PRESS Review: Clued in on Clooney Debby Boone lights up somebody else's life By Porter Anderson, CNN ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- It's not that you expect her to turn up in white buck shoes. Still, Debby Boone is the daughter of Pat Boone. And she spent a lot of time doing Christian music. She was good at it, too. She pulled down Grammys in 1977 (best new artist), 1980 (best inspirational performance) and 1984 with Phil Driscoll (best gospel performance for a duo or group). In fact, you may still be holding "You Light Up My Life" against her. With 10 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's charts in 1977, it even won best song at the Oscars that year. Now, all is forgiven. Did you know that Boone is the wife of Gabriel Ferrer, son of Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney? Did you know that when Clooney died close to three years ago, she'd given all her arrangements to daughter-in-law Boone? Concord Records, Clooney's recording-label home from the 1970s, has done us the favor of setting us very straight: Boone isn't just the lucky owner of John Oddo's arrangements; she's also a remarkably gifted heir to the Clooney canon. Don't be put off by the Stepford CD cover photo. In "Reflections of Rosemary," Boone does much more than simply cover a few Clooney hits. She makes this CD her own, choosing each cut -- some of them Clooney's, some of them might have been -- for specific relevance to a memory of her former mother-in-law. Stylistic evolution At the end of the CD, you hear a family tape of Clooney doing "Blue Skies" for her grandson, Boone's son Jordan. That trademark Clooney hustle is there in force, right down to the "big finish!" she announces just before singing the final phrase. Clooney was a creature of that peculiar tomboy-shout sound so common to several singers of the last century. For Ethel Merman, it was a bark. For Clooney, a hoot. For Boone, it's a sigh, and a sweet one. Boone is her own woman. And her rendition of "Blue Skies" is threatened by the subtle clouds of melancholy always just over Irving Berlin's horizon. Things get even more serious in Randy Newman's "I'll Be Home," which Boone has chosen to conjure a feeling of attachment she recalls to Clooney's welcoming home. It's a meditative, pointed rendition, determinedly quiet. Never read liner notes? Make an exception just this once. Boone explains her choice of each selection, noting, for example, that Clooney had no use for pre-show preparations. "The extent of her vocal warm-up," Boone writes, "was a quick pass at the opening melody from 'The Best Is Yet To Come' (bah-DAH, bah-DAH, bah-DAH ...) and then one good cough and she'd head for the stage." When Boone starts singing her own bossa-brilliant "The Best Is Yet To Come," hit your Repeat button. You'll want to listen several times to the razor-sharp modulation Oddo's arrangement pulls off in this one, getting Boone into briefly eerie territory. That's its own warm-up for the gentle, brooding combo she makes of Sinatra's "It Never Entered My Mind" and "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." Day-light How does Debby Boone sound doing jazz? Like Doris Day at night. Boone is perfectly adept at the sort of opening-phrase glissandi that Day favored, but it doesn't come off as a grown woman trying to sound girlish when Boone goes for it. There were times you might want to have yelled, "Oh, grow up," even to Ella Fitzgerald for this sort of thing. Not Boone. She sings her 40-something age and the effort rings classy. No less a light than John Pizzarelli contributes warm guitar to Boone's "I've Grown Accustomed to His Face." Oddo's original arrangement for "You're Gonna Hear From Me," in Boone's care, has all the everything's-coming-up-roses optimism you'd expect from his first song for Clooney. Throughout this CD, Oddo has contributed each track's notably clean piano work while conducting the larger ensemble. He and Boone reassure us, one cut after the next, that we're in the hands accomplished pros who know what Clooney meant to them and to a couple of generations whose lives seemed at times to be scored by her music. And finally, it's in a song that Clooney didn't record that Boone and Oddo find their best moment, the restless Dave Frishberg "You Are There." "Pretend the dream was true," Boone sings, ever so slightly wobbling in the last two bars: "And tell myself that you are there."  Find this article at: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/18/boone.clooney     A Musical Legacy With a new album dedicated to her mother-in-law, Rosemary Clooney, a wiser yet still youthful Debby Boone reflects on her musical roots and fortunate life. WEB EXCLUSIVE: By Jac Chebatoris - Newsweek - Updated: 8:19 a.m. ET April 29, 2005 April 28 - The woman who sang “You Light Up My Life”—the biggest hit of 1977, which sold in excess of 4 million copies—says she never made a dime off the record. But Debby Boone is not bitter. “Because of that song, a career opened up and I was able to make money in performance,” she says. Boone’s latest album, “Reflections of Rosemary,” is a loving tribute to her legendary mother-in-law, Rosemary. (Only two years after her Grammy win in 1977, Boone married Gabriel Ferrer, the son of Clooney and actor Jose Ferrer.) When Clooney died in 2002, Boone inherited all of her musical arrangements, a “treasure chest,” as Boone calls it. If such a thing exists as a 48-year-old debutante, then Boone is it, using her love and connection to a musical lineage—on both sides of her family; her father is Pat Boone—as a coming-out party. “I’m not the 21-year-old girl with the flower stuck to the side of her head,” Boone says. “I’m a woman with a lot of life experience under my belt now, and so much to sing about.” The ever-youthful Boone spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Jac Chebatoris about fame, fortune and family. Excerpts: NEWSWEEK: What is the one thing you want to tell people to dispel the Debby Boone-squeakier-clean-than-thou-persona of the '70s? Debby Boone: It’s hard to cull it down to one thing because I do think that the general public has such a misconception of who I am. The thing that has always disturbed me the most is if people think that from that squeaky-clean, religious persona that somehow I’m judgmental of everyone else—that sickens me. Nothing could be further from the truth. And, with this new project coming out, this has been the strongest statement that I’ve ever made musically. When is the last time you either listened to or sang “You Light Up My Life?” Oh, wow. Fairly recently, you know, because it’s required. At family gatherings, you mean? Or if someone sees you in the grocery store? No way! But I hear it on Muzak. I’ve actually had the shocking experience of sitting at a softball game and hearing an ice-cream truck go by playing it. Isn’t that scary? It’s come to this—it’s now ice-cream-truck material! It must have been overwhelming to be thrust into the spotlight back in ’77, when you were only 21. Oh, absolutely. It was pretty mind-spinning. It was exciting, it was scary. I didn’t feel ready even though I had been traveling and doing concerts with my family. I was part of a group, and it was just completely different when you’re called upon to do a whole show and be a performer, and I had no solo experience so it was pretty scary. It seemed like a backlash came with it—people were trying to find something to knock you down a bit. It was either/or. You either loved me or hated me in those days. And I think the hate part came from people who were like, “Oh, please, nobody can be that sweet and that good, and where’s the catch?” You did some Christian records and won Grammys for those, as well. Is your faith still a big part of who you are? I have not done any recording of contemporary Christian music for 10 years, easily, but I never intended for that kind of music to define a career. I was singing about something I really believe in, I’m passionate about, and I wanted that to be just something I could do, not something that would define what I do now for a career. The spirituality part is still really the center of my life, but I’m an entertainer and I want to go out and do music and entertain, and I don’t include that everywhere I go. It’s who I am, it’s not what I do. Your grandfather, musician Red Foley, had known Rosemary, and your father worked with her husband, Jose Ferrer—who later, obviously became your father-in-law. It is like you were destined to end up in that family. It was bizarre, wasn’t it? Initially the way the families came together is that I started dating my husband’s older brother. I dated the older one first! Miguel [Ferrer], the actor. We really only dated for a couple of weeks as we both rebounded out of our high-school first loves. Then a year later I started dating Gabri [Gabriel Ferrer] who is the third of their five kids. Rosemary seemed so larger than life. Was that daunting at first? Not at first because my focus was very much on one brother, and then the other, and I knew she was obviously famous, but I had not been someone who had bought her records or listened to her music particularly. But once Gabri and I were really an item, I began to go to some of her shows and just fell head over heels for her as a fan. She moved me in such a powerful way that I was just at her feet learning from then on. Later, after [Gabriel and I] were married she asked to put the family in her Christmas shows, and we traveled around for several years where I got to work with her and, I often say, it was really like a master class, it really was. What did it mean to you that she left you all of her arrangements after she died? It was humbling. It was almost like a frightening responsibility, and I knew there was this treasure chest that I still haven’t really gotten in there to see ... It was a phenomenal legacy for me. I’ll be using some of them in the shows I’ll be doing now, and on this record we used a couple of arrangements that John Oddo had done for her for stage. He was her musical director for 20 years, who is working with me now. I think the most stunning thing to me is that she trusted me to use them. You clearly had such a great relationship with her. We did. We really did. I really feel like I have lived, in so many ways, a charmed life. Not just Rosemary—it’s the whole family. I had a wonderful relationship with Jose and all of my husband’s brothers and sisters. His sister is one of my absolutely closest friends. Out of your four children, somebody has to be carrying on the torch seeing as the musical legacy reaches down both sides of the family. It’s really looking like my youngest, Tessa, who is in New York studying to be an actress. My other three are pretty shy about being right up in the public forum like that. We nicknamed her Eve Harrington when we were working on the stage together [from the Bette Davis movie “All About Eve”]. So you’ll be doing a run of dates in May at the cabaret club Feinstein’s in New York, but aside from that do you plan on touring behind this record? Oh yeah. I love performing and this is kind of a new genre for me to be in—cabaret and jazz clubs—they’re small and more intimate. I think once I get past the initial, “Ooh, I’ve never done this before,” I’m going to love it more than anything. Whose idea was it for your father to show up at the American Music Awards in 1997 dressed in chains and a leather vest with fake tattoos to promote his new album? An album of heavy-metal covers, I might add. That was his own insanity! He shocked us all. We couldn’t believe it—none of us—including my son Jordan who was in junior high at the time, and he’s watching the American Music Awards and saw my dad and buried his head in his hands and said, “Is there no way to stop him?” [Laughs.] I thought it was insane. All the metalheads loved it. They thought it was so great. And then all of his normal fan base was so threatened by it; they couldn’t take a joke. It was ridiculous. Keep your eyes peeled because there’s some other wacky thing he’s going to do, I’m sure. We’re due for another Pat Boone shocker. FaceTime with Debby Boone Miriam Di Nunzio - April 28, 2005, www.suntimes.com So perhaps you've been wondering: whatever happened to that perky little popster Debby Boone? And now, That Song has crept into your mind, hasn't it? But in the years since "You Light Up My Life," Boone, now 48, (daughter of singer Pat Boone and daughter-in-law of the late Rosemary Clooney and actor Jose Ferrer) has been quite busy bringing up four children and making music. That includes her latest disc, a tribute to her famous musicmaking in-law, titled "Reflections of Rosemary" (Concord), released Tuesday. Q. What was it like having Rosemary Clooney for a mother-in-law? A. She was incredibly loving and fun, and she really loved me, so it wasn't one of those adversarial relationships. But she was also my idol professionally. So having easy access to her was like having a master class in music any time I wanted one. Q. The album features an a cappella rendition of "Blue Skies" by Rosemary. Where did that come from? A. She took a little handheld cassette recorder and just sang the song to her first grandson, my son Jordan. They were very close. She'd take him everywhere with her, on vacations, on the road. They would sing the song all the time. To have this cassette is just extraordinary. Q. What do you want the album to say about Rosemary Clooney? A. I didn't want to cover her hits. Bette Midler did that and she was the best artist to do that. I wanted this collection of songs to convey this big-hearted, fun, one-of-a-kind person. It's a tribute to her life, not a cover album. Q. "You Light Up My Life" became one of those songs that people love to hate. Did you get to the point where it made you sick, too? A. [Laughing.] Of course. Anytime you sing something over and over and over, it's bound to get to you. But I can also proudly say that I have a No. 1 hit. And that I'm in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the "One-Hit Wonder Wall." I'm still very troubled by the fact that I'm in the hall and my dad isn't. I just don't understand that. Q. What about your dad going heavy metal a few years back? A. [Laughing.] What was he thinking? I was shocked, but of course he wasn't serious about it. My son Jordan, who was only in junior high and had to face his friends at school the next day, had the best line when we saw it on television. He said, "Is there no way to stop him?" Rosie release Debby Boone pays tribute to her late mother-in-law, Rosemary Clooney. By STEVE EDDY The Orange County Register The phrase "labor of love" is often overused, but in the case of Debby Boone's new Concord album, "Reflections of Rosemary," it couldn't be more apt. The disc, due in stores today, is Boone's unabashedly affectionate tribute to her late mother-in-law, Rosemary Clooney, but it isn't the call-the-roll lineup of familiar tunes that you might expect. "What we didn't want to do was rerecord her very familiar hit records," Boone said in a recent phone chat from her Sherman Oaks home. "The best tribute to her is to listen to her sing them." Thus (and some, perhaps Clooney herself, would say fortunately), there's no "Come On-A My House." Instead, Boone, a bunch of fine musicians and some notable cohorts - including Clooney's longtime arranger, John Oddo, and manager Allen Sviridoff, commingled some of Clooney's big numbers (Boone inherited the original arrangements) with a few ringers - but nothing without some relationship to Clooney. Each of the 13 tracks - and why it was selected - is detailed in Boone's delightful and highly personal liner notes. Take "Blue Skies," for instance: An Irving Berlin classic, of course, and long part of Clooney's repertoire, but also a tune that Clooney began singing privately to Boone's son Jordan when he was but a tot of 2 and which became "their song." For every Great American Songbook staple that Clooney gave her special treatment - like "Mood Indigo" or "You're Gonna Hear From Me" - there's an "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," a lovely illustration (and celebration) of Clooney's early country-music roots in Kentucky. A medley of "It Never Entered My Mind/In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" salutes Frank Sinatra and his long association with Clooney. "You Are There" is a Dave Frishberg tune (Clooney was a big fan) that Boone always wished her mother-in-law had recorded. Randy Newman's "I'll Be Home" is a plaintive paean to Clooney's beloved (and famous) Beverly Hills abode. "I think it's a perfect blend of the two of us," said Boone, daughter of singer Pat and wife of Clooney and José Ferrer's son Gabriel. "I've never felt more at home with any project I've ever been involved in," she said. "Something she and I did have in common is knowing that you have to find your way into a song that's emotionally honest - your way of telling a story. "One thing I watched and learned as I worked with Rosemary over the years and as each new recording came out - she was a stickler for quality. Only the best musicians and arrangers, especially in the Concord years." (Besides the Concord sides from Clooney's long and bountiful period with that label, Boone also listened to much earlier material.) Having Oddo around, she said, "put in me a position of feeling what it's like to sing a song when everything around you is the best quality. All you have to do is tell your story." But it wasn't always easy, she remembered. "I worked for months (on some of the songs) getting a comfort level," she said. "Some of them are so personal and emotional, that it took me forever." At times, she said, she broke down, recalling a woman whose counsel she sought "regularly." Clooney's presence during the recordings, "was verypalpable," Boone said. Boone doesn't exactly sing rings around Rosie, but she never intended to. Boone has a Broadway/cabaret kind of voice and approach - she did "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" on Broadway. Clooney could be plenty earthy and dusky when the material demanded it. But Boone's work, in its own way, is no less affecting. "I know she didn't consider herself a jazz singer," Boone said. "And I certainly don't. I don't even have the luxury of having experienced singing with all those bands." Boone will be appearing at various East Coast venues to herald the new disc, including a stint at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York City in May and an appearance at a Clooney tribute at Carnegie Hall in June. There'll also be a summertime CD "release party" in L.A. Finally, it's impossible to interview Boone without mentioning her signature tune, "You Light Up My Life," the 1977 blockbuster that sold 4 million copies and was No. 1 on the charts for 10 weeks. "It's a funny thing about that song," she said. "And it's true of a lot of hits. With so much sentimental value, the longer you sing it, the deeper the reaction it gets. Over the years, it's built up meaning to people. On the first phrase, you see people look at each other, and they start holding hands."   Actress, singer, recording artist, author, wife and mother are just a few of the words that describe Debby Boone. Debby became a household name when her hit single, "You Light Up My Life" became an overnight success, topping the Billboard Charts for ten weeks and selling in excess of four million copies worldwide (the album was certified multi-platinum). The song went on to win an Academy Award for Best Song in a Motion Picture, and Debby received the GRAMMY Award for Best New Artist of the Year. Since her remarkable entrance to the music industry, she has won two additional GRAMMY Awards and has received seven GRAMMY nominations. MAY is the month for Mother's Day, and also Rosemary Clooney's birthday. For two weeks in May, Debby will celebrate both occasions by bringing her show: DEBBY BOONE Reflections of Rosemary to Feinstein's at the Regency in New York City. (Clooney's performance opened the club for the Regency in 1999) In addition to her recording career, Debby has starred as the lead in numerous stage productions, such as Seven Brides For Seven Brothers on Broadway and as Maria in Lincoln Center's 30th Anniversary production of The Sound of Music, which garnered a Drama Desk nomination. She also starred as Rizzo in the Broadway production of Grease, and toured nationally in Meet Me In St. Louis. In 2004, Debby performed the role of Anna in a 50th Anniversary staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I. Debby, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Gabriel Ferrer, and their four children, has written six children's books, which were illustrated by Ferrer.