Thursday, September 20, 2012
Liza Barbra & Aretha!
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Barbra Streisand's RELEASE ME Due 9/25 With Several Broadway Tracks
http://broadwayworld.com/article/Barbra-Streisands-RELEASE-ME-Due-925-With-Several-Broadway-Tracks-20120816
Thursday, August 16, 2012; 02:08 PM - by BWW News Desk
Barbra Streisand's LP RELEASE ME is slated to be released next month. Retailers, including Amazon and Elusive Disc, list the release date as September 25 (the CD release will be out a week later on October 2) and the track listing as follows:
1. Being Good Isn't Good Enough (from Hallelujah, Baby!)
2. Didn't We
3. Willow Weep For Me
4. Try To Win A Friend
5. I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today
6. With One More Look At You (from A Star Is Born)
7. Lost In Wonderland
8. How Are Things In Glocca Morra?/ Heather On the Hill (from Finian’s Rainbow/Brigadoon)
9. Mother And Child
10. If It’s Meant To Be
11. Home (from The Wiz)
Streisand has appeared on Broadway in I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE and FUNNY GIRL, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. Streisand won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role in the film version of the musical. Her next two movies were also based on musicals, Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, directed by Gene Kelly (1969), and Alan Jay Lerner's and Burton Lane's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, directed by Vincente Minnelli (1970). Additionally, she has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, one special Tony Award, five Emmy Awards including one Daytime Emmy, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.
RELEASE ME features previously unreleased recordings from Streisand's career. "It was quite interesting to go through the vaults, find these recordings and hear them again with the benefit of hindsight," Streisand says of the record. "You could say I’m more forgiving of myself now. In fact, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I actually like the overall recordings, even with their flaws. Although I could have re-sung certain lines where I thought they could be improved, I decided to leave every vocal the way it was."
Read more: http://broadwayworld.com/article/Barbra-Streisands-RELEASE-ME-Due-925-With-Several-Broadway-Tracks-20120816#ixzz24Ogs5hFf
Barbra Streisand's LP RELEASE ME is slated to be released next month. Retailers, including Amazon and Elusive Disc, list the release date as September 25 (the CD release will be out a week later on October 2) and the track listing as follows:
1. Being Good Isn't Good Enough (from Hallelujah, Baby!)
2. Didn't We
3. Willow Weep For Me
4. Try To Win A Friend
5. I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today
6. With One More Look At You (from A Star Is Born)
7. Lost In Wonderland
8. How Are Things In Glocca Morra?/ Heather On the Hill (from Finian’s Rainbow/Brigadoon)
9. Mother And Child
10. If It’s Meant To Be
11. Home (from The Wiz)
Streisand has appeared on Broadway in I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE and FUNNY GIRL, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. Streisand won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role in the film version of the musical. Her next two movies were also based on musicals, Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, directed by Gene Kelly (1969), and Alan Jay Lerner's and Burton Lane's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, directed by Vincente Minnelli (1970). Additionally, she has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, one special Tony Award, five Emmy Awards including one Daytime Emmy, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.
RELEASE ME features previously unreleased recordings from Streisand's career. "It was quite interesting to go through the vaults, find these recordings and hear them again with the benefit of hindsight," Streisand says of the record. "You could say I’m more forgiving of myself now. In fact, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I actually like the overall recordings, even with their flaws. Although I could have re-sung certain lines where I thought they could be improved, I decided to leave every vocal the way it was."
Read more: http://broadwayworld.com/article/Barbra-Streisands-RELEASE-ME-Due-925-With-Several-Broadway-Tracks-20120816#ixzz24Ogs5hFf
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Reminder: 'VITO' Airs on HBO check listings until Tues.
http://www.frontiersla.com/Blog/FrontierBlog/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10406781
Vito Russo
By Karen Ocamb
As you know, HBO was a presenting sponsor for this year’s Outfest film festival, and the documentary Vito was the opening night film for the festival's 30th anniversary. The highly regarded film airs tonight on HBO. As a preview, check out the interview Renee Sotile and Mary Jo Godges of Traipsing Thru Films conducted with director Jeffery Schwarz, composer Miriam Cutler and Russo's friend Bruce Vilanch, who says that Russo left him the only film of Bette Midler with Barry Manilow on piano performing at the gay Continental Baths.
Gay and AIDS activist Vito Russo thought it was critical that LGBT people understand the history of how we have been represented on film—which contributed to how society saw and treated us in real life. In that vein, I’ve been working on an overview piece on Outfest and some of the films I saw. I am writing two “stand alone” pieces on How to Survive a Plague and Love Free or Die about Bishop Gene Robinson in order to go more in depth. Please see the list of Outfest award winners at FrontiersLA.com.
Vito Russo and Bette Midler
Vito Russo As you know, HBO was a presenting sponsor for this year’s Outfest film festival, and the documentary Vito was the opening night film for the festival's 30th anniversary. The highly regarded film airs tonight on HBO. As a preview, check out the interview Renee Sotile and Mary Jo Godges of Traipsing Thru Films conducted with director Jeffery Schwarz, composer Miriam Cutler and Russo's friend Bruce Vilanch, who says that Russo left him the only film of Bette Midler with Barry Manilow on piano performing at the gay Continental Baths.
Gay and AIDS activist Vito Russo thought it was critical that LGBT people understand the history of how we have been represented on film—which contributed to how society saw and treated us in real life. In that vein, I’ve been working on an overview piece on Outfest and some of the films I saw. I am writing two “stand alone” pieces on How to Survive a Plague and Love Free or Die about Bishop Gene Robinson in order to go more in depth. Please see the list of Outfest award winners at FrontiersLA.com.
Vito Russo and Bette Midler
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Marilyn Monroe A Lesbian?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/marilyn-monroe-lesbian-book_n_1706190.html
Marilyn Monroe A Lesbian? Hollywood Icon Had Affairs With Women, New Book Alleges ...
She might have been one of the world's premier sex symbols, but Marilyn Monroe was plagued with well-documented personal insecurities -- among them the possibility she might be a lesbian, a new book alleges.
Author Lois Banner describes Monroe's doubts about her sexuality in her new book, "Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox," an extract of which has been published in The Guardian.
"She had affairs with many eminent men –- baseball great Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, director Elia Kazan, actor Marlon Brando, singer Frank Sinatra, the Kennedy brothers –- and she married DiMaggio and Miller," Banner writes. "Yet she desired women, had affairs with them, and worried that she might be lesbian by nature."
She continues, "How could she be the world's heterosexual sex goddess and desire women? How could she have the world's most perfect body on the outside and have such internal imperfections? Why was she unable to bear a child? The adult Marilyn was haunted by these questions."
Still, Banner's profile of Monroe, who died in 1962 at the age of 36, is more flattering in other respects. The author even argues that the icon, frequently brushed aside as a "dumb blonde" or simply as a sex object, had the makings of an early feminist.
"She certainly took actions that could be called feminist," she writes. "Her entire life was a process of self-formation. She was a genius at self-creation and made herself into an actress and a star. She formed her own production company, she fought the moguls to a standstill, and she publicly named the sexual abuse visited on her as a child: a major –- and unacknowledged –- feminist act."
Of course, Banner is by no means the first to argue that the "Some Like It Hot" star might have swung both ways. Monroe is believed to have admitted to sexual encounters with Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich, as well as acting coach Paula Strasberg.
She might have been one of the world's premier sex symbols, but Marilyn Monroe was plagued with well-documented personal insecurities -- among them the possibility she might be a lesbian, a new book alleges.
Author Lois Banner describes Monroe's doubts about her sexuality in her new book, "Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox," an extract of which has been published in The Guardian.
"She had affairs with many eminent men –- baseball great Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, director Elia Kazan, actor Marlon Brando, singer Frank Sinatra, the Kennedy brothers –- and she married DiMaggio and Miller," Banner writes. "Yet she desired women, had affairs with them, and worried that she might be lesbian by nature."
She continues, "How could she be the world's heterosexual sex goddess and desire women? How could she have the world's most perfect body on the outside and have such internal imperfections? Why was she unable to bear a child? The adult Marilyn was haunted by these questions."
Still, Banner's profile of Monroe, who died in 1962 at the age of 36, is more flattering in other respects. The author even argues that the icon, frequently brushed aside as a "dumb blonde" or simply as a sex object, had the makings of an early feminist.
"She certainly took actions that could be called feminist," she writes. "Her entire life was a process of self-formation. She was a genius at self-creation and made herself into an actress and a star. She formed her own production company, she fought the moguls to a standstill, and she publicly named the sexual abuse visited on her as a child: a major –- and unacknowledged –- feminist act."
Of course, Banner is by no means the first to argue that the "Some Like It Hot" star might have swung both ways. Monroe is believed to have admitted to sexual encounters with Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich, as well as acting coach Paula Strasberg.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Cyndi Lauper ~ She boosts a shelter for LGBT youth, she’s crazy about Pride, but don’t call her a gay icon
Cyndi Lauper’s a little sick of being called a gay icon. I try it out on her and get a bit of a slapdown.
“Don’t call me that,” she says. “Sometimes the icon thing, it sounds frivolous. It’s not only about makeup.”
She thinks about that for a second and relents. “...although I love makeup. I am the Viva Glam girl. I actually regret that I have only one face for all this makeup.
“But I’m not Streisand, I’m not Liza Minnelli. I don’t even dance. I tried doing that once at the Gay Games in 1994, but the shoes alone made that hard.”
Reading her words doesn’t give you the full sense of what it’s like to chat with one of the world’s most enduring pop stars. Let’s just say that when she gets on a roll, it’s impossible to stop her. We’re eight minutes into what’s supposed to be a 15-minute interview before I try to sneak in another question.
“I just have to finish what I was just saying,” she says.
Then there’s that voice, and the squeaky, heavy-duty Queens accent that makes her sound like she’s five years old and not the veteran singer and actor with 10 albums behind her, a Grammy and an Emmy, too. So “Don’t call me that” comes across as “Dooo’nt coo-all me thee-at.”
Though she rejects icon status, she does allow that she’s super-connected to the queer community. Her story about that is, as she says, not frivolous at all.
“I thought of the gay community as a refuge to get away from, well, straight people, actually, who kept asking, ‘Why are you so different?’ and I couldn’t take it any more.”
When she was asked to sing at the Gay Games in 1994, she jumped at the chance. But she was upset at the way the organizers treated the drag queens.
“The drag performers weren’t celebrated, and nobody wanted to focus on them. They were never even on the Jumbotron,” she recalls. “And I got a little mad and thought to myself, ‘Okay, don’t show them. I’m gonna make a video. I’m gonna make these gays famous. And I’m not just gonna show their shoes – you’re going to get to know them.’”
After she made the video for Hey Now in Europe, her friends encouraged her to get her own float in New York’s Pride parade.
“A guy came up to me and handed me a rainbow flag and said, ‘Your song True Colors inspired me to design this flag,’” she recalls. “I’d written sang the song for my friend Gregory, who died of AIDS.”
Since then, she’s helped launch the True Colors tour, with proceeds going to gay rights groups, and the True Colors shelter for queer youth in New York City. She also recently launched the Give A Damn campaign to promote respect for queer people – that’s the TV spot in which Oscar winner Anna Paquin comes out as bisexual – and appeared on TV’s The Celebrity Apprentice, naming True Colors her charity.
Lauper says she’d been hearing about kids at risk for years.
“When you’re a teenager, the streets are hard – and it’s harder when you don’t have your family. People were writing me, and I kept hearing the same story about being thrown out, losing your friends, losing your job, being discarded. I’m a mother now, and I know I could never do anything like that, fucking never.
“You can’t work in a community and look at people and see something terribly wrong and not step in.”
When I jokingly express the wish – shared by many of her queer fans – that she switch sides and join the gay team, she is again not amused.
“We need straight people to step up and change things, because in our country gay people don’t have civil rights. This is a civil rights movement. We need the straight community to stand beside our gay sisters and brothers to make change. We need the power of the people – and that means all of the people.”
At the June 7 meeting at the 519 in support of free speech at Pride and to organize against Pride’s decision to ban the term “Israeli apartheid” at the big parade (Pride has since changed its mind about that), some activists suggested taking action at Lauper’s big concert Saturday (July 3) at Queen’s Park. Next to the Pride Day parade, her event is considered this year’s biggest draw. When I ask Lauper what she thinks about a protest at her gig, she gives it some serious thought.
“Oh,” she says, and I can almost hear the gears turning inside her head. “In a way it is like apartheid [in Israel], because the Palestinians are outside of the city like the South African blacks were.
“They [Queers Against Israeli Apartheid] should hand out information so people can read about it. For crying out loud, if people can hand out pamphlets for hamburgers or manicures, [QuAIA] should hand out theirs, as long as it’s backed up by information. If you have people’s stories, that’s the best.”
With all the political talk and Lauper’s high-profile support of the LGBT community, it’s easy to forget that she has a new album.
Memphis Blues (Downtown) features covers of blues classics, including Rollin And Tumblin’ and Wild Women Don’t Get The Blues. It could be seen as a major departure for one of the queens of pop, but Lauper says that isn’t so.
“This album is like coming home. I was trained by [jazz singer] Betty Scott. She was the one who taught me to listen to Billie Holiday. This is the basis of everything I’ve ever sung. Everything is based on blues and call-and-response – dance, rock, hip-hop.”
Lauper also got the benefit of some of the genre’s greatest session players.
“When Ann Peebles walked in to do guest vocals, I cried. I wanted to tell her how many times I sang with her in a hotel room, how many times I listened to I Can’t Stand The Rain.”
Lauper even got work from Skip Pitts, the man who played the wah-wah guitar hook on Isaac Hayes’s R&B classic Shaft.
“How many times have I been in a recording studio and said to the guitarist, ‘No, no, I want it like the guitar in Shaft’?” she asks me rhetorically. “Then I’m in the studio and I turn around and there he is – Skip Pitts.”
susanc@nowtoronto.com
NOW
June 30-July 7, 2010
VOL 29 NO 44
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