Radio City .78 & An Evening with Diana Ross 76

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A more critical and intellectual approach from Village Voice. What seemed true in 78 may be dated in 2020.
Or, Maybe it's just that Miss Ross has succeeded staying "in heaven".

Diana Ross's stairway to heaven

By Blanche McCrary Boyd - Village Voice - 16 octobre 1978

Diana Ross appeared live at Radio City Music Hall this week, but her show didn’t begin that way. It began with fluid emerald green abstractions projected onto an enormous screen. Out of this in-the-beginning watery milieu [[which looked like the back of an aquarium) emerged, not the real Diana, but a quick-cut black-and-white slide show of her. Then the black-and-whites gave way to color closeups, and Diana’s huge, red lipped mouth sang, “If you need me, I'll be there.” The audience went oooo0000, ready for the visitation. A stairway to heaven appeared on the screen, and through a slit in the base slipped the living Diana, in a burst of light. I sprawled back in my seat. It was masterful. Here, I thought, is a woman who is certain she’s larger than life.Modern American stardom has many problematic aspects, but two are undeniable: getting there and staying there. The scramble to the top of the celestial stairway is a basic and much-chronicled myth, from Billie Holiday to Elvis Presley to Jimmy Carter. America is where you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, where Lula Smith becomes Carson McCullers, Norma Jean becomes Marilyn Monroe, and Zimmerman becomes you-know-who. So maybe you have some magic shoes or maybe you earn it, but what do you do after shazam and you’re up there in the sky, light years away? You can’t wish upon a star when you are one. Mick Jagger feels shattered, Dylan’s self-love is in vain, John Berryman jumped off a bridge. Billie and Marilyn did it with drugs. Elvis died on the toilet. Getting to the top is hard enough, but staying up there doesn’t look like any fun at all. A mature, sustained phase—well, we have no American myth for that.“I wanted to do something cozy and intimate,” the tiny Diana said, shining in her silver clothes against the firmament, making light fun of the way she'd filled Radio City with her presence. She moved to the edge of the stage and sat down. A trick of perspective, and it felt like a trick. Just folks, right? When she sang “Ready for Love” with invisible backup singers, I got even more disturbed. In a context where image and reality were being deliberately fused, I suddenly wondered if the backup singers were canned. Maybe this wasn’t Diana Ross at all, Maybe she was mouthing the words to her own songs. I thought of cloning. I thought of those people who've had themselves surgically altered to look like rock stars. The Elvis imitators. Beatlemania.But when Diana preceded "Touch Me in the Morning” by saying, with the in intimacy she’d mocked before "I would like to dedicate this to each and every one of you,” my garish, mistrustful notions stopped. I shivered at the warmth, the personal quality in her voice. While she sang, I was lying cozily in bed and a sexy lover was waking me up real slow. Then it was the aquarium again, and Diana Ross was a little angel fish, a kissing gourami, and I was a kid with my face pressed against the soothing glass. In the aisle beside me, the rapt ushers were kneeling like supplicants.I’m mixing metaphors for a reason. The evocation of multiple images, the tapping of raw fantasy, is crucial to the kind of stardom Diana Ross aspires to and in fact embodies. It was no accident that the screen sometimes showed kaleidoscope motifs or that it once opened briefly like a childhood magic shoebox to show us that the backup singers were real. During her hour-and-a-half show, Diana managed to trigger in me images of Tom Jones, Marilyn Monroe, Alice in Wonderland, an exotic tropical bird, a sensitivity-training phony [[she tried to make the audience hold hands), an ice cube in a pale blue glass in a dark bar, my Mommy [[she told the story of The Wiz with broadly acted gestures as if we were children, and it was better than “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”), a pearl pendant on a black velvet backdrop, a child, a teenager, a bride, a ritual sacrifice, and Billie Holiday. Ross’s Radio City Music Hall show demonstrated that she has solved the problem of what to do tat the top. Her sense of stardom is calculated, deliberate, and nearly apocalyptic; her show was a tour de force of narcissism. She makes Bob Dylan seem selfless.
Lady Sings the Blues and Mahogany are both movies about born-special girls rising through the rest of us like something richer, truer, and finer. “I’m-the intelligent one,” Diana had said on the 1965 Supremes at the Copa album, comparing herself to “the quiet one,” Florence Ballard, and “the sexy one,” Mary Wilson. A lot of people were irritated when Ross left the Supremes, as if she had done something immoral or tasteless; it can be argued with some accuracy that her solo records lack the verve and originality the Supremes’ discs had. But Diana Ross’s portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was intelligent and moving; that she was a black star playing a star in a big money movie broke new ground racially as well; and her cover of Holiday’s songs was sustained and brilliant. Lady Sings the Blues proved that Diana Ross was too big to stay with the Supremes. Mahogany, however, was a self-basting turkey. Perhaps dazzled by her still burgeoning talent, Ross made the mistake of designing the clothes for the world-class designer who gives it all up for love. It’s probably good that she discovered something about limits; I doubt if she’d make a good brain surgeon either.
But Mahogany and Lady Sings the Blues conclusively demonstrated that Diana Ross could act a certain role with great success: the child/woman as star. Ross is 34 now, but it seems inevitable that she should have been chosen to play Dorothy in the film version of The Wiz. Stephanie Mills, who plays Dorothy on Broadway, is still a teenager, but she’s starting to look too old.Diana Ross’s charisma, like Marilyn Monroe’s, relies ‘on a combination of childlike innocence and sharply focused sexuality. At the very beginning, with “Baby Love,” she evoked the naive lust of teenagers. Listening to the song now, it seems a key to the girl/woman identity Ross would develop, then magnify and magnify and magnify. Monroe had a lush, almost freakishly sexual body to go with her childishness; Ross has a sexy, accomplished voice to go with hers. But Ross knows her stardom doesn’t rest simply on that voice. There are a lot of excellent vocalists around [[like Sarah Dash) who haven’t figured out how to focus themselves. Ross thinks of her persona as a great instrument, and she plays it like a virtuoso.
A smorgasbord of new Ross products is now available. Besides the Radio City show, The Wiz will open this month, and there are three new albums. I haven’t seen the film version of The Wiz yet, but Ross’s singing on the cast album is more delicately textured than Mills’s is on Broadway. If you’re one of those folks who thinks a Coke should cost a dime and Diana Ross shouldn’t have set out on her own, there’s a Motown reissue of her with the Supremes called Where Did Our Love Go. Eight of the 12 cuts on this album are already available on the earlier reissue Anthology, although ‘He Means the World to Me” is hard to resist. Ross is the new solo album. A new Holland-Dozier-Holland tune and an Ashford and Simson one are both nice: “Sorry Doesn’t Always Make It Right” has an interestingly country feet to it. Nothing else stands out particularly, but it’s rich, surging Diana in her mature phase, every jet comfortably open. On stage at Radio City, Diana Ross said, “People ask me, what ever happened to that girl from the Detroit Brewster projects?” She paused. “You know what I say? I say, who?” The show ended with four of the male dancers, who grinned frantically during all their numbers as if they were desperate Miss America contestants, carrying Diana like an offering back into the screen, up the stair to heaven.

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THEATER REVIEW Record World 1976


Diana Ross At the Palace: Graceful, Elegant, Radiant


NEW YORK—Diana Ross is to r&b-based pop music what Lena Horne is to jazz. Both are graceful, elegant women with radiant Stage smiles that can be masks but are never deceptive. Both have style, and wit, and taste. Each has the ability to take an audience through a series of mood changes, building enthusiasm with a minimum of extra-musical effects.
With three mimes and an opening number [[“Here I Am”) during which movies of Ms. Ross singing were projected onto her white caftan [[held extended ten feet to her left by two of the mimes), one wondered whether “An Evening With Diana Ross At the Palace” was about to degenerate into a series of theatrical gimmicks and Las Vegas over-production. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
The “Motown Sound” which so took popular music by storm in the early ’60s is today one of the mainstays of pop and MOR; and with Ms. Ross’ career spanning film, records, television and per- sonal appearances, she is virtually an ideal person to maintain a quality standard on behalf of a musical style that so many have attempted to water down in the name of mass acceptance. Ms. Ross has that acceptance and it is to her credit that she has not compromised the credibility of an era she helped create.
The mimes, the almost constant costume changes [[each quite distinctive and beautiful), the stage and lighting effects were relegated to the first half. “The Point” was a fairy tale told with the help of the mimes, and “Lady Sings the Blues” segued naturally into a tribute to black entertainers whose successes never could have reached the heights of her own — Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday. And thankfully she did not sing their songs in imitation. She sang as Diana Ross.
The second half of the Joe Layton-directed evening was a slightly detailed personal history —back-up singing at Motown, the Supremes, stepping out on her own [[using the analogy of the children’s game “May I?”) and, finally, personal achievement on a level equal to that of her earlier career. Medleys made up the bulk of the set, including an interesting streamlined version of “A Chorus Line” that proved that score’s viability outside the context of the show itself.
The arrangements were contemporary, hinting at the disco influence that would have been the back-beat of the old Supremes’ hits were they recorded today, but Ms. Ross held that all in tow. The orchestra over-powered her at times [[she frequently signaled the conductor to lower the level), and the forcefulness of the playing contributed to the power she herself strove for. And once strolling up the center aisle, as the last curtain was to fall, leading the audience in singing “Reach Out and Touch,” all was forgiven. Would that others would exercise her taste and control.

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Diana Ross


CEASARS PALACE. LV. - Only the most glamorous and talented show business people perform in Las Vegas. At expensive dinner shows people want to fantasize. relax and be totally entertained. Diana Ross, a superstar already in records and movies, conquered this medium in her most recent Vegas showroom appearance.
The opening night tension and excitement could be felt immediately entering the theatre amongst the gaming crowd and celebrities at hand.
The show began with the orchestra playing softly under the directorship of Gil Askey on a darkened stage. A butterfly appeared and then a shimmering white spotlight hit Diana's face. The stage lights were turned on Diana's white smock as it unraveled into a long outstretched screen. As Diana sang "Here I Am." a projector zoomed a photo montage of shots of Diana onto the screen from the Berry Gordy film, "Mahogany.” in which she starred. After this Diana pulled off the smock and displayed a stunning lemon-yellow sequined bodysuit.
Most singers use dancers in the back- ground. Instead three mimes. Stewart Fischer. Don McDleod and Heywood Coleman, took turns and created illusions and dramatic overtones for Diana's repertoire. The highlight of these features included Miss Ross and the mimes doing an act together on "The Point.”
"Love Hangover" has been one of the hottest records in the country for the last few weeks. This song was cleverly performed. Diana and the orchestra began doing it live. Then suddenly she told the orchestra to take a break while she changed costumes. A tape had been playing simultaneously and when she walked off the song didn't miss a beat. The mimes then brought out a life-size cardboard statuette of Diana and placed it on the stage. Diana was then shortly carried on and continued performing live.


Another medley Diana performed was of impressions of four great black vocalists of the past, Josephine Baker, Ethel Waters. Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. This portion of the show was excellent and the costumes were magnificent.
No Diana Ross show would be complete without a medley of her hits when she was with the Supremes. "Keep Me Hangin’ On." "Stop In The Name Of Love” "I Hear A Symphony,” and "Baby Love.” were a few performed.
In the closing portion of the show Diana performed the ‘‘Theme From Mahogany.” “Ain't No Mountain High Enough.” and “Reach Out And Touch.” On the latter everyone in the audience rose to their feet, joined hands and swayed back and forth in a touching
finale.
Everything in the show was professional, tasteful and beautiful. Las Vegas and Detroit are miles apart, however Diana Ross has finally arrived and should be around for some time.

Cashbox 1976

[Albator]

Ross Wows LA’s Ahmanson


AHMANSON THEATRE, LA -- With a successful 1976 European tour and SRO performances at New York’s Palace Theatre tucked neatly under her belt, Diana Ross brought a dazzling 2.1/2 hour entertainment extravaganza to Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre last week. Those who viewed Ms. Ross’ future with skepticism after she left the Supremes in late 1969 found their doubts had tittle substance in light of the performer's recent cinema successes and current stage presentation, "An Evening With Diana Ross.” in an elaborate set that included an orchestra and female vocalists on tiered risers behind her, Ms. Ross raced through a show which included [[among other things) two medleys: one from “Lady Sings The Blues," the other from the Supremes’ Motown days. Perhaps the most noticeable feature of Diana Ross on stage is her exuberant personality; her vocals bring that personal touch she wishes to convey to each member of the audience. “Love Hangover” gave her the opportunity to bring people on stage to “bump” with her, but the show’s mood changed on “Reach Out And Touch Somebody New,” with rows of up-raised joined handclasps swaying to the melody of Ms. Ross’ gentle interpretation of the love song. The show’s color was most evident in Ms. Ross’ costumes; her entrance had her wearing a white gown that was unfurled so a movie projector could throw stills of the performer onto the screen it provided. Diana Ross’ performance of two of her biggest hits, “Do You Know Where You're Going To?” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” highlighted her opening night at the Ahmanson, with both songs providing an opportunity for the artist to vocalize her beliefs about the “rags to riches story” anyone with talent and a will to work can experience. The singer’s career, which has spanned more than a decade and has encompassed many of the changing currents of contemporary music, is an excellent example of just that story.


More than just that, however, it became clear to many observers at the Ahmanson Theatre that Diana Ross is not merely a superstar of music. Or even just a great entertainer. No, the singer is also, judging from fanatic audience reaction, a cultural heroine of considerable proportions. She has touched an entire generation
J.B.C.Cashbox