ABOUT THE DISC & RECORDINGS:

This is the last "new album" of Garland recordings that Capitol would ever release. The bulk of the CD is comprised of the previously unreleased live recordings Judy made at the Manhattan Center in New York on April 26, 1962. The idea was to make a follow-up to the enourmously popular "Judy At Carnegie Hall" with a new live album entitled "Judy Takes Broadway". Capitol invited fans and celebrities to make up the late-night audience.

Unfortunately, Judy was suffering from laryngitis and although she soldiered on, she could not complete the "concert". She wasn't able to get to "Seventy-Six Trombones" and "Tonight." Later that night, after the audience left, she completed "Why Can't I?" and attempted "Do What You Do", but halted it after singing just the verse. Judy was incredibly hoarse by this point (who wouldn't be?) and her keen musical sense told her that she couldn't go on. Capitol decided that Judy would re-record some songs and/or overdub exisiting tracks in the studio. This never happened, and most of the existing recordings only saw the light of day due to author Steve Sanders (the wonderful "Rainbow's End") persuading Capitol to give them an official release. Thank you Steve! ("Why Can't I" was subsequently released on the 2002 compilation "Classic Judy Garland - The Capitol Years 1955 - 1965")

Filling out the this CD are several tracks from the Capitol album "Just For Openers", a compilation of songs from Judy's television series.

On a side note, the unedited versions of these Manhattan Center recordings were included in a 1970's bootleg 3-LP set that also included the 1960 Holland concert. When the Holland concert was released on CD in 1996, these unedited recordings were also included, even though Capitol had already released this official CD years before.

All images on this page from the collection of Scott Brogan.