Diana Ross on "TV Land Awards"

[needlefingers]

I was watching TV Land Awards and they gave an award to Diana Ross for her concert in Central Park.

She is going to be 62 on March 26, and I thought she looked great.

Not a great performance by far, but she was thin and beautiful.

She sang "Touch Me In The Morning", "The Boss", "Do You Know..." and "Ain't No Mountain....".

As for me, I like Diana. A thinner voice than some, but she has always played the Diva role to the hilt. And she had some great songwriters and production behind her.

If you get a chance it will be on again later tonite and a few more times during the week. If you don't want to watch the whole show, she is on in the last 10 minutes of the program.

[ol'skinflint]

look at 26, and most of the negative stuff written about her focuses on her personality, it seems few can argue that she has created some stunning music. But I couldn't sit through the show because of Megan Mullaly. Her voice sounds like someone backing over a cat; it made my skin crawl.

[keefelc]

Speaking of Miss Ross, I found this article yesterday on E!'s website:

Lady Ross Sings the Blues Again
by Josh Grossberg
Mar 22, 2006, 10:15 AM PT

Here's something for Diana Ross fans to get jazzed about.

Three decades after she earned an Oscar nomination channeling Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues, the Supreme diva is preparing to issue an extremely rare, previously unreleased collection of jazz standards she recorded at the time and has since been sitting in a Motown vault gathering dust.

Titled Blue, the record was initially supposed to accompany the release of the 1972 soundtrack to Lady Sings the Blues.

But, to paraphrase the song, where did her jazz go?

Despite that film's success, Ross shelved the album to refocus on pop songs with Touch Me in the Morning, which eventually hit number one on the Billboard charts in 1973. The Blue sessions were relegated to the archives and subsequently forgotten about until the label recently rediscovered the masters.

News of the find comes just four months after Paramount issued Lady Sings the Blues on DVD.

The dozen hitherto lost covers were recorded in late 1971 and 1972 and include Ross' renditions of the Gershwins' "I Loves Ya Porgy," Cole Porter's "Let's Do It," Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen's "But Beautiful," as well as "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes," "No More," "Can't Get Started with You," and "Had You Been Around" (the lone Motown original that was performed by Michelle Allar in Lady Sings the Blues).

Produced and arranged by the entertainer's longtime collaborator Gil Askey, Blue also features four bonus cuts: "Easy Living," "He's Funny That Way" and her take on the Duke Ellington classic "Solitude."

Several tracks that were included on the Lady Sings the Blues soundtrack--"You've Changed," "My Man (Mon Homme)," the Gershwins' "Love Is Here To Stay" and "T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do"--appear in alternate form on Blue. Likewise, Blue features different takes of Rodgers & Hart's "Little Girl Blue" and Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" from the tracks that appeared on Touch Me in the Morning and Ross' 1976 self-titled release.

In his liner notes, author David Ritz calles the Blue songs "some of the most emotionally satisfying music Ross has ever made."

Due out June 20, Blue will be Ross' first album since 1999's Every Day Is a New Day. Meanwhile, the flamboyant performer, who turns 62 on Sunday, has reportedly been working on a new studio album, including a duet with Rod Stewart, for release in the fall.