the extended medley of Kander and Ebb songs that came at the end and ran nearly 29 minutes, including the Cabaret songs "Money, Money," "Mein Herr," "Maybe This Time," and the title song, and concluding inevitably with the theme from the film New York, New York. The result was a concert -- and a recording -- that summed up Minnelli's career brilliantly. Appropriately, it was her first album to reach the charts in 13 years. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
