Three Judy Garland Songs You May Not Have Heard

It kind of feels like every day is Judy Garland’s centennial in our house, since, on any given day, chances are I’m either knee-deep in restoring one of her original orchestral arrangements or practicing to sing a whole bunch of them with an orchestra. But a little extra celebration is definitely in order this year, so after you’ve baked a cake, finished watching all her movies, and listened to the Carnegie Hall album, here are three recordings that are far enough off-the-beaten-path that even some long-time Garland fans may not have come across them. All of them are personal favorites, and I hope you enjoy them, too!

"Next Year All Our Troubles Will Be Out of Sight": A Song for 2020

Although written for Judy Garland to sing in the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” seems like it could have been written today. Back then, America was knee-deep in World War II, and now we’re nine months into another world-wide crisis, in many cases without even the comfort of friends and family to help us get through it. Here’s hoping that “someday soon we all will be together” and that 2021 will be much brighter than 2020. And in the meantime, Merry Christmas.

(Song by Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane; Original orchestral arrangement by Conrad Salinger; Piano arrangement by Joan Ellison based on the original orchestration.)

Life Imitates Art: A Funny Thing Happened on the Yellow Brick Road

I often wondered about people who did one-person shows — specifically, what kind of person would want to hold a 7500-word script in her head. Well, in the last year, I’ve become that person. And I’m still not much closer to understanding why someone would voluntarily do what amounts to a high-wire act without a net. Except that when it works it is really, really fun.

“Yes”: My Journey into the Wonderful World of Orchestration and Meeting Some Wizards

During the past five months I’ve been on a very steep learning curve — actually, more like something involving tornadoes and the yellow brick road — but on January 21st I’m going to get to share with 2000 people some of the results of the arduous journey: I’m going to get to sing two of Judy Garland’s original arrangements onstage with a symphony orchestra.

Of course, I’ve been singing Judy’s tunes with orchestras for a few years now, in wonderful arrangements based on the originals by two terrific arrangers (see an earlier post, "Getting Happy"). But for someone like me who loves time travel and Judy, suddenly having access to the actual note-for-note arrangements that we’ve all heard on her albums was an incredible stroke of good fortune that I’d never even allowed myself to hope for.

Here’s how it happened: