And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave

[Roberta Flack photographed by Anthony Barboza, 1971. Image ©: the National Museum of African American History and Culture.]

More sad news yesterday - one of the last of the great soul and blues divas Miss Roberta Flack has departed to Fabulon, to join the greatest choir in history no doubt.

Facts:

• In her early career Miss Flack accompanied opera singers at the piano, but was "discovered" a few years later in the early 1970s as a performer at a jazz cabaret club.
• Her big break came when Clint Eastwood chose the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for the soundtrack of his directing debut Play Misty For Me and it became the biggest hit of 1972.
• She was once the neighbour of John Lennon and Yoko Ono when they all lived in The Dakota apartment building in New York.
• She was the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year on consecutive occasions – in 1973 for The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and the following year for Killing Me Softly (With His Song).
• Her Roberta Flack School of Music in the Bronx provides free music education to underprivileged students.

We loved her, and her beautiful mellow voice. Here are her two greatest numbers, by way of a tribute:

Roberta Flack - First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly With His Song

And speaking of "heavenly choirs"...

Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack - Ain't Got Nothing But The Blues/Rocks In My Bed/I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)/In My Solitude/Mood Indigo/Azure (Tribute to Duke Ellington, 1973)

Utter perfection.

She's a huge loss.

RIP, Roberta Cleopatra Flack (10th February 1937 - 24th February 2025)

Just knock three times and whisper low

Happy birthday, dear Hils!

Amid an impressive "mixed bag" of fellow birthday celebrants including Terry Wogan, Jean Hagen, Steven Berkoff, Dolores del Rio, Gina G, Martin Sheen, Rupert Brooke, Evangeline Lilly, Stanley Baldwin, Tasmin Archer, PD James, Martha Stewart, Kirk Brandon, Nadia Ali of iiO, John Landis, Tony Bennett (95 today), Skin from Skunk Anansie... and my sister Hils - it's the centenary today of another of the great composers/lyricists of the classic era of musicals, Mr Richard Adler!

Among the great man's long list of compositions are these camp standards:

Cher - Hernando's Hideaway

Doris Day - Everybody Loves a Lover

Sarah Vaughan/Satin Dollz - Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)

Love 'em all!

Facts:

• Mr Adler's second wife was none other than "Truly Scrumptious" Sally Anne Howes.
• His partnership with fellow composer/lyricist Jerry Ross produced not only the enduring musicals The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, but the duo also wrote all the musical numbers for the revue John Murray Anderson's Almanac [an original cast recording of which is, needless to say, in our collection here at Dolores Delargo Towers], which launched the careers in the US of Harry Belafonte and Hermione Gingold.
• He was the producer of the famous 1962 Madison Square Garden birthday celebration for John F. Kennedy, when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday, Mister President.
• Mr Adler also composed the symphonic work The Lady Remembers, which was among the pieces performed at the Statue of Liberty's centennial in 1984.

Richard Adler (3rd August 1921 – 21st June 2012)

More lost without you, and so it goes

Janelle, whoooo?!



"I am not a special person. I am a regular person who does special things."

"There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste."

"As soon as I hear an arrangement, I get ideas, kind of like blowing a horn. I guess I never sing a tune the same way twice..."

"There are notes between notes, you know."

"I dig Doris Day!"


To celebrate, here is "The Divine One" herself, with her inimitable version of a cabaret standard...

Sarah Vaughan - The More I See You

We adore her.

Sarah Lois Vaughan (27th March 1924 – 3rd April 1990)

You taunt me with memories

Here's a good one - how to combine birthday celebrations for a revered Diva with a sort-of-ongoing "meme" (#adecadeago - see here, here, here and here)...

It is the 82nd birthday today of the divine Roberta Flack [she shares the celebrations with that "national treasure", classic-era Blue Peter host Peter Purves (who blows out 80 candles!), with Leontyne Price (92) and with Robert Wagner (89); today would also have been the 109th of Joyce Grenfell].

Needless to say, ten years ago I also did a blog post to mark the occasion [there having been a long-standing "mystery" over her date of birth, at the time I had it as being her 70th...], and I did similar a month later for the birthday of Aretha.

It is from the latter rather than the former blog, however, that I have chosen to lift this classic "supergroup" performance [out of which line-up Miss Flack is sadly the only surviving member] - it's long overdue another airing, methinks...

Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack - Ain't Got Nothing But The Blues/Rocks In My Bed/I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)/In My Solitude/Mood Indigo/Azure (Tribute to Duke Ellington, 1973)

Utter perfection.

Flack Facts:

• In her early career Miss Flack accompanied opera singers at the piano, but was "discovered" a few years later in the early 1970s as a performer at a jazz cabaret club.
• Her big break came when Clint Eastwood chose the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for the soundtrack of his directing debut Play Misty For Me and it became the biggest hit of 1972.
• She was once the neighbour of John Lennon and Yoko Ono when they all lived in The Dakota apartment building in New York.
• She was the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year on consecutive occasions – in 1973 for The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and the following year for Killing Me Softly (With His Song).
• Her Roberta Flack School of Music in the Bronx provides free music education to underprivileged students.

Many happy returns, Roberta Cleopatra Flack (born 10th February 1937)

Sassy with a Gunn

It's a grey old start to the day, but I am off to meet up with John-John to (finally) get to see a showing of the film Pride at the BFI - as part of the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, nowadays clumsily known as "BFI Flare" - so that should be fun.

It was also Sassy's birthday yesterday - and what could be more sassy than her vocal version of the theme from the ultra-noir series Peter Gunn [With a fab remix to boot]?

Sarah Vaughan - Peter Gunn (remix)

Sarah Vaughan (27th March 1924 – 3rd April 1990)

A precious Pearl

The outrageously fabulous Miss Pearl Bailey, had she lived, would have been 96 years old today.

She was not only a ground-breaking artist in her own right, making a successful crossover from Harlem nightclubs and singing with big band-leaders such as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington to become a genuine all-round entertainer; she was also an early supporter of gay rights (she steered the career of drag superstar Mr Lynne Carter), headed a Tony Award-winning all-black cast of Hello Dolly! and had her own very successful TV variety show during the 70s.

She even wrote her own cookbook!



Miss Bailey also sang with everyone who was anyone in showbiz, including Carol Channing, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Ethel Waters, Moms Mabley and many many more. Like these...

Here she is with Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and Andy Williams:

Three music legends on the Pearl Bailey Show

And here, the lady forms a formidable - and never to be repeated - trio with Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan!

Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan - 1979

Phenomenal.

Pearlie Mae Bailey (29th March 1918 – 17th August 1990)

Lola gets

It's my formidable sister's birthday today.

She shares her birthday with a real mixed bag of talent, including Steven Berkoff, Dolores del Rio*, Martin Sheen, Rupert Brooke, Stanley Baldwin (1930s Prime Minister), PD James, Martha Stewart (American style guru), Kirk Brandon (Boy George's ex), John Landis, Tony Bennett...

...and Richard Adler, the composer of this song.

Dedicated to dear Hils, it's Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)!

Sarah Vaughan/Satin Dollz - Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)

Have a lovely day, dearie!

* PS Dolores del Rio is our latest entry in the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp...

The trembling trees embrace the breeze

Another day, another beloved diva to celebrate...

What better way to start any day than with the remarkable tonsils of today's birthday girl, the much-missed magnificent Miss Sarah Vaughan?

Sarah Vaughan - Tenderly

Sarah Vaughan - Serenata

Sarah Vaughan - Fascinatin' Rhythm (live, 1988)

No-one else could do what "Sassy" did!

"When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don't even notice."

"There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste."

"There are notes between notes, you know."

Sarah Lois Vaughan (27th March 1924 - 3rd April 1990)

Ooo, your kisses, sweeter than honey

Happy birthday today to one of the greatest singers of all time, Miss Aretha Franklin!

Rightly lauded throughout her five-decade career as "The Queen of Soul", Aretha has tried her hand at many genres of music, including gospel (her roots), jazz, pop, R&B, disco, and even opera. Always a fighter, she emerged from a lowly background with two teenage pregnancies already behind her, to become a hit recording artist at just 18. But it was to be a further few years before she released the ground-breaking Respect, and became an international sensation. She swiftly followed up this success with classics such as Think, I Say A Little Prayer and Spanish Harlem.

In early 1968 Franklin won her first two Grammies and went on to win eight "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" awards in a row (and eighteen in total), she has been awarded the Kennedy Centre Honour and The Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was the first woman to enter the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, selling millions of records along the way. She has collaborated with the greats of soul and pop, including Otis Redding, Luther Vandross, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, George Benson, Eurythmics, James Brown, George Michael and Lauryn Hill, yet remains very much her own woman, with famous "spats" with Roberta Flack, Beyonce and Tina Turner.

Always larger-than life, Aretha Franklin is a formidable force to be reckoned with, and there is no-one, vocally, these days who can touch her!

Only Aretha could stand in for the magnificent Luciano Pavarotti:

Here she is competing brilliantly with three other great vocalists, Miss Peggy Lee, Miss Sarah Vaughan and Miss Roberta Flack:

Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack

And here she beats Mr Tom Jones hands-down:

Aretha Franklin and Tom Jones

Aretha Franklin website