Despite his claims of a vast repertoire and great success in New York, Wayne Hosford begins his program envying the “organic” one of Stevie Coyle and seemingly wondering how to begin his own. He introduces his fiance in the audience, to whom he would make references to her paralegal status and implications that she ought to be a lawyer, as if to prove something. But what? Hosford turns out to have a good enough voice and piano proficiency but he definitely could use a script. The highlights of his rambling are stories about Peter Allen, the composer he most admires and many of whose songs Hosford wanders into, as well as about great cabaret performer Julie Wilson and her pianist Billy Ray. Hosford drops a few names, most notably Margaret Whiting, who gave him a start, but he performs no related songs in her case. As the title of his program, New York States of Mind, suggests, Hosford sings the usual songs about NYC. He also leaves out a few well-known ones, that being par for his course. I understand that the end of his program may have been the best part, but I had to leave when he rambled on because his time ran over projections and the originally promised performance seemed lurking too far into the future. For the record, I wasn’t keen to catch the football game that Hosford indicated might have diverted many fans from his show.
