Clooney’s music, spirit echo on

Hearing the husky voice, the tender lyrics, Monsita Botwick pulled a white handkerchief from her beaded handbag and dabbed her eyes. “We’ll get through it,” whispered her sister, Maria Murdock. “I’m going to pretend like I’m not even hearing this right now.” The tune was “Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe,” a number their mother, the late Rosemary Clooney, loved to sing for their father, Jose Ferrer. And here was the pop legend’s warm and loving version of it, filling a private room at Trader Vic’s at the Beverly Hilton Hotel during a listening party for Clooney’s new album, “The Last Concert.” “This night is horrible and wonderful. I never wanted this day to come,” Botwick said. “Yet this CD is fantastic, and I am so proud of it.”

About 50 guests, including Clooney’s sons, Gabriel and Rafael Ferrer, and her close friends Michael Feinstein and Merv Griffin, gathered in the tropical-themed haunt last week to share old memories and hear selections from her performance with the Honolulu Symphony Pops. “It was our incredible luck to have captured it,” Concord Records President Glen A. Barros said of last November’s concert on Oahu. “We couldn’t have known that the symphony demo being recorded that night would turn into Rosemary’s last concert.” Clooney died in June of complications from lung cancer at age 74.

Enjoying cocktails and island-inspired appetizers, partygoers relaxed on cushy banquettes or stood in small groups as they shared tales such as the one recounted by Gabriel Ferrer, as he introduced his mother’s only recording of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” “I remember every once in a while Mr. Berlin would call the house [on North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills] when I was about 14 or 15, and I would think it was some goofball and ask, ‘Mr. Berlin, as in Irving?’ And my mom, from her den chair, would scream, ‘Give me the phone!’ ”

Griffin recalled the first night he met the singer, who found fame in 1951 with the novelty hit “Come On-a My House” and in recent years had appeared at top-notch cabaret clubs and concert stages. “It was probably the late ‘40s, and I met her at Virginia Beach, Va. I was singing with the Freddy Martin band and she and her sister, Betty, were singing with Tony Pastor’s big band. I introduced myself and we had a great time. At the end of the evening, her entire band walked into the ocean with their clothes on. I said, ‘Rosie, you’ve really got yourself a band!’ ”

Clooney was his “second mother,” said Feinstein, a pianist and singer known for his lush treatment of standards. “When I made my first recording, I was nervous about it and asked if she would sing with me. She came to the studio, gave me some coaching. Her style was confident, witty, sexy, but mostly heartfelt. She was always connected to her heart when she sang, and I think that’s what made her a star.”

Also on the party agenda: the announcement by Griffin of a memorial tribute to the singer on Dec. 10 at his Beverly Hilton Hotel to benefit the Mayo Clinic Rosemary Clooney Pulmonary Research Fund. “She was at Mayo Clinic for four months and they were so wonderful to her that she wanted to do something for people who are afflicted with lung disorders,” Murdock explained.

“It will be one of the great nights, with Tony Bennett, George Clooney, Diana Krall, Keely Smith, Linda Ronstadt, Debby Boone and more,” Griffin told the crowd. “And I know Rosie will be there watching and loving every second of it.”