Judy at Carnegie Hall

Garland's career had moved from movies in the 1940s to vaudeville and elaborate stage shows in the 1950s. She also suffered from drug and alcohol abuse, and, by 1959, had become overweight and ill and needed extensive medical treatment. After a long convalescence, weight loss, and vocal rest, she returned in 1960 to the concert stage with a simple program of "just Judy", omitting the vaudeville and comic acts that usually preceded her. Garland's 1960–1961 tour of Europe and North America was a success, and her stage presence was highly regarded. At the time Garland was billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer".

Audiences were documented as leaving their seats and crowding around the stage to be closer to Garland, and often called her back for encore after encore, even asking her to repeat a song after her book of arrangements was completed. Garland's live performances were a big success at the time and her record company wanted to capture that energy onto a recording.

The album is a live recording of a concert by Garland held at Carnegie Hall in New York City, with backing orchestra conducted by Mort Lindsey. It was recorded on the night of Sunday April 23, 1961 and re-released decades later as an extended, two-disc CD.^[1]

In 2001, Capitol released the album as a double Compact Disc set (catalog number 72435-27876-2-3). This edition has the songs in their original running order, and includes material that was not on the original LP set: Garland's monologues and comments to the audience and orchestra; the orchestra preparing for the next number; and a false start on "Come Rain or Come Shine". The CD release purports to reproduce the concert as the audience heard it, "warts and all".

More information Review scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Pitchfork	10/10[3]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[4]

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Cash Box wrote that the album "lives up to its pre-release touting", highlighting "a solid hour-and-a-half of fabulous entertainment by 'Miss Showbusiness'", and concluding that it "should be one of the big LP's of the year".^[5] Stanley Green of HiFi Stereo Review wrote that the album is "a you-are-there recording that packs a wallop by any standards", adding that "this on-the-spot recording should convince" listeners of the "mesmeric effect" of Judy Garland, and praised her as "singing at the top of her form" while emphasizing her powerful emotional connection with the audience.^[6]

In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Lindsay Planer described the album as "one of the greatest live albums of all time, and the greatest of Garland's career", noting that "there's true electricity in each song" and praising the performances as "so loaded with emotion".^[7] Pitchfork critic Harry Tafoya described the album as "a late-career triumph", emphasizing that it was "widely known as 'the greatest night in show business history'", and that "the singer and her audience were in perfect sync with one another".^[3]

The double album was an enormous best seller, charting for 73 weeks on the Billboard charts, including 13 weeks at No. 1, and being certified Gold. In 2001, after the television miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows showed Judy Davis recreating Garland's 1961 Carnegie Hall appearance, the album was rereleased in a slightly different form, and it appeared again on the charts, rising to number 20 for internet sales, and number 26 on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums.^[8] It has never been out of print.

The album won four Grammy Awards, for Album of the Year, Best Female Vocal Performance, Best Engineered Album, and Best Album Cover.^[9] In 2003, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.