http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/arts/music/baby-jane-dexter-in-rules-of-the-road-part-3-.html 2014-11-27 23:35:06 Baby Jane Dexter in ‘Rules of the Road (Part 3)’ Baby Jane Dexter has returned to the Metropolitan Room, though her usually reliable voice betrayed her at times. === Few cabaret performers are more welcoming than Baby Jane Dexter, a singer with a booming gutbucket contralto who projects an open-armed empathy to her loyal fans. For the last several years, the message she has conveyed in her inspirational signature song, the R.E.M. classic “Everybody Hurts,” is an unspoken: “Come to Mama. We’re all in this together.” But instead of “Everybody Hurts,” at last Friday evening’s opening-night performance at the Metropolitan Room of her new show, “Rules of the Road (Part 3),” she chose the Four Tops’ similarly compassionate “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” As she read the song from a music stand and delivered the lyrics in the stop-start phrases of a motivational speaker, her usually reliable voice betrayed her, and singing gave way to coarse, off-pitch shouting. Was it a warning sign that Ms. Dexter, who has been Nowadays, Ms. Dexter announces song lyrics as often as she sings them. This approach worked beautifully on Randy Newman’s dramatic monologue “Shining,” an unhappily married woman’s devastating reflection on her humdrum life after a carefree youth. But elsewhere, Ms. Dexter’s solid singing voice and interpretive mastery deserted her enough times to make the final third of her show a worrisome struggle.