Bookless but not pointless, Blues in the Night finds three ladies of the night, each in a run-down Chicago hotel room. "The Woman of the World" (Jannie Jones in boa) drinks cheap wine from cut-glass, recalls "Stomping at the Savoy" and lustily rasps for a "Rough and Ready Man." Barbara D. Mills, one very big "Lady from the Road," seems to have seen it all, whether with her "Lover Man" or trying, with her exaggerated glossy outfits, to blast out with-and against-a "Wasted Life Blues." It may be the economic conditions of the '30s that has sent the young "Girl with a Date" to the sorry environment begging "Willow Weep for Me," Susan Spain's most plaintiff song. Suggesting all the guys who've done them wrong, Teddey Brown's "Man in the Saloon" is full of himself proclaiming "I'm Just a Lucky So-and-So" and, slithering, maintaining "Wild Women Don't Have the Blues."
Unfortunately, there's no script or other reason to make one care what happens to any of them. One must settle for just relaxing and listening to either pleasing or too-much-the-same numbers. Among the best are the title song, the women getting together about what makes their "love come down," and the ensemble proclaiming "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" so well played by the on-stage band.
