So what has Jeane Carne been up to?....

[needlefingers]

Found this online today.(And so many different ways to spell her name)

Jeane Carne and Friends live reviews | Music | Arts & Entertainment - Times Online

January 9, 2008


Jeane Carne and Friends



Lisa Verrico at the Jazz Cafe





The Philly soul singer Jean Carne turned 60 last year but, to a new generation discovering her hits on YouTube, she remains a classy, sassy, raven-haired diva in the style of Donna Summer.

To the older crowd at the Jazz Café, half of whom were having supper upstairs when she took to the stage for the first date of a three-night residency, Carne proved her advancing years had stripped her of none of her sparkle. In a black skirt-suit with glittery bits, draped in pricey-looking jewellery and still as slim as she was in her heyday, she took on the role of joke-cracking compere to introduce support acts Alyson Williams and Shirley Jones.

Carne had structured the concert like a old-school soul revue - a funky, four-piece, male band stayed on throughout, as did Carne, who provided backing vocals for her “friends”. The glam Williams, best known in Britain for the Soul II Soul remix of her hit I Need Your Lovin', stuck to smooth Eighties soul best suited to a hotel foyer, but Jones had diners out of their seats with a fabulous set of disco-funk that included Nights Over Egypt by her old group the Jones Girls.

Jones should have been a hard act to follow, but from the moment Carne stepped up there was only one star. The five-octave vocal range that graced early Earth, Wind & Fire albums found a fan in Duke Ellington (she was the last singer to work with him before his death), and brought her to the attention of the hit-writing team Gamble and Huff in the mid-Seventies, was still in top order. Opening with her hit Free Love, Carne alternated between a deep, bassy growl, high, soaring soul and a kittenish purr, while practically bouncing across the stage and clawing the air with her long painted nails.

The Anita Baker-like Mystic Stranger was dedicated to a blushing fan at the front, We Got Some Catching Up to Do had her jazz-scatting to the cheering crowd and Was That All It Was still boasted the pre-chorus screech that made it one of disco's most distinctive hits.

There was too much sickly sentimentality in her between-songs chat, and her claim to be having the best night of her life when the venue was only half full didn't fool anyone, but her voice was a joy and her performance packed with pizzazz. A closing brace of Don't Let it Go to Your Head and Closer than Close was enough to brighten even the dreariest January night.

Jean Carne & Friends are at the Jazz Café (020-7534 6955) tonight

[Dayna]

She's a wonderful lady..She still radiates Class,Professionalism and talent..
A true Diva.

[SandraDee]

her claim to be having the best night of her life when the venue was only half full didn't fool anyone,

Sounds like she's just being a polite professional to me.

[needlefingers]

Sounds like she's just being a polite professional to me.

I thought the same thing too. Kind of "snippy" for the reviewer to even mention it.


Some of my best nights in a bathhouse was when it was half empty.

But then, there were those nights when I had to ask "Was that all it was?".

[SandraDee]

But then, there were those nights when I had to ask "Was that all it was?".

I want that played at my funeral; it's my life to a t!