¡El retorno!

Yes, we are back from another marvellous, fun-packed week in the (slightly breezy) sunshine of the lovely resort of Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol - tanned and gorgeous as ever!

We made the trip especially to join the celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of our favourite and most regular beach bar, Palm 5, a tribute to its owner Arnold, and to the loveliest crew of staff you'll find anywhere - Rita, Kim, Danny, Sophie and the rest. There was a party on the Saturday evening we arrived and, despite being somewhat shell-shocked (as we were after two consecutive nights out at the theatre and a long day travelling), we had a whale of a time, especially as some familiar faces had also made the effort to be there, including former team members Manon (who now has her own bar Miluca along the paseo, which we also always visit), the lovely Andy (who was there with Arnold right at the outset when we first visited nineteen years ago), and the fantabulosa Cinzia [with us in the top photo] (who, by the end of her stay, had agreed to return to Palm 5 as manager!).

With all that, and great food, booze, visits to our night-time haunts in La Nogilera in Torremolinos Chessa Bar and Vida, booze, more great food, wallowing in the sun-terrace of another favourite bar The Dizzy Donkey, a Flamenco evening, and booze on top, we had a great holiday!

But what did we miss while we were away?

• New mitre, old dictatorship news: There's a new Pope, apparently.
• 'Tis the season news: The BBC Proms 2025 lineup was announced just before we left, and tickets go on sale this week. I haven't looked at it thoroughly, to be honest, but somehow I doubt we'll be buying tickets - especially since our fave event Proms in the Park is now defunct. Here's the trailer, for your delectation:

Get ready for the Proms 2025

• Slow news: A tortoise that went missing nine months ago has been found - just a mile from his home!
• A salutary tale: Don't volunteer to be a nude model for an art student!
• Old cocks cause arguments news: A professor at Oxford University says there are 93 depictions of male genitalia in the Bayeux Tapestry, while an expert on Anglo-Saxon nudity claims he has found an extra phallus. Cock-spotting? A hobby I understand.

Speaking of which: we missed celebrating the 50th birthday of sex god David Beckham...

...and that of Enrique Iglesias, as well as the 70ths of Donatella Versace and Anne-Sofie von Otter, the 60ths of Rob Brydon and Linda Evangelista and Lily Allen's 40th - and the 99th birthday of the "national treasure" Sir David Attenborough! We also missed the chance to bid a fond farewell to the faboo Ruth Buzzi, of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In fame...

Whew.

To finish, here's a piece of music that was played at the Palm 5 party - we love it!

Dusty Springfield - Spooky [Quinten 909 Extended Remix]

Is it good to be back?

NO!!!

---

FOOTNOTE:

I haven't forgotten that it's a Tacky Music Monday - nor the fact that it's the Eurovision Song Contest (and our accompanying party, of course) this weekend.

Blending the two perfectly - this!

Subwoolfer - Give That Wolf A Banana

Oh, I cannot wait to see if anyone this year can top that!

If you peruse the people in the news, the people that the magazines all mention...

It's always a nightmare, after a lovely (and busy) weekend, to find it cut short by...WORK.

Ah, well, 'tis the necessary chore we do in order to pay the bills, and for holidays...

...and we have something to cheer us up - for, by a fortuitous turn of events, there's a Patron Saint to venerate!

Tomorrow would have marked the 85th birthday of the sublime Miss Dusty Springfield: icon, national treasure, and possessor of one of the finest voices in pop music history. But how, I hear you say, would the divine Dusty ever fit in with a Tacky Music Monday?!

Here's how!

Dusty Springfield on the Liberace Show (1969) [also featuring Millicent Martin and Phyllis Diller]

[Wait until around 8:30 for the real campery to commence...]

Dusty Springfield (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, 16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

Have a good week, dear reader.

Always posing, but you love it all

Yes. I used to look like this. Time's a terrible thing.

As it's my 60th birthday today, I thought I'd indulge myself with some of my favourite music...

How about six decades' worth?

1960s:

Dusty Springfield - You Don't Have To Say You Love Me

1970s:

Blondie - Picture This

1980s:

Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin

1990s:

Youssou N'Dour ft. Neneh Cherry - Seven Seconds

2000s:

Madonna - Hung Up

2010s:

Kylie Minogue - All The Lovers

Then there are the songs that transcend decades. The likes of Soft Cell - Tainted Love [and just about anything Marc Almond has ever done], David Bowie - Queen Bitch [and just about anything Bowie ever did (check out the "Queen Bitch" link for my week-long tribute to the man on the news of his death)], Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill [and an endless list of beloved works by her], Grace Jones - Private Life [and, again, just about anything else in her repertoire], Raffaella Carra - Do It, Do It Again, White Town - Your Woman, Visage - Fade to Grey, Patti Smith - Because The Night, Liza Minnelli - Mein Herr, Erasure - A Little Respect, Shakespear's Sister - Stay, Tom Robinson - War Baby, Dead Or Alive - You Spin Me Round...

...and gazillions of others from the likes of Doris Day, Eartha Kitt, Bette Midler, Dalida, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Divine, Style Council, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, All Seeing I, Petula Clark, Ofra Haza, Dinah Washington, Laura Branigan, Ian Dury, Lisa Stansfield, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Nina Simone, Three Degrees, KLF, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Cilla Black, Associates, Caro Emerald, Régine, Postmodern Jukebox, Talking Heads, Elaine Stritch, Simple Minds, Celia Cruz, Beautiful South, S-Club 7, Carol Channing, Sam Brown, Jimmy Somerville, Vikki Carr, Donna Summer, Blossom Dearie, ABC, Mika, Etta James, Duran Duran, Lou Reed, Scissor Sisters, Cher, Pearl Bailey, Fangoria, Hot Chocolate, Rocio Jurado, Queen, Klaus Nomi, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Mitzi Gaynor, B-52s, Loleatta Holloway, Adam and the Ants, Gina G, Gina X, Eurythmics/Annie Lennox, Roisin Murphy, Chaka Khan, Conchita Wurst, Edith Piaf, Human League, Rose Royce, Dolly Parton, Depeche Mode, Faithless, Monica Naranjo, Ethel Merman, Alison Jiear, Ysa Ferrer, Divine Comedy, Peggy Lee, Steps, Ella Fitzgerald, Mamas and The Papas, George Michael/Wham, Baccara, Yma Sumac, New Order, Puppini Sisters, Take That, Ultra Nate, Bananarama, Isabel Pantoja, Heaven 17, Diana Ross, Kirsty McColl, Roxy Music, Tina Turner, Flying Lizards, The Cure, Marianne Faithfull and so on. And on. And on...
[All searchable on this very blog]

Then there are the musicals - including Sweet Charity, Chicago, La Cage Aux Folles, Gypsy, Cabaret, Little Shop of Horrors and everything by Stephen Sondheim [that link takes you to the week-long series of tributes I did when he departed for Fabulon] - and the classical and operatic stuff [too numerous to mention].

However, dear reader, I still have one more beloved song by one more - the ultimate - diva to play. It's rather appropriate, you see:

Shirley Bassey - If I Never Sing Another Song

In my heyday
Young men wrote to me
Everybody seemed to have time to devote to me
Everyone I saw all swore they knew me
Once upon a song

Main attraction, couldn't buy a seat
The celebrity celebrities were dying to meet
I've had every accolade bestowed on me
And so you see

If I never sing another song
It wouldn't bother me
I had my share of fame
You know my name

If I never sing another song
Or take another bow
I would get by, but I'm not sure how

Always posing, but you love it all
Though you have to learn to act like you're above it all
Everything I did the world applauded
Once upon a star

Framed citations, hung on every wall
Got a scrapbook full of quotes, I can recall them all
There were times I felt the world belonged to me
And so you see

If I never sing another song
It wouldn't bother me
I had my share of fame
You know my name

If I never sing another song
Or take another bow
I would get by, but I'm not sure how
But I'm not sure how
But I'm not sure how

It is nothing to do with the wine

And so, on the last day of freedom before the work week begins again, we continue the slog to get the garden in some sort of order.

My back is aching already from yesterday after washing pots, window boxes and planters [and there's still dozens yet to do]. and taking every leaf off the poor old Cordyline that had its crown killed by frost [in readiness to decapitate it, seal the wound and hope for new growth], and those off the ferns, and re-potting a few plants that were groaning out of their pots, and sweeping up the detritus of dead snails and muck, and severing sycamore seedlings [which are everywhere!], and, and, and...

A gardener's job is never ending.

Time for some appropriate "Sunday Music", methinks.

Sharing the day (as she does) with Dame Joan Bakewell (who is 90!), Charlie Chaplin, Peter Ustinov, Spike Milligan, Henry Mancini, Gerry Rafferty, Ellen Barkin, Bobby Vinton, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Guy Burgess, Kingsley Amis, Vince Hill, Robert Stigwood, John Harvey-Jones, Claire Foy and - erm - "Little" Jimmy Osmond (who's 60), it would have been our late, great Patron Saint Dusty Springfield's birthday today!

And here she is, with my most favourite song of hers:

Dusty Springfield - I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten

Dusty Springfield OBE (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, 16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

Dusty going nowhere

Dusty Springfield would have been 81 today. In recognition, here's her splendid version of a most appropriate Martha And The Vandellas song for the current "self-isolation society"...

Dusty Springfield - Nowhere To Run

Dusty Springfield OBE (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, 16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999).

We still miss you.

I guess it's just the story of my life - what you gonna say?

Our Patron Saint of the Beehive 'Do, Miss Dusty Springfield would have been 80 years old today. We still miss her.

I have, of course, done many a tribute to the great lady over the years, so today I thought I'd select a few more - ahem - unusual moments from Dusty's long and extensive career in the spotlight, for your delectation. Enjoy...

Dusty Springfield - "Love Medley": The Look Of Love/ Just A Little Lovin'/Breakfast In Bed/You Don't Have To Say You Love Me

Dusty Springfield - Come Back To Me

Dusty Springfield - I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten

Dusty Springfield - In Private

A goddess walked amongst us. For that we should be eternally grateful.

Dusty Springfield OBE (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, 16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

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)

Farewell to the leopardskin

And so, farewell then, Mr Peter Stringfellow - that most flamboyant of entrepreneurs; the King of the Clubs (he ran music venues in his native Sheffield and Leeds from the early 60s - booking acts that included Rod Stewart, The Beatles and The Stones - before relocating to London to found his Soho "gentlemen's clubs" empire), his relentless talent for self-promotion made him a fortune, as well as carving himself a niche among Britain's long, long list of "famous eccentrics". His refusal to update his trademark mullet 'do, the gold and the bling, the velvet and the leopardskin, the occasional whiff of scandal, his numerous relationships with "dolly-birds" - he was as familiar a face in the tabloids as many genuine "stars". More often than not he was photographed with them, anyway!

Among his many lesser-known ventures was his launch of regular gay nights (on a mega-scale) at his flagship venue, The Hippodrome on Leicester Square, and his founding of a record company. Combining the two things quite neatly, his biggest signing was none other than the eternal gay icon Miss Dusty Springfield. Although she only recorded one song for Hippodrome Records - a slow number (albeit written by Donna Summer) called Sometimes like Butterflies - she did appear live at the club, to the joy of her mainly gay audience:

Dusty Springfield - All I See Is You/Put Your Hands Together (Live at The Hippodrome)

To round off in an appropriate vein, here's another Dusty number that is somewhat more fitting for our traditional end-of-week sign-off (as well as The Hippodrome dance-floor) - so why not hairspray yourself into oblivion, get your hands in the air, and Thank Disco It's Friday - with Baby Blue!

Dusty Springfield - Baby Blue

RIP Peter James Stringfellow (17th October 1940 – 7th June 2018)

I pour the drinks and crush the flowers

Timeslip moment again [to round off another delightful day's pottering in the sunny garden]...

Our Winnebago spaceship Eagle 5 has dropped us off in this week thirty years ago! In the news in late August 1987: the Hungerford massacre committed by Michael Ryan continued to engross the nation, as the death toll reached sixteen; the AIDS crisis was sweeping the UK; mass rallies in Estonia began its path towards full-scale rebellion against the USSR; the Order of the Garter was opened to women; in the ascendant were Michael Jackson (whose new album Bad went on to sell 35 million copies worldwide) and Lovastatin (the first of the cholesterol-reducing statins to be licensed for sale and use); but former "media darling" politician David Owen was in the doldrums (he had resigned as leader of the SDP after the party's decision to merge with the Liberals, and formed a breakaway party to limited success). In our cinemas: Lethal Weapon, Blind Date and An American Tail. On telly: The Ruth Rendell Mysteries; The Cook Report; sitcom Watching; and 24-hour telly began in the London and East Anglia ITV regions.

But what was in the charts this week in 1987? Hitting the the top spot for the first time was that eternal fave Rick Astley and Never Gonna Give You Up. Also in attendance in the Top Ten were such diverse talents as Sinitta, New Order, Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram, Def Leppard, Wet Wet Wet, Michael Jackson and Spagna.

But, held off the #1 position (and ultimately denied the honour by Rick's long reign) was this one [a song that, remarkably, I have never featured on this blog before, despite the fact we adore all the artists concerned] - this sublime collaboration between Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield:

Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield - What Have I Done To Deserve This?

You always wanted a lover
I only wanted a job
I’ve always worked for my living
How’m I gonna get through?
How’m I gonna get through?

I come here looking for money
(Got to have it)
and end up leaving with love
Now you’ve left me with nothing
(Can’t take it)
How’m I gonna get through?
How’m I gonna get through?

I bought you drinks, I brought you flowers
I read your books and talked for hours
Every day so many drinks
such pretty flowers, so tell me
What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?
What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?
What have I, what have I, what have I…

Since you went away I’ve been hanging around
I’ve been wondering why I’m feeling down
You went away, it should make me feel better
but I don’t know how I’m gonna get through
How I’m gonna get through

You always wanted me to be something I wasn’t
You always wanted too much
Now I can do what I want to forever
How’m I gonna get through?
How’m I gonna get through?

At night, the people come and go
They talk too fast and walk too slow
Chasing time from hour to hour
I pour the drinks and crush the flowers
What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?
What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?
What have I, what have I, what have I...

Since you went away I’ve been hanging around
I’ve been wondering why I’m feeling down
You went away, it should make me feel better
but I don’t know how I’m gonna get through
How I’m gonna get through

We don’t have to fall apart, we don’t have to fight
We don’t need to go to hell and back every night
We could make a deal

What have I done to deserve this?

Thirty years?! Where did they go?

Thinking young and growing older is no sin

Our very own "Lady Mary"

A rather special timeslip moment today - we're skipping way back to the year 1966..

Born in that year were a wide variety of British cultural icons: "Swinging London"; the first cross-channel hovercraft; the Severn Bridge; Alfie (the film and Cilla Black's hit song); "Bet Lynch" (in Coronation Street); Camberwick Green; Action Man toys; the Cybermen (in Dr Who); the Ford Cortina Mark II; Doctor Zhivago; Centre Point; "Alf Garnett" (in Till Death Us Do Part); the prototype Harrier Jump Jet; The Frost Report (which launched the careers of The Two Ronnies and John Cleese); Cathy Come Home; Longleat Safari Park; It’s a Knockout; the Barclaycard; Superdrug; David Hockney's The Splash; "Twiggy" (née Lesley Hornby)...

...and my sister Hils!



Fifty years?! My heavens, where do they go..?

Sharing, as she does, her birthday celebrations today with (among others) the late, great Terry Wogan (1938), Tony Bennett (1926), Martin Sheen (1940), Dolores del Rio (1905) and P. D. James (1920), I and Tony - and all our loyal "gang" of friends - celebrated the lady's fabulousness at her party on Saturday, but I am certain the celebrations will go on and on (not least at our annual picnic in a few weekends' time)!

So, what about some music to mark the occasion?

In the charts on this very day in 1966, at Number 1 was Chris Farlowe's soulful cover of the Stones' Out of Time, and the rest of the chart looked like this:

• 2 Black is Black - Los Bravos
• 3 With a Girl Like You - Troggs
• 4 Getaway - Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames
• 5 Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks
• 6 I Couldn't Live Without Your Love - Petula Clark
• 7 The More I See You - Chris Montez
• 8 Love Letters - Elvis Presley
• 9 River Deep, Mountain High - Ike And Tina Turner

A pretty cool list, I must admit! However, at the #10 slot was a song that is - especially on a milestone day like this - a poignant one (it has been known to make me cry on occasions; let's see if it does the same for Hils).

It's the sublime Miss Dusty Springfield and Going Back...

Dusty Springfield - Going Back

I think I'm goin' back
To the things
I learned so well
In my youth

I think I'm returning to
Those days
When I was young enough
To know the truth

Now there are no games
To only pass the time
No more colouring books
No Christmas bells to chime

But thinking young
And growing older
Is no sin
And I can play
The game of life to win

I can recall the time
When I wasn't ashamed
To reach out to a friend
And now I think I've got
A lot more than
A skipping rope to lend

Now there's more to do
Than watch my sailboat glide
And every day can be
My magic carpet ride
And I can play hide and seek with my fears
And live my days instead of counting my years

Let everyone debate the true reality,
I'd rather see the world the way it used to be
A little bit of freedom, all we're left
So catch me if you can
I'm goin' back.



Cheers, Hils! Have a fabulous day.

They had Glamour

OH NO!!!!!!!

I'm back to work today, after a six-week break [geddit?!].

Lord only knows what I am going to feel like by the end of the day, but... it is Liberace's birthday today, so there's one thing that is guaranteed to bring a smile to me face on this Tacky Music Monday - and that is the combination of Lee himself in the estimable company of Miss Phyllis Diller, Miss Millicent Martin, and Miss Dusty Springfield!

Take it away, girls...

Liberace, Dusty Springfield, Millicent Martin and Phyllis Diller - Glamour

Glamour, indeed.

Władziu Valentino Liberace (16th May 1919 – 4th February 1987)

A true "national treasure" departs

RIP Cilla Black, probably Britain's best-loved all-round entertainer.

Very sad news indeed - the flags are at half-mast here at Dolores Delargo Towers.

Here are some of her most memorable moments...

Cilla Black - Anyone Who Had a Heart

Cilla Black - You're My World

Cilla Black - Step Inside Love

With Miss Dusty Springfield back in the 1990s:

Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield - Heart and Soul

Winning the BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014:

Paul O'Grady presents Cilla Black with her Lifetime Achievement BAFTA

And, finally - that Royal Variety Show performance:

Cilla Black, Lily Savage and Barbara Windsor - You Gotta Get a Gimmick

Cheers, chuck! It was a "lorra, lorra laughs".

Priscilla Maria Veronica White (27th May 1943 – 2nd August 2015)

Magic carpet ride

Goin' Back:

Dusty Springfield - Goin' Back

I think I'm goin' back
To the things I learned so well in my youth,
I think I'm returning to
The days when I was young enough to know the truth

Now there are no games
To only pass the time
No more colouring books,
No Christmas bells to chime
But thinking young and growing older is no sin
And I can play the game of life to win

I can recall a time,
When I wasn't afraid to reach out to a friend
And now I think I've got
A lot more than a skipping rope to lift

Now there's more to do
Than watch my sailboat glide
Then everyday can be my magic carpet ride
And I can play hide and seek with my fears,
And live my life instead of counting my years

Let everyone debate the true reality,
I'd rather see the world the way it used to be
A little bit of freedom, all we're left
So catch me if you can
I'm goin' back

I can recall,
I can remember

I can recall,
I can remember

I can recall,
I can remember

Another day, another Dusty...

Happy birthday, Miss Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien OBE (16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

RIP

Vocal ecstacy

Dusty Springfield.

Mel Tormé.

Two of the greatest voices, ever.

Dusty Springfield Mel Torme - Can't We Be Friends? and Let's Get Away From It All

Happy Birthday, Dusty! She would have been 75 today.

RIP, both.

I guess it's just the story of my life

Remarkably, it is fifteen years since we lost our beloved Dusty Springfield...

By way of a brief tribute here is one of her later songs (with Pet Shop Boys on board, of course), and another favourite (among many) here at Dolores Delargo Towers:

Dusty Springfield - In Private

Take your time and tell me
Where you lie
I realise
That we've been found out this time

We should stay together
If we can
But what you've planned
Means there's a difference between

What you're gonna say
In private
You still want my love
We're in this together
And what you're gonna do
In public
Say you were never in love
That you can't remember

So discreet
I never tried to meet
Your friends or interfere
I took a back seat between

And what you gonna say
In private?
You still want my love
We're in this together
And what you're gonna do
In public
Say you were never in love
That you can't remember

What you gonna say, ay
When you run back to your wife?
I guess it's just the story of my life
What you gonna say?

So take your time
And tell me
Where did you learn
Oh, I may publicise
That there's a difference between

What you're gonna say
In private?
You still want my love
We're in this together
And what you're gonna do
In public
Say you were never in love
That you can't remember

Tell me what you gonna say
In private?, ooh, ooh, ooh
What you gonna say?
What you gonna do?
Baby, what you gonna say?

RIP, my sweet.

Dusty Springfield OBE (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, 16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

Voice of the Beehive

Yesterday was - according to the more sensational of the tabloids - "Blue Monday", apparently the most depressing day of the year.

Our little gang was anything but "blue" last night, however. For (thanks to Wayne) we (Paul, little Tony, Bryanne, Simon and two more of Wayne's chums) had tickets to see none other than The Neasden Queen of Soul herself, Miss Mari Wilson singing her own interpretations from the songbook of our most mourned Patron Saint of Soul, Miss Dusty Springfield!





I had never been to the Jazz Café at Pizza Express in Soho before, and it is everything one might expect of its name... Occupying an atmospheric dark basement space that must at one time have played host to some of the more - ahem - "colourful" characters who traditionally inhabited our city's entertainment heartland [although not for very much longer if the bullies and vandals of Westminster Council have their way!], the ambience is utterly suited to intimate cabaret shows. And it serves pizza, of course.

Thus, as we finished off our over-priced Italian street-food, the divine former beehive-wearer took to our stage and captivated us from the outset. Miss Wilson is so loveable, so utterly down-to-earth in the way she engages her audience in chit-chat and asides, it is always a jolt to the senses when she opens her mouth and those marvellously powerful-yet-smooth jazzy vocals take over.



Dusty's music really does suit Mari's voice (unsurprisingly in 2000, Mari was the obvious choice to portray our diva in the hugely successful nationwide tour of Dusty the Musical). All of our favourites were here - I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten, Son of a Preacher Man, The Look of Love, I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself, In Private, Son of a Preacher Man, Some Of Your Lovin', Am I The Same Girl?, Spooky and Brand New Me among them, and she did every one proud in the course of her two-hour set.

Among the highlights were her sublime, slow re-interpretation of I Only Want To Be With You, a truly spine-tingling rendition of Goin' Back, the most beautiful version of How Can I Be Sure?, and, best (and campest) of the lot - her melodramatic arrangement of Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa, which gave her fab pianist an almost "Liszt-ian" moment, as with crescendo after piano crescendo, she twisted every emotion to its fullest ("I hate to do this to you; but I love somebody new. What can I do? And I can never, never, never...go home again..."). I was left utterly breathless. Sheer genius.

This was an unforgettably wonderful evening, and a bloody good way to start off the "Social Calendar" for 2014!

Here is Miss Wilson with just two of the numbers she sang for us last night:

Mari Wilson - How Can I Be Sure?

Mari Wilson - I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten

Mari Wilson official website

Ever since we met you've had a hold on me

Among the 50th anniversaries being celebrated this year - half a century since the "Beeching Axe", the Profumo Affair, the Kennedy Assassination, the Great Train Robbery, the birth of Dr Who (and moi) and the rest - let us give a thought to the fact that it was also 50 years ago this week that the gorgeousness that was Miss Dusty Springfield had her first solo hit in the UK charts with this one...

Dusty Springfield - I Only Want To Be With You

I Only Want To Be With You. Indeed.

Dusty Springfield website

Glittering gods

In honour of the marvellous Millicent Martin's birthday today - and with a nod to the magnificence of Liberace, given the acres of coverage the Michael Douglas/Matt Damon film Behind the Candelabra is getting in the press at the mo - here's a never-to-be-repeated moment when stars collide - Dusty Springfield, Phyllis Diller and Millie together on Lee's show...

Liberace, Dusty Springfield, Millicent Martin and Phyllis Diller - Glamour

Sequinned heaven!

Millicent Martin

Gonna find out how many tears ten dollars can buy

This weekend, BBC4 has been paying a very welcome tribute to possibly the greatest British female vocalist ever, Miss Dusty Springfield.

Here is the great lady's final TV appearance (on Jools Holland's show) - with none other than Alison Moyet and Sinead O'Connor as her backing vocalists, to remind us of what an immense loss she was to music.

It's a brilliant performance - Where's A Woman To Go?:

Dusty Springfield - Where Is A Woman To Go?

Maybe he was wrong, maybe I wasn't right
Whatever the reason I'm on my own tonight
He's gone his way and I've gone mine
Well I bet you hear that story all the time

Well, sometimes your friends ain't always available
To pick you up when you're feelin' down, down, down, oh
My daddy would die if he knew his baby
Was seekin' refuge in a little ol' bar across town

So tell me where is a woman to go?
When she's feelin' low and all she wants to do
Is feel a little better
Tell me where is a woman to go?
When she's feelin' low and all she wants to do
Is feel a little better

Hey, bartender, honey gimme change for a ten-dollar bill
Bring it back as a stack of quarters, if you will
'Cause I'm gonna play every song on your jukebox that makes me cry
Gonna find out how many tears ten dollars can buy, oh
Gonna find out how many tears ten dollars can buy

Tell me where is a woman to go?
When she's feelin' low and all she wants to do
Is feel a little better
Tell me where is a woman to go?
When she's feelin' low and all she wants to do
Is feel a little better.

RIP Dusty (16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

Read my previous tributes to Dusty Springfield

Anyone who ever dreamed

The "quieter half" of one of the all-time great musical songwriting partnerships, Hal David of Bacharach and David, has died, aged 91.

Mr David began his long and admirable songwriting career in the 40s providing the lyrics for songs by the likes of Sammy Kaye and Guy Lombardo, before cementing the long partnership with Burt Bacharach in 1957. From their first hit in that year (The Story of My Life by Marty Robbins) to their final collaboration in 1999 (On My Way for the soundtrack to the Jaqueline Suzann biopic Isn't She Great?), the duo were renowned as a predominant force in music - rarely was there a year when at least one Bacharach and David-penned song did not hit the charts in the 60s and 70s!

Artists fell over themselves to get to record their songs - including Bobby Vinton, Gene Pitney, the Shirelles, Keely Smith, Jack Jones, the Walker Brothers, Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Bobbie Gentry, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Petula Clark, Jackie De Shannon, Sandie Shaw, Herb Alpert, Sergio Mendes, BJ Thomas, the Carpenters, the Fifth Dimension, and of course Dionne Warwick.

It was in fact Miss Warwick, and an argument between her and Hal, that was the catalyst for the great partnership to break down in the late 70s. Subsequently the great duo had numerous hits, solo and in collaboration with others - Hal David wrote the lyrics for To All the Girls I've Loved Before (with Albert Hammond) and my eternal fave tearjerker We Have All The Time In The World (with John Barry).

From the BBC:

In 1974 he joined the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and served as president from 1980 to 1986. He was head of the Songwriters Hall of Fame from 2001 to 2011, and was Chairman Emeritus at his death.

The society's current president, Paul Williams, said in a statement: "As a lyric writer, Hal was simple, concise and poetic - conveying volumes of meaning in fewest possible words and always in service to the music.

"It is no wonder that so many of his lyrics have become part of our everyday vocabulary and his songs... the backdrop of our lives."

In 2011, David and Burt Bacharach were awarded the Gershwin Prize for popular song by the US Library of Congress, the first time a songwriting team has been given the honour.

And here are just a few of those classics:

Cilla Black - Anyone Who Had a Heart

Dusty Springfield - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

Louis Armstrong - We Have All the Time In The World

Sandie Shaw - Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

RIP, an outstanding man.

Hal David (25th May 1921 – 1st September 2012)