What can I say about this number ? It's the show stopper to end all show stoppers. I know one thing, cd,vinal,dvd, certainly not this video, does this song justice. Put very clearly...you just had to be there. Be there for the emotion that Effie was going through leading up to this song....how defiant she was fighting for Curtis....and lastly her denial that it was over(remember she's singing "you're gonna love me"to an empty room after he already left her dressing room...she keeps singing those words for her very survival!).To See Jennifer Holliday sing this, with Tears, sometimes mucus, gushing down her face...you can planley see Jennifer was Effie.It's like there was no acting. It was RAW.Everyone in the audience felt Effies pain at her on level due to Ms. Hollidays high voltage performance,a voice so loud it's shake the Washington Bridge.I remember seeing this early on at the Imperial Theater, and when Effie sang" Im not waking up tomorrow morning...and finding that there's nobody there..." there was an old Broadway saavy lady about 80 years old five rows to my right who stood up at that point and clapped and was crying as if she knew Broadway, and knew that History was being made right now. She was the first to stand...we would all join her midway through the song, and reamain long after the song ended.I'll never forget that lady...or how after the song the lights come on(The end of act 1) and everybody was crying and there'd be loud talking about what they just witnessed.To this day people talk about the "end of act 1...) and that the dress she wore singing And I AM Telling You should be in the Smithsonian. And Jennifer Holliday, have her own Shrine.
17 сен 2024
