Live at Last (Bette Midler album)


Live at Last is the first live album by American singer Bette Midler, a two-disc set released in 1977, Midler's fourth album release on the Atlantic Records label. The album spawned from her live, recorded performance, "The Depression Tour" in Cleveland, entitled "The Bette Midler Show". The album was released on CD for the first time in 1993. A limited edition remastered version of the album was released by Friday Music in 2012.

Background and content

Live at Last documents a full-length live performance at the Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, Ohio on the 1976 Depression Tour, and sees Midler, her backing group The Staggering Harlettes and her band Betsy and the Blowboys covering material from her three first albums as well as The Supremes' "Up the Ladder to the Roof", Neil Young's "Birds", Ringo Starr's "Oh My My", the mock lounge act The Vicky Eydie Show doing a "global revue" and the song cycle The Story of Nanette. The album also captures Midler's rapport with - or loving heckling of - the Cleveland audience, a monologue about fried eggs and a part that since has become a staple of her live performances: the raunchy Sophie Tucker jokes.
Live at Last features two new studio recordings. "You're Moving Out Today", co-written by Midler and Carole Bayer Sager and produced by Tom Dowd was the only single release from the album. "Bang, You're Dead", which was also not performed during the Cleveland show, replaced "I Sold My Heart To The Junkman" on the album because writers Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson - who wrote the song for Bette - laid down an ultimatum that if she didn't release the song on her next album they would give it to another singer. Therefore, the song was recorded in a studio and squeezed onto the album.

Commercial performance

Live at Last reached #49 on Billboard's album chart in the autumn of 1977.

Track listing

Side A:
  1. Backstage - 0:18
  2. "Friends"/"Oh My My" / - 2:28
  3. "Bang You're Dead" - 3:15
  4. "Birds" - 4:39
  5. Comic Relief - 2:38
  6. "In the Mood" - 2:09
  7. "Hurry On Down" - 2:07
Side B:
  1. "Shiver Me Timbers" - 4:00
  2. The Vicki Eydie Show:
  3. *"Around the World" - 0:23
  4. *"Istanbul" - 0:55
  5. *"Fiesta In Rio" - 1:52
  6. *"South Seas Scene" / "Hawaiian War Chant" / - 5:13
  7. *"Lullaby of Broadway" - 2:00
Intermission:
  2. "You're Moving Out Today" - 2:56
Side C:
  1. "Delta Dawn" - 5:54
  2. "Long John Blues" - 2:36
  3. Sophie Tucker Jokes - 2:38
  4. The Story of Nanette:
  5. *"Nanette" - 0:54
  6. *"Alabama Song" - 1:34
  7. *"Drinking Again" - 4:25
  8. *"Mr. Rockefeller" - 4:00
Side D:
  1. The Story of Nanette :
  2. *"Ready to Begin Again"/"Do You Wanna Dance?" / - 3:23
  3. Fried Eggs - 2:37
  4. "Hello In There" - 3:16
  5. Finale:
  6. *"Up the Ladder to the Roof" - 2:45
  7. *"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" - 3:04
  8. *"Friends" - 2:21

    Personnel