from the Bay Area to Berlin), narrowing down which songs to best represent her opus of work might be difficult. Not so for McNight, who not only chose the very best of the best, but in the course of the evening manages to make each sound as fresh and wonderful as the first time she ever performed them.

Entering. as always, from the back of the house and singing sans microphone, and abetted by Ian Herman's simply stunning musical direction, McNight is home before she begins with "Night Life," before segueing into "Stand By Your Man," which she calls, "The song that got me into trouble from the very beginning." "Sweet and Shiny Eyes," in which she demands an audience sing-along, is only trumped moments later by her derivative parody of "The Wind Beneath My Wings," and then later still with "Everybody's F*cking But Me."

In a reminiscence of her acclaimed "jukebox" show at Eighty Eight's in 1994, where she asked the audience to fill out a ballot of which twelve songs they'd most like to hear that evening, McNight offers the crowd a choice of "Sometimes When We Touch" by Dan Hill or "Desperado" by the Eagles, and when the former wins out, she gives the ballad a treatment as only she can, both plaintive and heartwrenching. This is followed by a brilliant rendering of Arlo Guthrie's "City Of New Orleans," and then a simply thunderous delivery of "Hold Out For The Real Thing," by Michele Brourman. Randy Newman's "Guilty" follows thereafter, and then what may well be the single best rendition of Gershwin's "The Man I Love" ever executed upon a club stage.

And of course, no show by McNight would ever be complete without her treatment of "The Wizard Of Oz," in which she perfectly mimics the voices of Dorothy, Glinda and the Munchkins. What follows is a sensational working of Craig Carnelia's "The Kid Inside," which, she tells us, "took me six years to learn, and not because I'm a blonde." After a marvelous "I've Loved These Days," in which her voice gently but definitively caresses every syllable, McNight winds up the evening with the wonderful "Vegetarians Only."

If there is any sadness to be had from this evening, it's the realization that so many of her legion of fans over the years have succumbed to the health crisis and other misfortunes, and are therefore unable to savor what is surely the finest show she's ever put together. However, one must look for the silver lining and believe that somewhere from on high, an army of angels are looking down upon Sharon McNight and guiding her through this latest incarnation in the evolution of her career. For it is truly, a miraculous event on every possible scale, and this writer could not more strongly urge audiences to pack the house to witness her latest and greatest victory.