Lena 'n' Gershwin 'n' The MGM Gang, Plus An Exclusive Careless Dorothy, A Trunk Full 'O' Pearlie And A No. 1 Movie Secret Song!

Imagine. You're the only black superstar at the largest movie-making company on the planet.

Exclusive Tiny, The MGM Gang's All Here, Plus Exclusive Connie And A Reader-Suggested Secret Song!

Shake it down, kids! Tiny's in the house!

Lena Gets Down, Alanis Goes Acoustic, Plus Sylvia's Live With Mercer, Robin's First And A Retro Gold Secret Song!

It's the dog days of summer, and you know what that means, it's time for The Cheerful Earful to take a break, though I'll be back shortly after Labor Day (or mid-September-ish for those of you over the pond). Will I leave you empty-handed till then? Oh, I would never! Or as the immortal Lena Horne says, "My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman!" Actually, I would never say that, but when you're reaching for a segue, sometimes you just drive off a cliff.

A Deluge Of Divas, Hess' Devil, Dreamy Music And - Hot-cha! - Here Comes Liza, Plus A Jinx-You're-It Secret Song!

Sometimes too much is just too delicious, like the name Anna Maria Alberghetti. Ahhhhh. Doesn't it just slip off your tongue? An actress and an operatic singer, Anna, pictured above, is one of many divas crowding this delightful collection, a Cheerfully Delectable Exclusive! just for you.

Bertice Is Back, Lena & Legrand, Sylvia Lovingly, Jane Just For You, Plus A Contrapuntal-Ish Secret Song!

Doesn't Bertice look luffly? And she's back today - just for you and yours - in this So Bertice Cheerful Exclusive! It's her 1976 LP (restored in 1991) "The Two Moods of Bertice Reading." Aren't you glad you stopped by? Get this. In the late 1960's, jazz fans were so bowled over by her performance at Amsterdam's Apollohal that after the finale, they stormed the stage - and it collapsed. Luckily, no one was seriously injured, but the scene made the front pages of newspapers all over Europe.

Bertice could sing almost anything - jazz, pop, blues, gospel - and in "Two Moods," she swings from New Orleans jazz to pop to mellow blues and ballads. Her version of "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" is a delight, and on "I Cried For You," her smoothness just barely conceals the heartbreak.

Oh, and here's a nice little bonus. Bertice speaks! In this wonderful 1984 BBC interview, she chit-chats about her birth - it caused a literal splash - her life, her high-flying and sometimes camel-riding career and the eight LPs she'd take to a desert island:

If I had to take LPs to a desert island (I refuse to limit it to just eight), I'm sure I'd take one by Lena Horne, along with this picture:

Lena collaborated with just about everyone under the sun, of course, but her work with Michel Legrand on 1975's "Lena & Michael" is maybe her most head-turning. Why? Because she didn't just sing his catalog of songs as everyone else had - in a straight-ahead fashion, following the melody line - but instead, in her own Lena style. Trust me, you have never heard "I Will Wait For You" like this. It doesn't just swoon, it swoons, simmers, then explodes. That's our Lena.

And now, gaze upon the quintessential New York cabaret singer, the tres elegante Sylvia Syms:

When I think of Sylvia, I think of Bobby Short, Peggy Lee and all the singers who worked the cabaret circuit pre-Giuliani - back when I paid 900.00 for a huge one-bedroom with separate dining room in the West Village (it now goes for 3700.00). I was there for fourteen years, long enough to enjoy the neighborhood's last creative heyday, and then its arguable decline into a Haves-Only playground for the top one-percent (or people like this)

But I digress. "Lovingly," Sylvia's 1976 LP (yet another Cheerful Exclusive!) is silky, low-key jazz - and the kind only this Brooklyn-born singer could do. She was a regular at Cafe Carlyle, and no less than Frank Sinatra called her "the world's greatest saloon singer." As you listen to the songs on this LP, you can almost hear the faint clink of cocktail glasses, detect a whiff of lingering cigarette smoke and from the corner of your eye, catch a red-coated Carlyle waiter whisking past. It was a wonderful time to be in Manhattan. And it's gone forever.

Gone, but never forgotten, is Jane Wyman, who became famous anew after Ronnie Rayguns became President. She'd long divorced him, which prompted much commentary after he took office.

In the early 1950's, Jane starred opposite Bing Crosby in "Just For You," a lark-ish movie which had Jane smitten with Bing and contending with his two children, including that industrial-made charmer Natalie Wood (or the movie's answer to the Princess Phone). The soundtrack has several buoyant songs performed by Bing, Jane, and the Andrew Sisters, too. How can you go wrong?

Back in the day, The Secret Song File had to audition for everything - and hated it! Oh, the patience she endured when casting director after casting director failed to see her charms. When they told her to leave after a gorgeous reading, she just couldn't believe it.

That's all a memory now, thank God, but when those irksome memories resurface, they're easily swept away by listening to this upbeat, daisy-tripping, multifaceted pop group. Their newest release does not disappoint. And, yes, their name is partly a nod to a musical term which describes two or more simultaneous lines of melody performed at once - and getting along like gangbusters. Oh, happy day!

Are you happy yet? I am!

Trip on daisies or whatever in the comments, if you like!

Porgy, Porgy, Porgy!

I've become obsessed lately with "Porgy & Bess," the Gershwin/Heyward opera first performed in 1935, then reshaped, revised and recut for subsequent generations, lately arriving as a passionless, if hotly controversial, Broadway musical. This new Broadway version reminded me that I'd never seen the 1959 movie adaptation with Dorothy Dandridge.

Surprisingly, the movie isn't available on DVD (or even a mangy VHS). Why? Because even though it's been selected for preservation by the U.S. National Registry, the Gershwin estate doesn't much like it, and so it's likely to remain unavailable until hell freezes over until they change their mind. Happily, I got my paws on a watchable bootleg.

Even though the movie is stagy to a fault - one can only imagine how much better it might have been if the boorish Otto Preminger hadn't replaced director Rouben Mamoulian - it does bring together a stellar cast, most of whom were reluctant to participate at all given the burgeoning civil rights movement.

The movie's story, which included drug dealing, poverty and prostitution, was regarded as racist, or at the very least, something that wouldn't exactly help the cause. Yet despite racially-charged content and the movie's clod-hopping direction, the cast deliver terrific performances.

And that includes not just Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier (Dandridge and Poitier had their singing dubbed by Adele Anderson and Robert McFerrrin) (yes, he was the father of Bobby McFerrin), but Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll, Maya Angelou, Geoffrey Holder and, of course, Sammy Davis, Jr., who nearly obliterates the movie's period setting by dancing and singing as if he were in a hot-cha! jazz-hands! Fosse musical (but he's allowed).

Better still is how plastic and bendable the score has become over the years, subject to endless rethinks and re-interpretations. My favorite these days is the one above by The Oscar Peterson Trio, which stays close to the score's melodies, but otherwise lightly gambols into its own springy jazz territory, especially during the inimitable "It Ain't Necessarily So," with a piano riff that's pure smooth-jazz delight.

In fact, it seems as if "Porgy & Bess" has become catnip to the best jazz vocalists and musicians . Everyone from Joe Henderson to Lena Horne to Louis Armstrong to Cab Calloway (on the "Porgy & Bess/Girl Crazy" twofer below) have put their mark on the Gershwin/Heyward opera.

Most of the LPs here are Cheerful Exclusives!, including a certain LP by a certain hot-cha! jazz-hands! performer who redeems his hammy movie turn with several surprisingly sensitive renditions from the score. And, yes, it helps a great deal that he's accompanied by Carmen McRae, whose version of "Summertime" ranks right up there with Lena's and Ella's and Adele's and Helen's and...the list seems infinite, doesn't it? It's an embarrassment of musical riches!

Which begs the question, if a woman is a sometime thing, what's a man?

If you ain't got no shame, leave a comment, why dont'cha?

Relax With Lena, Della And So Many More, Plus A Raggy Secret Song!

Fall is nearly here. But you wouldn't know it. It's practically tropical here in Los Angeles and. I. Am. Sick. Of. It. Fall will be so pleasant. Certain people have left town, which means it's safe to go out again. And the awful summer movie season is finally over. Hooray!

If you're feeling wistful and relaxed in these waning days of summer, then kick back, light a fattie (if you're so inclined) (I won't judge), because I have a perfect set of LPs so-o-o-o guaranteed to help you unwind.

Let's start with Lena Horne. A Cheerful Exclusive Lena! This is her 1958 namesake LP, recorded at the height of her fame and vocal mastery. Which means this is creamy-smooth yumminess from start to finish, with gently playful numbers like "Just Squeeze Me" and quietly heartbreaking songs like "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child," the kind of song Lena does best. You know her heartache's real; you can feel it in your bones.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone in the creamy-smooth sweepstakes, behold Miss Della:

Now that's a damn pose. Face. Face. Face. Most people know Miss Della from her fast-paced cha-cha CDs (mostly because those are the only ones being reissued these days), but she actually earned lasting international fame by going slow, baby, slow. Who knew?

In 1960's "Della By Starlight," she's as mellow as mellow can be in numbers like "Embraceable You" and "Lamplight" and lots more. But don't worry, her sharp, molasses-snap delivery is ever present - she doesn't muffle anything (as if she could).

And now for a Cheerful Exclusive! 1963's "Waltz With Me, Della!" Yipee! It's the LP that broke her career internationally, and you'll understand why when you hear it. Listening to her sing, you feel as if she's rocking you in a blanket in her arms, gently crooning the likes of "Tenderly" (my favorite number on the album), "Always," and "Fly Me To The Moon." And it's all in 3/4 time!

Of course, good relaxation requires a little vigorous kneading - like a really excellent  massage that pounds out the tight parts. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your masseuse:

An, no, her name is not Dita (though I understand the confusion), it's our old friend, the perpetually perky Beatrice Kay, who's singing a set of chipper songs in this giggly Cheerful Exclusive, 1973's "Livin' in the Sunlight." And they're all co-written by Al Sherman - the father of Richard and Robert, who wrote the music and lyrics for "Mary Poppins." Most of the songs sound as if they could have been performed by Beatrice in her vaudeville days. She was sixty-six when she recorded this LP, yet sounds as buoyant as ever.

In porn movies, massage eventually leads to sex (or if you're Jennifer Love Hewitt, at least a hand job). And who better to give it to you then that joyous bundle of loveliness below:

No, silly, I'm not talking about Bonnie Rait, I'm talking about Miss Sippie Wallace, a jazz and blues legend who got her start early - very early - by sneaking out at night from her Baptist minister father's home and running off to sing at local tent shows in the early 1900's.

You can hear her on "Sugar In My Bowl," a compilation that promises to deliver "vintage sex songs," and it's not false advertising. So shoo away the kids and cover the kitten's ears, because when Sippie sings "I'm a Mighty Tight Woman," she's singing just what you think she's singing about. Yeeeow!

Other songs are more direct, like "He's Just My Size" performed by Lillie Mae Kirkman and "Nobody in Town Can Bake A Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine" performed by Bessie Smith. Phew! Is it me or is it hot in here? Is that electric or gas heat I'm feeling? Oh, throw open the window - I need the ocean breeze! Do you hear it? The pounding surf? Lord, I need water! I need to be cleansed! Aw, I'm just foolin' with and you know it. We both know if I dared step inside a church, I'd burst into flames. But I'd burn oh-so brightly, I'm sure.

The Secret Song File needs to chillax, too. Everything's set with a bubble bath, wine, a cig. If only there was some jazz. But something new - brand new. Maybe something by a celebrated Canuck jazz vocalist and composer. Hmm. And maybe she's done a thing or two live - and in paris. Maybe a few loves scenes (she has that look of love). It would also be nice if she guest starred on "Melrose Place" back in he day (what??) (no, really).

Since the Secret Song File is feeling, like, oh, I don't know - a raggy doll, let's say - then I'm sure this singer will deliver the goods. If not, then I guess there's always Jennifer Love Hewitt. But really, wouldn't you rather get a massage from Loretta Devine?

If your fingers do the talking and your feet do the walking, what do your knees do?

Don't you dare tell me to rouge them! And, hey, kiki in the comments if you want!