Lena’s Music 1 August 1979:
Flick Colby’s Ruby Flipper dance while Lena Martell sings Beautiful Noise.
Thanks to Andeebee for the youtube post.
from the old blog, Wednesday, 18 january 2012
Thanks again to PattiforPM, who sent me this clip of Ruby Flipper from Lena Martell’s show, dancing to her singing Neil Diamond’s Beautiful Noise. Lots of literal choreography here…
comments:
julian said…
Lena sings well and always has a very good voice but in this series, the lack of an audience, a visible live orchestra and a chorus to relate to/with, meant the the show had no atmosphere. She looks bored, static and the whole show including Lena and the dancers on this clip lack energy. It looks as if they filmed a dry run of the show in the old BBC Glasgow studios in 1979. The producer(the late Robin Nash I think) clearly didn’t get that what this perfomer (whose voice and impressions were her forte) needed showcasing in a much more traditional format – the kind had been used to being part of as a guest in in her owns shows on TV since she was discivered in cabaret and theatre ain the late 1950’s.
Lena went on to play every major venue and gained radio and TV awards and gold discs across the globe until major ill health took its toil in the mid 1980’s and early 1990’s (including cancer) follwd by bankruptcy. These days (and since 2000) Lena, who is now is in her mid 70’s, is funny and much more relaxed and engaging as a performer and she’s still seling out on regular tours!
This TV show led to her only muti million selling Number 1 in 4 countries including the UK, but this series was far below the standard of her previous work, Indeed, her series in 1977 `Make the Music Speak’, produced by the award winning David Mallet (of Kenny Everett show fame) with a 1930’s style caberet setting, was much, much better than ‘Lena’s Music’; though the album of the same name won her a platinum disc in the UK and hige sales abroad.
4 February 2012 19:46