Sigh. Here we are again.
The heatwave having subsided, this would be a perfect day to potter in the garden. Unfortunately, back to the office we go...
Never mind, eh? To save ourselves from screaming, let's fix our minds on the fact that there's only this week to go, then it's Gay Xmas!
Meanwhile, on this Tacky Music Monday let's join "France's premier electrician" and his cheesy dancers in a morning exercise routine:
I feel better already.
Have a good week, dear reader!
The glorious heatwave that has held sway over the UK all week is having its last shout today (29C/84.2F) - from tomorrow, we're forecast to get back to near-normal temps with some showers by mid-week.
While the temperatures are still "up there", how about something totally cool, courtesy of Fred, Ginger and today's "birthday boy" Benny Goodman?!
Perfection.
Many happy returns today to the theatrical singer, dancer and actress Miss Donna McKechnie - the original "Cassie" in A Chorus Line and long-time stalwart of the Broadway stage, working with the likes of Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon, Stephen Sondheim, and her one-time husband the late Michael Bennett.
She's a powerhouse of dancing talent - as this little celebratory double-bill proves...
That's knackered me out, just watching those moves...
A snippets post again, dear reader...
Faboo!
STOP PRESS:
Choices, choices...
Thomas Ceccon...
...or Jules Bouyer?
[click to embiggen]
As you will know, dear reader, there is nothing we like better here at Dolores Delargo Towers than to discover a new "diva"! Signorina Chelo Alonso is certainly a name I'd never come across before...
From IMDB:
If you remember those "sword and sandal" spectacles that became the rage of Italian cinema during the late 1950s and early 1960s, then you will certainly recall this torrid brunette bombshell. Invariably cast as the ambitiously evil queen or undulating dancer/temptress whose sole mission was to entrance the film's hero, Chelo Alonso's "peplum princess" prime would be surprisingly brief but her memorable moves and over-the-top histrionics were reason enough to place her on the international sex symbol pedestal and earn her cult status. While her acting contributions would certainly attract no awards, she did earn the honour of becoming "Italian Cinema's Female Discovery" early in the game...She first attracted attention with the film Sign of the Gladiator (1959) where her erotically-charged dance segment stole the thunder right from under the movie's top-billed sex star, Swedish siren Anita Ekberg.
Niche, perhaps, but, by heavens - she has all the right moves for a Tacky Music Monday wake-up call..!
[Love the queeny choreographer!]No wonder she was nicknamed the "Cuban H-Bomb" at the Folies Bergère!
Have a great week, dear reader.
I said I'd try and get another one of my "Pick of the Pops" compilations done before the Festering Season crashes upon us, and 2023 crawls to its inevitable close - so let's have another look at/listen to some of the "newer" choons that have caught my ear of late, shall we? [I promise there'll be no "seasonal music"...]
Let's start as we mean to go on, with something quite kinky. Not sure even Billy Idol would have gone this far!
Next, yet another in a long line of choons that stands out from the crowd, yet turns out to be nowhere near new [it's from @adecadeago, in fact] - but I had never heard it before the faboo Liza Tarbuck played it on her Radio 2 show, so it's as good as...
And now for something completely different! A bizarre collaboration between an Italian folk-pop band and an operatic tenor? Right up our street, methinks:
Even more off-the-wall, we always love an unexpected rendition of something familiar:
...and we also love "kooky choreography"! [Thanks, Melanie!]
Marianne Faithfull is GOD. Thus it is only appropriate that a host of "alternative" artists have given their time and talent to release an album of covers of her songs as a fundraiser for her (as she recovers from "Long COVID"), including Cat Power, Iggy Pop, Joan As Police Woman, Lydia Lunch - and these two [duetting on one of my fave Marianne songs]!
Changing the tone completely, here's something extremely "retro" - yet utterly brand new! Giving a nod to the "blue-eyed soul revival" that swirled around a few years ago when Amy Winehouse, Duffy and their ilk ruled the roost, this Amsterdam band has it nailed:
And, leaving the best to last... This! Campness abounds!
As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts...
...and who could blame them..?!
Simply breath-taking. And ninety years ago!
[Shame we're not actually experiencing "the hottest weather in years". It's pissing down again...]
Thank fuck - that godawful week is almost over. The first week back in work after a holiday is always horrendous, but this one has been so busy that I almost forgot we'd been away! Just a few more hours to go...
I think we deserve a proper funky choon to get ourselves into the right frame of mind for a party - and I reckon the combination of a band with the extraordinarily kinky name of the Rimshots, with George Burns, Gracie Allen and Fred Astaire to boot, is definitely the way to go. Thank Disco It's Friday!!!
Have a faboo weekend, my leetle chums!
Here we go again. No sooner was I getting used to the balmy air we've had this weekend - and making plans for bulb-and-wallflower planting for Spring - then, clang! It's Monday again.
By way of a pick-me-up, here's a hilarious dance routine - that I stumbled across while searching for something completely different - which I immediately knew would be perfect for a Tacky Music Monday!
I think my instincts were correct.
Have a good week, dear reader.
Here we are again, dear reader...
No sooner had I slung the work laptop in the cupboard where it belongs, than I'm hauling it wearily back out again onto the desk for another five days of joy, or so it seems.
Never mind, eh? on this Tacky Music Monday we have another of those very clever video-editing-geeks to thank for this remarkable mash-up (featuring, among many, many others today's birthday boy Fred Astaire) - just the thing to lift the spirits:
Excited is not the word for a Monday. Have a good week, chums...
Sad news today - the lovely, leggy Fosse muse Miss Ann Reinking has high-kicked her way off to Fabulon...
Never quite as famous as her predecessor in Bob Fosse's bed Gwen Verdon, nor a top-billed star in the same way as Chita Rivera, nevertheless her legacy as a choreographer has assured her immortality - for it was she, rather than Bob himself, who created the fabulous "jazz hands" routines for the worldwide smash hit musical Chicago...
...not to mention her dazzling performance in Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical film All That Jazz:
Pizazz!
RIP, Ann Reinking (10th November 1949 – 12th December 2020)
"My idea of gambling was walking through Central Park, whistling show tunes."The very lovely dancing legend Mr Tommy Tune - possessor of the longest (ahem) legs in the business; they go all the way up, apparently - was (remarkably) 80 years old last week! As a young man, he was quite the stylish (and sexy) young thing...
"As a joke I often say that I am 5'18½" tall."
On his experience at his very first Tony Awards ceremony in 1974: "...we were told to only come to the show with a girl on our arm. And my partner at the time had been so supportive that I just went, 'This is not right.' So I defied the law. And we came together and they put him on one side of the post in the last seat of the Shubert Theatre and I was on the other side, so you couldn't tell the two boys were together.... Then when they said 'The nominees are...' and the picture would come on of one nominee and then another and when they said 'Tommy Tune for Seesaw.' They didn't put the camera on me because of my date. So, that was interesting. And I've never forgotten that because now it's... life is so much freer."Although he has been tappin' his tits off on stage since 1965, it was for his film appearance alongside Dame Twiggy in The Boy Friend in 1971 that he is indelibly remembered - see here for a performance of one of their numbers.
"If I was black and blue, it was Gene. If I didn't have a scratch it was Fred." - Cyd Charisse on how her husband would know with whom she had danced.Here's just one - with our Patron Saint Miss Shirley MacLaine, possibly the only female dancer who could really give Mr K a run for his money...
