Starz
Ha! I’m listening to this in the car driving to work and what should come on as track number three? ‘Superstar’, which I listened to only yesterday, on the Carpenters 1971 album.
This is actually surprisingly good. I came to know of Midler’s musical side – having vaguely been of aware of it all along – thanks to a collaboration with Tom Waits:
And whilst that’s a wonderful song, and a terrifically fun slice of musical theatre, it didn’t make me rush out and explore Midler’s music. In fact I much prefer Waits’ work with Crystal Gayle, on the OST album that accompanies Francis Ford Coppola’s bizarre movie, This One’s From The Heart.
But here we find Midler in the company of all sorts of folk, from a pre-solo career Barry Manilow, to Miles’ alumni, Ron Carter, on bass. I found out, via Facebook, that Carter was actually depping for Milt Holland.
The material is pretty varied, and mostly very good. The first real bump in the road, and what I’d feared the whole thing might be like, is The Leader Of The Pack…
I found this on rhino.com:
It was in the early 1970s when Midler began to cement her legend with a gig at the Continental Baths, a notorious gay bath house where her piano accompanist was none less that [sic] future fellow legend, Barry Manilow. He would go on to produce Midler’s first solo album, The Divine Miss M, released in December 1972. The rest truly is history.
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