Stormin’ Norman and Suzy Williams. Photo by Mike Sakamoto

Coming Together
By S. A. Gerber

The Unurban Café was the site for the fifty-year reunion of “Stormin’ Norman & Suzy” …aka Norman Zamcheck of Newton, Mass. and our own local “Venice Songstress,” Suzy Williams.

Meeting in 1972 in Massachusetts, he 23, she 18, they were to form a duo which would cover Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket in the summer season, and self-described “dives”, taverns and colleges, the rest of the seasons, culminating in a twelve-year run up and down the eastern seaboard. They also played to a packed house at “Tramps” in New York for three years as a prelude to a Carnegie Hall performance. The duo released two albums (one on Polydor) and staged a six-week tour in Spain’s Canary Islands before dissolving the act in 1985.

This night at the Unurban Café, after half a century, they came together, meshing like they had never been apart.
Norman performed a well-received solo warm-up before calling his other half, Ms. Williams, to the stage, prompting a thunderous applause from the Unurban’s capacity crowd. They fell right in with their tried-and-true duets. Norman played a fine piano and provided backing vocals to Suzy’s sensuously playful “Fanny Brice” style performance.

They also provided some snappy patter and “shtick” between their lively numbers, such as, “Crazy Lady” and “Wrong Side Boogie”, before Ms. Williams performed a vaudevillian “reverse” striptease number to raucous laughter and appreciative applause.

“Stormin’ Norman & Suzy’s act had aged and mellowed like a fine cognac over these decades, and thanks to Pam Stallings of the Unurban Café, we were able to see them revisited Thursday night September 29, 2022.

Wonderfully executed! Like they say, “Everything old…is new again”.

https://www.unurban.com/