Dreamgirls Opening Night (1981) - "And I Am Telling You" - Jennifer Holliday - Soundboard
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2024
- Opening night soundboard recording of Jennifer Holliday as Effie White performing the iconic Act I showstopper "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going". Also featuring Sheryl Lee Ralph, Loretta Devine, and Deborah Burrell as Deena Jones and the Dreams performing "Love Love You Baby."
A passage by New York Times critic Frank Rich from his review of the opening night of Dreamgirls describing this specific performance:
"It's at this point that Jennifer Holliday, the actress who plays Effie, begs Curtis to let her stay, in a song titled 'And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going.' Miss Holliday is a young woman with a broad face and an ample body. Somewhere in that body - or everywhere - is a voice that, like Effie herself, won't take no for an answer. As Miss Holliday physically tries to restrain her lover from leaving, her heart pours out in a dark and gutsy blues; then, without pause, her voice rises into a strangled cry.
Shortly after that, Curtis departs, and Miss Holliday just keeps riding wave after wave of painful music -clutching her stomach, keeling over, insisting that the scoundrel who has dumped her is 'the best man I'll ever know.' The song can end only when Mr. Bennett matches the performer's brilliance with a masterstroke of his own - and it's a good thing that Act I of 'Dreamgirls' ends soon thereafter. If the curtain didn't fall, the audience would probably cheer Jennifer Holliday until dawn.
And, with all due respect to our new star, there's plenty more to cheer. If Miss Holliday's Act I solo is one of the most powerful theatrical coups to be found in a Broadway musical since Ethel Merman sang ''Everything's Coming Up Roses'' at the end of Act I of 'Gypsy,' so 'Dreamgirls' is the same kind of breakthrough for musical stagecraft that 'Gypsy' was."
(www.nytimes.co...)
Audio credit: tumblr.com/iremembersky
Photos by Martha Swope, courtesy of the NYPL
0:00 And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going
4:44 Love Love You Baby
The fact you can hear the audience at all on this soundboard recording is unprecedented. On a soundboard they usually barely come through due to where the feed is coming from. That tells you how insane this was.
Saw the show several times on Broadway and the tours.....never, I repeat, NEVER, heard the three women re-enter singing "Love love you baby, Love love you child..." etc. because the audience was screaming, cheering, crying wildly for so long and so loudly that it completely covered what was happening on the stage. The visual though of the three young/pretty/thin women erasing the image of the "pink elephant" ( Effie, in a hideous pink suit with ruffled sleeves) for a sleek, sequined trio. STUNNING!
That was intentional by the writer/director to make it appear as the applause was for The Dreams as they were the ones receiving the acclaim in the limelight.
Waouh you can hear the audience, they can’t even wait the end to scream, to applaud…. You could feel how they were under the shock hearing for for the first this incomparable voice, a voice like a thunder… it’s beyond words
This audience is witnessing a level of greatness they have never witnessed before and doesn’t know what to do with themselves
Without question, talent like that is a gift from God
Yes, oh yes, that is my sweet Jennifer's voice. Fantastic
yeah... that gospel influenced range, riff, ad-lib, growl & squall had never been heard on a broadway stage before. the audience got a vocal assault that they weren't ready for and you can hear the response in the moments of involuntary applause and screaming. basically, they got taken to church and responded the only way one can when the spirit hits ya!
man i've heard her do this in thousands of versions. she does stuff in thiis one she's not done since. WOW. she was probably still figuring out the song here but i wish she kept certain things she did here. Maybe my new fav version. even over the tony's.
She does what she was directed to do, both acting and musical direction, before the song had a life of its own. It is what launched her and the show into Broadway history -- all the pieces had to come together.
She does what she was directed to do, both acting and musical direction, before the song had a life of its own. It is what launched her and the show into Broadway history -- all the pieces had to come together.
she's amazing
definitive
Are you uploading anymore from opening night
Jesus loves you ❤❤❤❤❤
God I wish she was in the movie instead of Hudson this role was literally created for her
I definitely think she should've had some sort of role in the movie or involvement for sure!!
she should have been Effie's mom @@arethasD6belt
Well, the role was created for Nell Carter. This song was created for her.
For clarity, is this opening night on Broadway?
Yes, it's Broadway