Judy Garland at 100

Sheila and Roger have Judy Garland posts up, and I could hardly fail to do the same. Garland was born 100 years ago today, and how much poorer our world would be without that voice, that marvelous alto of hers–full-throated, just this side of operatic, so marvelously resonant, her way of hitting a pitch just under and then sliding into it like a resolution all her own, and of course that perfect shimmering vibrato she used to equally perfect effect in song after song after song throughout her too-brief life.

Judy Garland was one of the greatest things about being human in the 20th century and beyond.