"Wanna Sing a Show Tune . . ."

By Gerald Clarke

Elvis and the Beatles passed him by, and so did hard rock, soft rock, punk, heavy metal and all their noisy alloys. That makes Michael Feinstein, 30, either the oldest young singer of the '80s or the youngest old singer. Or perhaps both. What does he like? Just sit back and listen to the first number on his enchanting album, Live at the Algonquin (Parnassus Records): "Wanna sing a show tune,/ Good old Broadway show tune,/ Nothing that has no tune,/ Something that has heart./ Something you can hum, or can strum by the hour."

Fortunately for Feinstein (sounds like Einstein), a lot of other people want to hear those old show tunes too. In the past year, since he opened at Manhattan's venerable Algonquin Hotel, he has become the brightest, newest star on the high-class cabaret circuit. He made a cameo appearance in February on NBC's The Two Mrs. Grenvilles -- as a nightclub singer of the '40s -- and he has performed at the White House; the current tenant is a fan. "Hey, Nancy," Ronald Reagan said when he first heard Feinstein at a Palm Springs party, "you've got to hear this!"

Last week Feinstein finished an SRO engagement at the Plush Room in San Francisco's York Hotel; on May 5 he will open at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington. In the fall he will tour Europe with Liza Minnelli, who is, aside from his mother Mazie, perhaps his biggest fan of all. "We're joined at the hip," says Minnelli. "Michael has real affection for the material. He's romantic in a way that so few people are nowadays."

In fact, there is no other singer quite like Feinstein. Bobby Short is better singing Cole Porter -- Feinstein feels a bit uncomfortable with Porter's witty and often cynical lyrics -- and Steve Ross has a wider repertoire. But no one better understands the romantic moods of Irving Berlin and the Brothers Gershwin. Most singers today would not even bother with Berlin's ancient Alexander's Ragtime Band, for instance; or if they did, it would most likely sound like a Sousa march. Caressing it seductively, Feinstein, occasionally improvising as he sings, transforms it into a love song.

That ability to turn old into new is the secret of Feinstein's appeal. His baritone voice is pleasant, if unmemorable, a little nasal when he reaches for high notes. But he has an unexampled way with old lyrics: he not only understands them but makes them sound as if they were being sung for the first time. "Some singers get in the way of the song," he says. "I never want to be more important than what I'm singing. I'm simply the instrument through which that song is sung."

Following that purist philosophy, he dislikes such popular favorites as Linda Ronstadt (he actually sneers when he mentions her name), Frank Sinatra ("too hip for me") and Ella Fitzgerald. "Unquestionably a beautiful voice," he says of Ella, "but I never got a sense she connected with the lyrics. She never churned my kishkes -- that's Yiddish for intestines." His list of favorites is just as idiosyncratic. It includes Minnelli, of course, but also Rosemary Clooney ("she does everything a singer should do"), Gogi Grant ("she has an emotional intensity and is much underrated") and Martha Raye ("her voice was like a flute"). Gogi Grant? Martha Raye? Clearly, we have here someone with strong minority opinions.

But that was always the case. Feinstein grew up in Columbus, which from his description might just as well have been the Sahara. Although he has an older brother and sister, he was "very much of a loner," he says. Fortunately, his parents were sympathetic. His father, a meat salesman, was a barbershop singer, and his mother was an amateur tap dancer. When he was five, he learned to play the piano by ear. Much of his time was spent collecting old records and absorbing the sounds of an earlier era, of Al Jolson and Bing Crosby.

In 1976 he moved with his parents to Los Angeles and discovered what was in that outside world: music and people who cared about it. Almost by chance, he became a friend of June Levant's, the widow of one of his musical heroes, Oscar Levant. Feinstein's dream was to meet Ira Gershwin, the lyricist half of the team; he used to sit in a chair and imagine himself talking to his hero. The vision became fact when June Levant, giving in to his pleas, introduced them.

Feinstein was soon working in the Gershwin house in Beverly Hills, cataloging records and memorabilia. Flattered that someone so young cared about songs so old, Gershwin became a surrogate father. "His only fault was that he was a bit miserly because he had no conception that he was rich. He couldn't believe that the lyrics for a song like The Man I Love would support him for the rest of his life."

Feinstein met Gershwin's friends and began singing at Beverly Hills clubs. After Gershwin's death in 1983, he tried to make his living with his voice. It was hard at first. "I was playing show tunes when everyone wanted to hear Billy Joel," he says. But Minnelli helped him, the Hollywood Reporter's George Christy mentioned him in his column, and his apprenticeship was almost magically short. Before long he was being applauded at the Algonquin and in the White House. "Imagine!" says his mother. "My son, little Mike Feinstein from Columbus, Ohio, playing at the White House!"

Well, Feinstein can imagine that and considerably more. He loves singing in fancy saloons where he can see the eyes of his audience, but he also hankers to sing those hummable, strummable songs on larger stages -- Broadway stages, maybe even Hollywood sound stages. Pushed by luck and the power of positive thinking, little Mike Feinstein just might do both.