Devotion to Gershwin Pays Off

There are certain songs by George and Ira Gershwin that Michael Feinstein never ever gets tired of singing.

Like “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”

Or “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

“That’s a song, every time I do it, I feel a different sense of how I want to sing it,” said the brash, boyish Feinstein. “There’s never only one interpretation.”

In the last seven years or so, Feinstein has been singing a lot of Gershwin--and Kern and Rodgers and Porter and Styne and all those other great Broadway and Hollywood composers he admires with the enthusiasm of a true believer.

And his devotion has paid off.

Since 1983, Feinstein has gone from tiny hotel clubs in Los Angeles to the fabled Algonquin in New York, from concert dates all across the country to various symphony orchestras and to Broadway three times in two years.

The performing--and pressure--have been almost nonstop.

“I do work a lot,” the 34-year-old Feinstein said recently. “One thing that happens when you first achieve success is that you get jobs and think, ‘Wow! Great! This is what I wanted my whole life!’ You take everything.”

Seven records and hundreds of concerts later, he said it is time to slow down after being on the road for as much as seven months each year.

“I got to a point where finally I had to say, ‘No, I’m not going to do this.’ It’s hard to say no. I’m a real people pleaser. Now I’m really starting to say no because there has to be a balance in everything, particularly in work and play. And I’m going to take a good deal of time off next year.”

Besides his house in California, Feinstein now has a second home in Santa Fe, N.M., although he hasn’t been there as often as he would like.

“I have unblocked a lot of my life for 1991,” he said. “I just need time to myself. People hire you because they think you’re good or they love what you do. But you have to have time to be creative. You have to have time to lie on a beach and read. To do other things. I want to take time to learn how to use computers and synthesizers.”

Although he loves New York, Feinstein can’t unwind in the Big Apple.

“That’s why I’ve never lived here,” he said. “But I meditate--and exercise--and that keeps me sane.”

What hasn’t bothered him was the change from playing in front of 50 to 60 people at places like the Algonquin to performing before 2,000 in a theater or even 17,000 in the Hollywood Bowl.

“When I was first booked into a large place, I was nervous,” Feinstein said. “I didn’t know whether I would adapt to a larger setting.

“I learned that I could do the same thing on stage that I could do in the Algonquin--relate to the people, tell stories. If I’m comfortable on stage and act like I’m in my living room, then the audience is going to be comfortable.”