Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota has opened its 2014-15 Popular Season with Klea Blackhurst performing her tribute to the one and only Ethel Merman, in Everything the Traffic Will Allow. Although she has performed this show many many times, Ms. Blackhurst has brings full energy to her performance and the audience loves her.

I had the great good luck to meet Ms. Merman and be invited to her apartment where I got to hear many famous Ethel Merman stories from the lady herself. Even with that, I learned a couple of things in this show: 1. The name of the famous couturier of the 1940s and '50s is not pronounced "Mainbocker" but Mainbocher with a soft "ch," and 2.) Ms. Merman was so disenchanted with the score for Happy Hunting that she tossed several songs and replaced them with two by friend Roger Edens, one of which, "Just a Moment Ago," is part of this program. Standard Merman numbers that are also part of the program include "You're the Top," "I've Still Got My Health," "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," and of course "Everything's Coming Up Roses." Ms. Blackhurst is a belter, a type of singing that Ethel Merman exhibited. Blackhurst does not mimic Merman, but sings with her own unique voice. My companion for the evening suggested that she could easily have done the program sans microphone and I would agree.

Bruce Barnes is the able accompanist and occasional back up singer. Musical arrangements are by Michael Rice.

Everything the Traffic Will Allow is a joy from first to last. I was glad to get to hear live what I have enjoyed on her CD of the same title.

Through November 16, 2014, Klea Blackhurst in Everything the Traffic Will Allow, by Artists Series Concerts of Sarasota, at The Historic Asolo Theater, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida. Box Office 941 306-1201. For more information, please visit www.artistseries.net.

--William S. Oser