Tom Wopat, "Wednesdays with Wopat" @ Beach Cafe - New York City Article

Tom Wopat
“Wednesdays with Wopat”
The Beach Cafe
1326 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10021
Wednesdays through November 20

Unlike most of his fans, I first experienced Tom Wopat on Broadway (in his first show, Cy Coleman’s I Love My Wife in 1977) rather than television, thus I know him primarily as a musical theater singer-actor - as opposed to a Duke of Hazzard. (Though that didn’t stop me from keeping a pin-up of Catherine Bach in my desk at PS 309.) Forty years and many Broadway musicals later (not to mention a notable role in the Tarantino horse opera Django Unchained), Mr. Wopat has become a supper club headliner to be reckoned with (as Luke Duke might say). He’s the only performer I can think of who is equally well versed in jazz, Broadway, and country music, and, hence, his five week series at The Beach is reflecting all of the above: a night of Sinatra songs, a night of show tunes, a night of singer-songwriters. The opening night of the series (Wednesday October 23) hit on all the high spots, with Mr. Wopat revisiting Chet Baker’s take on “But Not For Me” as well as Annie Ross’s classic lyric to Wardell Gray’s “Twisted,” and the uncommon verse to “I Fall in Love Too Easily.” Along with such hipster fare (including the original anthem of the terminally hip, Dave Frishberg and Bob Dorough’s “I’m Hip”) there was also a devastatingly moving, near a capella “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “Copperline,” from Jimmy Webb and James Taylor, respectively, as well as Bobby Gentry’s Tallahassee epic, “Ode to Billy Joe,” and a highly moving voice-and-guitar treatment of John Hiatt’s “Have a Little Faith in Me.” (The latter is also heard on his new album, Wopat.) All of which bodes well for the remaining four weeks of the series; I plan to make as many as possible.

Photo credit: Stephen Sorokoff

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