Buskin and Batteau Make For Blessedly Blissful Beauty

The legendary folk-comedy duo of David Buskin and Robin Batteau have, for nearly four decades, captivated all manner of audience in every venue imaginable, up to and including their unforgettable appearance in the late Mary Travers' folk music seminar at the New School For Social Research in 1986, which also featured Odetta, Richie Havens, Judy Collins and, of course, Peter Paul & Mary. It was, therefore, no surprise to the capacity crowd that gathered at the Metropolitan Room on January 22nd to see the team as part of the Jamie deRoy and Friends series, that the two still manage to assume their place on each and every stage, regardless of size, as though they were about to appear before half a million spectators at Woodstock. 

And though they've spent some time working separately (with Buskin garnering particularly good notices over the last decade as part of the group Modern Men), their performance on this particular evening was as harmonious in every way possible as the 1983 reunion of Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park.

Opening as always with a speech by Jamie deRoy, which was followed by the lady's uproarious delivery of their song, "Jews Don't Camp," the duo got things cooking from the first moment of their song "Choose Joy." But moments later, with the song, "Goodbye Look," in which Buskin swapped his guitar for the piano and Batteau swapped his for a violin (which at times seemed to virtually sing of it's own accord), the evening proceeded to sweep over the eager audience like a virtuosic tidal wave. Liberally peppered with hysterical patter and comic banter between the two, and while going back and forth between instruments, nary a song didn't work to the hilt, whether "Boy With The Violin" (which sounds rather like Christopher Cross with a sharper edge), the brilliant "Death In Venice...or, Folksinger," or a simply gorgeous "Tonight We Are Everywhere," done a cappella. Their composition "Guinevere" brought the evening just to the edge of a gorgeous close, and they very nearly topped themselves with the encore "Take This Heart," so musically proficient that this writer can only describe it as verging on a concerto. And if there was a standout in this evening so rife with stupendous performances, it came in the form of the Harry Chapin-esque "Heart Of The Audience."