All the seasons and the times of your days

Another legendary composer has departed for Fabulon - the sublimely talented Michel Legrand, Oscar-winning composer of the music for The Thomas Crown Affair, Yentl and Summer of 42, and the genius whose scores made such French-language films as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort huge international hits.


Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda, Michel Legrand, and Catherine Deneuve on the set of The Young Girls Of Rochefort

Over the years he collaborated with a glittering array of stars including Sacha Distel, Caterina Valente, Petula Clark, Miles Davis, Catherine Deneuve, Dame Shirl, Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, Nana Mouskouri, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra. Along the way, he wrote numerous songs that became cherished standards, performed by a wide range of singers. Here's just a few of them:

Shirley Bassey - How do you keep the music playing?

Nana Mouskouri and Michel Legrand - I Will Wait For You

Dusty Springfield - The Windmills Of Your Mind

Blossom Dearie - Once upon a Summertime

Alison Moyet and Michel Legrand - Between Yesterday and Tomorrow

Michel Legrand working with Barbara Streisand and the Bergmans on Yentl in 1983

Alongside writers Alan and Marilyn Bergman, he had a particular and long-standing affinity with Barbra Streisand.

Barbra Streisand and Michel Legrand - The way he makes me feel

Barbra Streisand - Papa, Can You Hear Me?

Barbra Streisand and Michel Legrand - What are you doing the rest of your life?

What are you doing the rest of your life?
North and south and east and west of your life
I have only one request of your life
That you spend it all with me

All the seasons and the times of your days
All the nickels and the dimes of your days
Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days
All begin and end with me

I want to see your face
In every kind of light
In fields of dawn
And forests of the night

And when you stand before the candles on the cake
Oh, let me be the one to hear the silent wish you make

Those tomorrow's waiting deep in your eyes
And the world of love you keep in your eyes
I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes
It may take a kiss or two

He will be sadly missed.

RIP Michel Jean Legrand (24th February 1932 – 26th January 2019)

News of the Gay

Dahlings! It's all gay, gay, gay today...

We went to see Kinky Boots last night, and it was all I could do to stop dancing on my broken foot [but more of that later, no doubt...] - fantabulosa!


"My trunks are quite small, it's kind of how it is."

The utterly gorgeous Tom Daley has been swanning around in his teeny tiniest pants again for the Olympics. Cue the saliva...



That magnificently camp jazz singer (and house fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers), the late, great Blossom Dearie would have celebrated her 82nd birthday. Here she is, singing her "theme tune", I'm Hip:

Blossom Dearie - I'm Hip!

A very different kind of performer, and no less beloved, Miss Ann-Margret is seventy-five years old! She's "auditioning" for The Rockettes. Apparently.

Ann-Margret and The Rockettes

Oh! And this happened:

Absolutely Fabulous - The Movie trailer

It's a fish!

If I were a bell, I'd go ding-dong-ding-dong-ding

Eternal thanks to that font of knowledge of all things Kylie, Marky at Shine On And On for this fab snippet of information:

Kylie Minogue pays a personal tribute to one of the most unique jazz artists of the last 50 years; Blossom Dearie. A ‘musician’s musician’, Dearie was an iconic figure on the cabaret circuit in New York, Paris and London. Citing her as a major influence – indeed the two singers met shortly before Blossom died in 2009 – Minogue explores, first hand on both sides of the Atlantic, this fascinating musical career.

Kylie on Blossom: Thursday 22nd December at 10.00pm, BBC Radio 2.

We shall be listening!

Blossom Dearie was a jazz singer in the "cabaret style" - one of our favourite singers of that genre here at Dolores Delargo Towers - with more than thirty hugely successful albums to her credit in a nine decade career. She collaborated over her years with artists and writers as diverse as Miles Davis, Johnny Mercer, Annie Ross, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Sting! Critic Whitney Balliett once wrote: "Her voice would scarcely reach the second story of a doll house". What tosh.

You can decide for yourself, as I have chosen for your delectation just a small selection of some of Miss Dearie's finest recordings:

Blossom Dearie - I'm Hip

Blossom Dearie - Lush Life

Blossom Dearie and Billy Taylor - If I Were a Bell

Blossom Dearie - The Lies of Handsome Men

Facts about Blossom Dearie:

• Blossom Dearie was her real name. She was so named because she was born in April when blossoms were at their height; Dearie is he father's Scottish family name.
• She moved to Paris in 1952 and formed a vocal group "The Blue Stars of Paris", which included Michel Legrand's sister. The group would later evolve into the Swingle Singers.
• From her first appearance at Ronnie Scott's club in London in 1966 Blossom Dearie became a cult musical figure in Swinging London, and recorded four albums in the UK.

Blossom Dearie died on 7th February 2009, aged 84, at her apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City.

RIP

Blossom Dearie website