'The Divine Miss M' To Appear Here Tonight
Oct. 4, 1973 - Journal Of The Arts
By Scott Beaven 

They call her Bette (rhymes with fret) Midler. She calls herself The Divine Miss M.

She looks like she came out of a '30s nightmare, she sings like she came out of the bluesy 40s (sometimes), she talks like she walked out of the 50s ("and now," she says, "another blasto from the pasto"), she swears like she came out of the liberated 60s.

And here she is. In Albuquerque Tonight, at Popejoy Hall, the latest stop in a non-stop and very bizarre career. But why Albuquerque? "We're making," this Hawaiian Jew declares, "a tour of the tackiest towns in the United States."

Bette Midler is like that. She travels with a vocal troop called the Harlettes and, wrote the National Observer, "they wiggle onstage in low-cut slinky black dresses and red platform shoes as she introduces them: "Three cocktail waitresses, right off the streets.'"

Bette first lived in Hawaii. Then a bit part in the movie "Hawaii" which she followed to Los Angeles where much of the filming took place. From there to "Fiddler on the Roof." And from there to the Continental Steam Baths in the Big Apple, NYC, where she entertained all male audiences dressed in Turkish towels. It was there that the camp, the nostalgia (she loves the Andrews Sisters - "those girls were so pulled together they could raise their eyebrows in unison,") were born.

It was there that she began reviving a forgotten American popular music past, and it was there that she was tabbed by Johnny Carson and came to the attention of the rest of these United States. Bette Midler, trading on the past, singing in the present with two eyes on the future, is going to be very, very big - as big, maybe, as the people she's been compared to: Lena Home, Judy Garland, Edith Piaf and (who else?) Barbra Streisand.

She was supposed to be on the cover of Newsweek this week but Spiro Agnew bumped her off. Bumping Bette has been re-scheduled for next week.

After that, and after the movie contracts she has been offered, and the recording contracts, and everything else, it is safe to predict that the Divine Miss M may never be back to Albuquerque again. Unless the star starts dimming and there is no indication of that. At least we'll be able to say we knew her When.

Bette Midler Enchants Audience
October 8, 1973 - Albuquerque Journal 
By Scott Beaven 

By the time Bette Midler began the second half of her sold-out Popejoy Hall concert - dressed in red sleaze and carrying "recycled" fox carcasses - her voice was falling apart.

It had been a bad few days for Bette. One of the members of her back-up trio, The Harlettes, had been busted for drugs in Phoenix and Bette was mad as hell about it. She was also getting sick - she has, after all, been on tour since Aug. 25.

Later, she moved into John Prine's song about old people, "Hello in There," not an easy melody to sing at the best of times. The voice cracked, she whispered her way through it and she brought if off. 

For a moment, it was like being in a time-warp; Judy Garland, at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, drunk or stoned on too much of something, trying to get through "Stormy Weather" with the audience pushing for her as hard as it could.

But only for a moment. Miraculously, the voice returned and the raunchy lady soon had the entire house on its feet, clapping and screaming (and, some of them, smoking grass) to "Chapel of Love." Quite a sight for Popejoy Hall. Unprecedented. 

At the beginning of the Thursday concert, when the ovation before she had opened her mouth was overpowering, she asked if Albuquerque was "starved for entertainment?" Albuquerque - the part of it in the audience - roared back an indistinct but affirmative answer. Those inside the house felt lucky at that point - because outside, in the chilly October night, there were clusters of people offering large amounts of money for tickets to those that had them.

Inside again, and Bette pacing the floor of the Popejoy stage like a hopped-up dance-hall hostess, wailing "Leader of the Pack" while the two remaining Harlettes synchronized in the background - Andrews Sisters with soul.

AND AFTER ALL the flash, and the glitter, the sequins, the flaming orange hair, the fright make-up, the trashy songs, the political and sexual innuendo (of Nixon; "In your heart, you know he's not a well person. I've got my bags packed, but there's no place to go"), The Divine Miss M sat on a stool and sang "Am I Blue?" with a force and conviction that had the audience in dead silence and even the spotlight seemed to dim in comparison to the incandescence shimmering on a wooden stool.

Bette Midler was a star then, right up there with the biggest and best of them. Out of trash - art. When she left the stage, Albuquerque made her come back. She coughed, and explained that she really was getting sick, and - touchingly - said she was touched by the reception. Out into the night with her, then, carrying a bouquet of roses that had been handed up to her during the course of the concert. And also carrying with her a southwestern city she pronounced Al-ba-ker-cue. She carried it in the palm of her hand.