Judy

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Producer Joel Dorn acquired rights to the audio and video recordings of the 1963-4 television series The Judy Garland Show, but then became more ambitious in creating this four-CD (plus half-hour VHS tape) box set. Apparently with the assistance of Garland fan Scott Schecter, Dorn acquired other Garland recordings, notably airchecks, and licensed around 20 tracks from other labels. The result isn't exactly the definitive Garland retrospective, but it certainly has more range than either The Complete Decca Masters (Plus) or The One & Only. Garland was primarily a star of movie musicals and a concert singer, also performing extensively on radio and television, yet was only incidentally a recording artist. So the Dorn approach actually makes more sense than previous ones, and the set is full of intriguing rarities, all of which turn up on the first two CDs. The third and fourth discs are devoted to material from The Judy Garland Show, including guest stars Bobby Darin, Liza Minnelli, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Count Basie, Peggy Lee, and Ray Bolger. If you didn't know better, you'd think her whole career led up to that unsuccessful program, which ran only one season. Dorn gives a multiplicity of views of the singer, not only in his song selections, but also in the odd collection of five essays contained in the heavily illustrated, 100-page booklet. As with the CDs and video performances, various sides of Garland are revealed, more or less accurately, but the whole of her remains elusive. The overall result is a kind of audio-visual scrapbook with many illuminating elements that remains an overgrown compilation of material from The Judy Garland Show. The collection easily could have been fit on three CDs rather than four, and the list price is rather high for the contents. All of this suggests that Judy is more an artifact than a retrospective, but for an artist who inspired such desperate fan worship, that may be appropriate.

© William Ruhlmann /TiVo