This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Ben Rimalower: Broken records. The albums you wouldn't shut up about. Broken records. The music our guests can't live without like Judy, Barbara, Liza, Bette, Audra, Bernadette. We broadcast this podcast with hopes that someday we might get Patti LuPone.

[0:32] Daniel Nolen: Hi, Ben.

[0:34] Ben Rimalower: Hi. I feel like I don't know why I'm frightened.

[0:41] Daniel Nolen: Truly. I mean, this feels so I mean it's been two weeks, I think, since we've done an episode, but it really feels like longer.

[0:49] Ben Rimalower: Feels like longer. Well, especially because of um uh not doing we I've gotten used to doing it, you know, three times a week because we have the Tuesday, Thursday, April, August.

[1:02] Daniel Nolen: Yes, right. Another thing I've forgotten about.

[1:04] Ben Rimalower: Which we have to discuss because I'm just beside myself with confusion about how to proceed.

[1:10] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I'm first. I should say hello to all our listeners, and thank you for tuning in to Ben Rimalower's Broken Records on Broadway World Broadway Podcast Network and Broadway on Demand. I'm Ben Rimalower, and I'm here with my lovelier than ever co-host, America's sweetheart, Daniel Nolen.

[1:31] Daniel Nolen: Oh, thank you. Hey y'all. Um, lovelier than ever, I'm sunburned, and but I just cut my hair myself, so I I do have to give myself props for that.

[1:41] Ben Rimalower: But um Didn't I cut your hair?

[1:43] Daniel Nolen: You yes, you did help on the back, and I very greatly appreciate that.

[1:47] Ben Rimalower: Oh, appreciate. I gotta say, you I mean, I've always um admired many things about you, but none more than your impeccable hygiene and cleanliness. I love I love how repulsed you are by most things in the physical world and how you pride yourself on your your pristine um uh quaint clamp purity.

[2:12] Daniel Nolen: Um but your hair was so disgusting. I mean, I did not even know hair could be that mangy and dirty. It was like an old dog that lived on the subway tracks.

[2:27] Ben Rimalower: And can you believe that I had that was like I mean, I guess I hadn't washed it that day, but um because I had been outside, but I had just washed it the previous night.

[2:37] Daniel Nolen: So that's understand. My hair is like, I don't know, it's like so thick and it's so it gets so oily so fast, which maybe that is because I wash it every day.

[2:49] Ben Rimalower: Maybe that's like bad for it, and it's no, it's the opposite. I mean my hair is really dry, and washing it strips the moisture, so washing it should actually help you be less oily.

[3:01] Daniel Nolen: Well, and maybe I you know I just got some new shampoo and conditioner because um I for a while I was just using like this all-in-one, you know, shampoo body wash type of thing, and so I was like, maybe I need to splurge for like uh some luxury products.

[3:17] Ben Rimalower: So I have a lot to say about about shampoo. I think that shampoo and body wash combinations, depending on the ingredients and the brand, are not a bad idea. For example, I use Dr. Bronner's peppermint all-purpose hemp soap for my hair and body.

[3:36] Daniel Nolen: But what I think is a crime against nature is any kind of a shampoo conditioner combination.

[3:41] Ben Rimalower: Oh, yes, yes.

[3:43] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and although I don't know now, you break all the rules. I mean, with such naturally oily hair, maybe you shouldn't even use conditioner at all.

[3:52] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, but I think I mean I hadn't used conditioner in so long just because, you know, uh quarantine, I haven't gone out and shopped in a while. But I do think it's like, you know, people say when you have oily face, you should still use moisturizer because that's giving your body the oils it needs so it doesn't overproduce oils.

[4:14] Daniel Nolen: So I feel like it's the same with hair. It's like if you condition it, it's not gonna go crazy and like overproduce natural oils because it's being conditioned by a product, you know.

[4:26] Ben Rimalower: So I don't know, but that's what I'm experimenting with. And also, my hair was so long when you saw it, so it was literally like like um the forbidden forest.

[4:35] Daniel Nolen: So actually, the forbidden forest is what I call somewhere a little lower than I also need to also need to trim. But I have to get some new clippers, as you witnessed, those clippers I had been using five years.

[4:50] Ben Rimalower: That was insane. I can't cut half my hair and pulled out the other half. I mean, it was a good one. It was like in Little Shop of Horrors when he's like the dentist has like the dull drill.

[5:00] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's an antique.

[5:02] Ben Rimalower: It was basically like I was like trying to saw your hair off with like a butter knife.

[5:07] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[5:07] Ben Rimalower: And I have to say, you know what, for our listeners, if anybody was worried coming back to the podcast that we were gonna lay a heavy trip on them about discrimination or politics or like pandemic. They certainly needn't have.

[5:23] Daniel Nolen: I mean, we are just here with the superficiality that we have.

[5:26] Ben Rimalower: Back on our bullshit.

[5:27] Daniel Nolen: Yes. I have to say, I think I said this to you already. I mean, like, I've been really looking forward to getting back to the podcast. I'm so excited that we are.

[5:35] Ben Rimalower: Yes. But I've been really struggling about Tuesday, Thursday, April, August. Because I feel like, you know, the podcast is like, okay, today we are talking. Well, for example, today, we are talking about An Evening with Diana Ross), her 1977 HBO TV special, based on her one woman show, An Evening with Diana Ross) that played the Palace Theater on Broadway and venues all around the world.

[6:01] Daniel Nolen: So uh, you know, that may or may not be what somebody is into hearing about in these trying times, but if they aren't into it, then they don't listen to it. And if they are into it, here it is. It's about this, it's about a thing, you know.

[6:16] Ben Rimalower: But the with the live stream videos, it's like, you know, we're kind of just shooting the shit. And I'm basically like, okay, so here are some of the great artists of musical theater. Victoria Clark, Judy Kaye. Let me take a dump on them with no respect for their hard work or humanity or their achievements.

[6:35] Daniel Nolen: And by the way, who the fuck am I? You know? And like, so it's that, and then it's like I have to promote it. So there I am like on social media where like other people are like raising money for like, you know, civil action, or like, you know, sharing petitions, or like, you know, as we say in Hebrew, tikun olam, healing the world.

[6:58] Ben Rimalower: And I'm like, you guys, you guys, look at this great 30 second clip from when I took a dump all over these artists' hard work from last season. You know, and it's like I feel like I'm really, I don't know, it feels like an ugly, an ugly way to be in the world right now.

[7:16] Daniel Nolen: And then I started thinking, like, you know, it was Tuesday, Thursday, April, August, and it's not August yet. But also, like, I mean, the quarantine, like New York is already in phase two. Like, yeah, you know, people are going out, you know, the point was to get people through the day.

[7:32] Ben Rimalower: But also, like, on the other hand, you know, I know that people have enjoyed watching it, and like, you know, people in hard times still need entertainment. And like, I've had so much fun doing it. I've had so much fun doing it with you. I've really looked forward to it.

[7:45] Daniel Nolen: And um, and a couple things like this week, just randomly, like, I my friend uh Chris Tyler in LA. Do you remember him? I tried to see him in P Town, but he doesn't live in New York anymore.

[7:57] Ben Rimalower: Oh, yeah. He was like at the pool with his boyfriend. Um that's not interesting, but anyway, it's a fact. Um and uh anyway, Chris Tyler sent me this um woman uh on Instagram. She actually looks like Jennifer Aiden, the Persian woman, or the Armenian woman rather, on Real Housewives of New York.

[8:18] Daniel Nolen: But um, she's lip-syncing to Patti's recording of "You Got Trouble" from The Music Man.

[8:26] Ben Rimalower: Whoa. And uh no Tino Shade to Patti LuPone. But I gotta say that, you know, I've said before that I I love so much Patti's most recent one woman concert act, Don't Monkey with Broadway. When I saw it at um Symphony Space, it was one of the best things I've ever seen.

[8:44] Daniel Nolen: And I have full confidence, you know, that I've seen her do concert wise. Uh I have full confidence that it's like that much of the time on her travels.

[8:53] Ben Rimalower: But the gig that she recorded in Long Island, she has a cold. And it is like she, you know through despite noble efforts on her part and all that Joan Lader technique really earning its its its value and money she uh is not in good voice comparative to the voice that she is generally in nowadays and yeah so it's just a lesser performance so it breaks my heart so I almost never listen to that double CD Don't Monkey with Broadway um and also because um I'm a little mad that it's piano only like listen nobody understands trying to do a cabaret tour on the cheap better than I do but I'm like it's Patti LuPone singing like you know these great show tunes you know but also all fuck her hits you know but she's singing "You Got Trouble," she's singing "Work" from Working, she's singing "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No" and "If" from Two on the Aisle, you know and like uh you know "Big Spender" and like "You Got a Lot of Livin' to Do" and I want "Brass." It's fucking Patti LuPone now she is I don't know the truth is when I saw her at Symphony Space and it was piano only I wasn't mad about it.

[10:03] Daniel Nolen: So maybe it's just the vocal thing.

[10:05] Ben Rimalower: But but anyway the point is I never listened to the album and that's the only that's the recording of "You Got Trouble" that this person used on Instagram on on IGTV and it is of course it's the only commercial recording of Patti singing that song.

[10:18] Daniel Nolen: And this made me appreciate that recording in a whole new light.

[10:23] Ben Rimalower: And there's something about the way she lip syncs it and just lip syncs it and just the way her face looks and by the way she's sitting out I guess it's her backyard, but it almost looks like she's on in the jungle. It's certainly like a very like, it's not a it's like not like a crowded suburb. It's like somewhere out, you know.

[10:40] Daniel Nolen: It could even be like Key West or something.

[10:42] Ben Rimalower: There's definitely like a tropical kind of feel. And she's in like a red uh sleeveless dress with a great big slit up all the way to the thigh. And these like and um combat boots. And she's sitting on like a folding lawn chair with her legs crossed, and every once in a while her hair gets in her face, and she just it's she captures the spirit of Patti so beautifully.

[11:10] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that is great.

[11:11] Ben Rimalower: That tableau. It's so fucking brilliant. And I just everyone needs to watch it. I'll post the link.

[11:18] Daniel Nolen: I'm dying to see this.

[11:19] Ben Rimalower: It's I it would be anyway. I was like, this is a who do you think you are if there ever was.

[11:23] Daniel Nolen: Yes, this is yes, that would be perfect.

[11:25] Ben Rimalower: Her brilliance alone made me want to bring back Tuesday, Thursday, April, August.

[11:31] Daniel Nolen: Right. Well, and I think um what you were saying earlier, you know, it's Tuesday, April, August, so I mean we've taken a few weeks off, but we do have like the finish line in sight. You know, it's August, so it's not like we're committing to like a whole nother season, you know.

[11:49] Ben Rimalower: It's literally just like another month and a half or two months, depending on what how we define August.

[11:56] Daniel Nolen: If it's the end of August, we could literally end like the first week of August and call it a good time.

[12:00] Ben Rimalower: I mean, technically July 31st, you're pretty it's August, you know.

[12:04] Daniel Nolen: Right, right. Um, although we're also not committing to not extending for another season.

[12:09] Ben Rimalower: I mean I mean I have to say I really did enjoy doing that show with you. I really truly did.

[12:12] Daniel Nolen: Um as well. And um, and you know, I think and I'm enjoying the fan interaction, which we were doing more and more of, and it just was feeling like a really alive uh and like a really uh a unique experience in my life.

[12:29] Ben Rimalower: I mean, you know, uh that's not um I know other people, it's not new technology, but it's not something I've really participated in until COVID-19. And like I I really enjoy that.

[12:42] Daniel Nolen: Well, and it definitely it it kind of um colors and influences the rest of my week, you know, because anything I see on YouTube or any posts, any uh clips that people post, I'm like, oh, is this a potential who do you think you are? Is this a potential um what's our other segment? Uh I'll be Patti.

[13:01] Ben Rimalower: I'll be Patti.

[13:03] Daniel Nolen: That's I guess that's your segment. But you know, it it's uh I feel like it gives me kind of incentive to be spongy and like soak up the content in a new way that I wouldn't normally, just as like a viewer, you know.

[13:20] Ben Rimalower: I'm like, oh, this is actually something I need to share with the viewers and with Ben.

[13:24] Daniel Nolen: So I don't know. Well, I guess I guess we've just talked ourselves into bringing it back.

[13:29] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[13:30] Daniel Nolen: Woohoo! Tune in after our brief hiatus. Tune in Tuesday.

[13:33] Ben Rimalower: Well, um, oh, the other thing I wanted to tell you about um entretonment-wise, entre-to-nament-wise, was that um just now, just before I uh dialed you or whatever, you know, to look linked you or uh accepted your link, um I started watching the new season of All Stars of Drag Race All Stars.

[13:55] Daniel Nolen: Oh yes, I I yeah, I forgot completely.

[13:59] Ben Rimalower: And I have to say, I mean, I know just like my standards in um male attractiveness, uh, my standards in uh entertainment are peculiar at this juncture in my life.

[14:14] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah. Um and I, you know, and I know a lot of people didn't love the new season of Drag Race, but I really, really, really did love it.

[14:22] Ben Rimalower: I did too, yeah.

[14:23] Daniel Nolen: But just having watched like the first 10 minutes of the first episode of the new season of All Stars, I am living for it.

[14:30] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[14:31] Daniel Nolen: And I am so happy to see some of these queens back. You know, there's ones that I've always loved that I'm just genuinely stoked to see, like Juju B.

[14:41] Ben Rimalower: Juju B, yeah.

[14:42] Daniel Nolen: And then there's ones that I had sort of a little bit maybe even written off before, like Alexis Mateo and Sheikou Lai and Ms. Cracker. And they are giving me life right now.

[14:55] Ben Rimalower: And I literally, when Ricky Martin walked on as the guest judge, I literally got choked up.

[15:04] Daniel Nolen: Really?

[15:05] Ben Rimalower: I was like, just like, just because like seeing Ricky Martin, I mean, like, I'm not a big fan of Derek Barry's, but like, you know, Brittany and Ricky were kind of the same moment in pop culture.

[15:18] Daniel Nolen: And of course, the camera cut right to Derek when Ricky walked away.

[15:21] Ben Rimalower: Wait, is Derek on this season?

[15:22] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[15:23] Ben Rimalower: Oh, wow, I had no idea.

[15:24] Daniel Nolen: So I knew what this would mean to Derek Barry, you know. And like, and I it felt like, I don't know, there have been bigger stars than Ricky Martin, I suppose, on Drag Race. But it just felt big to me.

[15:35] Ben Rimalower: I think also the fact that Ricky like came out somewhat late in his career, and this just feels like such a fully out moment in like the like modern Ricky Martin story.

[15:46] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[15:47] Ben Rimalower: Um, so speaking of Drag Race, where in the world is RuPaul Charles?

[15:52] Daniel Nolen: Rue is like off the grid. I don't think he's been on social media in months. I mean, definitely since the quarantine.

[16:01] Ben Rimalower: Must be really hard to frack during a quarantine.

[16:04] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I mean, it was definitely around that time, the fracking gate or whatever, that he disappeared. And then, you know, on the live stream reunion and the finale, he wasn't even in drag.

[16:15] Ben Rimalower: And I don't know. I just, I mean, I guess I mean, obviously he's doing fine, you know.

[16:20] Daniel Nolen: He has to. But what was that? I mean, like, if Patti LuPone has learned to beat her face for like the Hollywood junkets, really Rue could not get a look together.

[16:29] Ben Rimalower: And like, well, that's what I was thinking. Like, maybe he's at his ranch in Wyoming with his husband, and there's no one up there who knows how to do makeup, and you know Rue doesn't do his own makeup.

[16:40] Daniel Nolen: So it's a major television show. He just won the Emmy. Couldn't Rue have like flown out? I mean, like, yeah, I don't know, but I'm not defending him, but I'm not saying like we should all go to restaurants, but like I think it's odd that that like Rue didn't make that happen.

[16:56] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, or like, uh FaceTime in Raven and like have her give Rue like a brief, you know, how to.

[17:04] Daniel Nolen: I did to get my own hair with my beautiful Ryan Jedlika at Best Barber East Village, who FaceTimes me through my haircut, and they are reopening and I am going in for an in-person snip.

[17:17] Ben Rimalower: Oh yes, isn't it okay?

[17:19] Daniel Nolen: So Monday is phase three?

[17:22] Ben Rimalower: No, phase two.

[17:23] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[17:24] Ben Rimalower: And that includes barbershops.

[17:26] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[17:27] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[17:28] Daniel Nolen: All about it. Wonderful. Um, well, uh speaking of RuPaul, yes, it seems like a perfect segue to fabulous to our QuaranStream today. Miss Diana Ross.

[17:41] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I I'm curious to know. I mean, I would like to know your personal journey with Diana Ross) as a DL.

[17:52] Daniel Nolen: Okay. Well, honestly, it's funny you mentioned Rue because RuPaul is the one who kind of introduced me to Diana Ross). Um, you know, I knew kind of of the Supremes and I kind of knew who Diana was just as like a cultural figure.

[18:12] Ben Rimalower: But RuPaul was always talking about Diana Ross) on his podcast with Ms. Shelvisage. And so I started, you know, listening to the albums on Spotify, and of course, discovered The Boss, which is my favorite Diana album, and like, you know, I think that album and especially that song has kind of had a resurgence in the past few years.

[18:33] Daniel Nolen: And so then I watched. Well, mostly due to our house on Fire Island.

[18:37] Ben Rimalower: Yes, definitely. And then you introduced me to the funny girl, Diana Ross) and the Supremes album, which I love. And then I watched Mahogany, and you know, just took a deep dive down her discography.

[18:51] Daniel Nolen: And um, I mean, there's so much, especially the Supremes, so I have like more and more to listen to. But uh yeah, I would just say in the past four years, five years, I really kind of have had my Diana moment.

[19:06] Ben Rimalower: And certainly watching this special, An Evening with Diana Ross) really cemented that and made me like want to go back and start listening to more of her albums again because I haven't really done that in a while.

[19:19] Daniel Nolen: But aside from the ones that are already on my summer playlists. Um but yeah, I mean, what a star. You know, we talked a lot about her with Michael Musto, but watching her in this special, it was really apparent her star quality. You know, I think it's something she has, she has, you know, the house down to the max, you know.

[19:43] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[19:45] Daniel Nolen: Anyway, what about you? When did you discover Diana?

[19:48] Ben Rimalower: Well, I mean, she was really at the peak of her like stardom when I was really little. So um I used to look through my parents' LPs, because you know, it's the LP generation, they were such fun things for a little kid to sit on the floor and look through the pictures, you know.

[20:04] Daniel Nolen: So anyway, but so then she I always knew her music, and you know, I just remember like all those things in the 80s of like those infomercials for like, you know, if it was a best of hits of the girl groups or of the 60s or whatever. Or there'd be like a special retrospective of Ed Sullivan's greatest moments, and they would always show like the Supremes, you know.

[20:27] Ben Rimalower: And I think like as I was like getting really just into music when I was like a tween, the Supremes stuff really felt it was so familiar because that music had just been so ubiquitous throughout my life. And so and it was just music that just immediately touched me in an emotional way, you know. Songs like Baby Love and Reflections, you know, they I hear a symphony, they just sort of struck a chord, you know, and and that's partly because um they're great music, and it's partly because the Supremes were such a fantastic vocal group, and it's partially because that Motown sound is such an incredible artistic achievement, you know.

[21:12] Daniel Nolen: But it's also has a lot to do with the fact that Diana Ross) has, you know, they call her the perfect pop voice.

[21:19] Ben Rimalower: Um yeah, totally.

[21:20] Daniel Nolen: And it's so true, you know, and it's just you just know it's Diana Ross) when you hear her, and yeah, it's so distinct.

[21:26] Ben Rimalower: It's so distinct, and so uh, and it's just so appealing, you know.

[21:31] Daniel Nolen: Um anyway, so I you know, I love that, and and then I think I um but I don't think I bought any of their stuff until I was like uh like a f summer after like my freshman year of college was when I was like kind of done with cast albums, and all I wanted was like vocal albums, vocal albums, vocal albums.

[21:54] Ben Rimalower: And that's when I like really did the deep dives into Bette and Barbra and Liza. I already had Patti and Bernadette and Betty Buckley and stuff because to me their solo albums were almost more like cast albums, you know.

[22:07] Daniel Nolen: Um but not it bears mentioning that Bernadette's first album or the CD of her first two records, I had originally bought in high school at the same time I was buying, you know, Into the Woods and Mack and Mabel. But then I would put it on, and I was like, you know, she was singing G Wiz, and I was like, what is this country? I don't want this shit, you know.

[22:29] Ben Rimalower: But then here I was in college smoking weed and listening to Bette Midler's first two albums, and I put on that Bernadette CD, and it's just that like bum boom boom, there goes the guy, except like five times slower, you know.

[22:46] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and every song on that album is a winner, a winner, but each one is slower than the next.

[22:51] Ben Rimalower: Slower, yeah.

[22:52] Daniel Nolen: And here I was, I mean, it was, you know, the summer of '95, and I'm stoned out of my mind. And I am in my first apartment, and I'm alone, and I've got the Barbara records on the wall in the kitchen. And you know, I've just like other kids might be studying or going to the library, but I'm just like smoking weed and got the lights on low, and I'm just chilling on my futon, listening to Bernadette, you know?

[23:20] Ben Rimalower: And it was like either Bernadette or it was Aretha or it was Bette or it was Annie Lennox or k.d. lang. You know, those were the it was this mellow, mellow mood.

[23:31] Daniel Nolen: And so anyway, then I appreciated that. But so around that time, I bought this CD that was like an import, because it was like not a real CD that's like an American legal release, but it had like, you know, 95 tracks on it, and it was like everything the Supremes ever recorded. Um I got so obsessed with it.

[23:49] Ben Rimalower: And like I remember um the night of my first gay pride in San Francisco, my friends Jeff and Jake Manabot, uh these twins who are um they're actually actors. Jake is um Jake was in Rent and Jeff is in the Kinsey Six, the Dragapella. Um he's pixie. But um anyway, they um we were on my terrace uh drunk and stoned, and uh putting on, and and we kept trying on all my drag and just like just belting along with that Supreme CD for like hours and hours and hours. Uh I don't I think it was the night before we went to our first parade.

[24:28] Daniel Nolen: Anyway, but so I was really into Diana with that stuff, and then um years later, uh, like I think I was uh oh, I was dating Scott Whitman when he was uh he and Mark were on a brief he said he got Scott got time off for bad behavior. I think that's how you were described it. The other lady.

[24:49] Ben Rimalower: No, no, no. I think there were other ladies, and then they were on a pause, and then I was like the intermission. I was the Diet Coke.

[24:58] Daniel Nolen: But um But it was a very druggie time in Scott's life and in mine. And um, I just remember we would be doing tons of um, it was it was actually MDMA, but in those days you didn't call it Molly, but this wasn't ecstasy because ecstasy technically was MDA mixed with speed.

[25:16] Ben Rimalower: Okay.

[25:17] Daniel Nolen: So this uh what he called it was just drops, and he had it in these little um, it looked like a little tiny like bottle you'd put in your pocket that had contact lens, you know, re like eye drops, you know. But he would just take it everywhere and just put it in our drinks, you know. So I was with him like, you know, 24-7, like rolling on MDMA.

[25:36] Ben Rimalower: And um wow, and I remember like we were in bed, and he had put on, you know, I think he had like a CD changer playing a bunch of stuff, and Diana singing her cover of You're All I Need to Get By came on. And I was just like tripping balls, and like you know, we just had like probably the best sex of my life or something, you know. And like I was just like so like blissed out, you know, by the way, in this like fucking fabulous loft, you know, and just and you know, and I'm feeling like that, you know, Mark was at the house in LA or something. I felt like I was like, you know, the queen of Broadway, you know, just like the Tonys on the shelf.

[26:16] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yeah.

[26:18] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, this is something post all the wins.

[26:19] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, you know, I mean, probably earlier that night it was like Sarah Jessica and Matthew, and like um, you know, all the Broadway people, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Angie Schworer and Rochelle Rack and uh Brooks Ashmanskis and Jerry McIntyre, just this, you know, I just felt like this like I was in it, you know.

[26:39] Daniel Nolen: Oh, and I had just done the um Leslie Kritzer's Patti LuPone at Les Mouches. So I felt like a star. I was, you know, I was just living, and I just was so blissed out. And this um this recording came on, and there's like this I don't know if it's a triangle or a bell, but like, you know, every I don't know, eighth beat or something, I think it's a triangle. There's just this simple like ding, and it's just like um you're all ding.

[27:11] Ben Rimalower: I need to get by.

[27:15] Daniel Nolen: Uh ding. And like that metronome of that ding and Diana's like, you know, I mean, if Barbra's voice is butter, Diana's voice is silk, you know.

[27:25] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[27:27] Daniel Nolen: And it I don't know if I've ever like lived a song so like uh intensely, you know. And so then, and I was just going on and on and on and on about it. So then, like, you know, on our next date, Scott had bought me um her greatest hits.

[27:44] Ben Rimalower: Aww.

[27:44] Daniel Nolen: Uh, but it didn't have that song. Um, but I mean it had The Boss, and it had Ain't No Mountain High Enough, and it had um uh uh Touch Me in the Morning.

[27:47] Ben Rimalower: Touch Me in the Morning, my karaoke number.

[27:56] Daniel Nolen: And you know, everything, uh Reach Out and Touch, and it had um so but I wanted that song, so then I also bought her first solo album, Post Supremes, um, which is where she sings that song. And um, uh so then that between those two CDs, The Greatest Hits and her first self-titled solo album, I just got really, really, really, really into her.

[28:23] Daniel Nolen: So that was like 2007, and then 2006, 2007. And then, but only like the last couple of years of like streaming have I got, and even just since the last time I saw you, like I feel like every time I go to Fire Island, I'm looking for more music in that 70s vibe that just is my chill.

[28:41] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[28:42] Daniel Nolen: And you know, it's funny when you said there's just so much material with the Supremes, because I think there's even more with her solo shit. Like, I couldn't believe it's like seems like every time I think I have all Diana's 1970s solo albums, I go on Apple Music, and there's another one I somehow missed, you know.

[29:01] Ben Rimalower: Well, and also all of her collaborations with other artists, like yeah, with the Marvin album, it's classic.

[29:06] Daniel Nolen: Okay, yeah. So um, you know, anyway, that so now I'm like, you know, just kind of more more into her than ever. And and and I oh, I left out saying that I did grow up watching the movie of The Wiz. Um to be honest, don't like it.

[29:25] Ben Rimalower: I didn't I well I loved the movie as a kid, to be I actually did love the movie. I mean, you know, to me that was The Wiz. It's like I get now what's wrong with the movie, although I do think a lot is right with it. For example, I think the idea if you're going to do the story of The Wizard of Oz with this like intensely Motown style score, yeah, setting it in like 1970s Harlem is like a really incredible way to do it.

[29:56] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[29:56] Ben Rimalower: Like totally. When I I actually did see The Wiz um when I was little on stage, but um the physical production, I think we saw it at a dinner theater in Westchester. The physical production didn't, you know, leave that much of a lasting. I was like three or something. You know, I don't remember so much except about the physical production, except that um my grandma in her living room, Grandma Harriet, had um an Ottoman that was on wheels.

[30:25] Daniel Nolen: I love that.

[30:26] Ben Rimalower: And the munchkins were adults, and it looked to me like the contraptions they were on were Ottomans on wheels. So I I would always play The Wiz at my grandma's house and like pretend to be the Munchkin on the thing. But um anyway, but I but I but growing up loving the movie of The Wiz, because it was my it was The Wiz that I, you know, would watch, I didn't um I didn't really care for Diana in it.

[30:55] Daniel Nolen: And um, like I knew the whole score so well, except "Home," which is so crazy fast. Because it's like the like number one song, you know. Um, and of course, I mean Stephanie Mills on the cast album in my adult life, I would say, you know, for me, Stephanie Mills in The Wiz is up there with Patti and Evita and um uh Andrea McArdle and Annie, you know, just one of those like just the sound of her voice, yeah you know.

[31:26] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[31:26] Daniel Nolen: Um anyway, but uh, but not Diana. But but I didn't hate Diana, I just didn't. She reminded me of my mom's friend Linda Gross, who had that same hairstyle. She just like didn't. She just didn't feel to me like Dorothy, you know.

[31:39] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:40] Daniel Nolen: But uh, but I appreciate it now. So uh anyway, I'm so psyched to dive into this.

[31:46] Ben Rimalower: Yes, I should be. 1977 TV special, like we said, played on Broadway at the Palace. By the way, with a very Broadway um uh team, it was directed by Joe Leighton, who directed kind of like all those shows. Like, I'm pretty sure he directed at least one of Bette Midler's uh shows at the time on Broadway, and like he directed um I think Shirley MacLaine's one-woman show.

[32:13] Daniel Nolen: Oh, I still have that uh t-shirt for you.

[32:15] Ben Rimalower: Um yeah, and uh stolen off Liza Minnelli's back. Um but um anyway. Then of course, music arranged and conducted by Billy Goldenberg, who is known as um well, he wrote the musical Ballroom, but I know him from Bette Arthur's one-woman show.

[32:36] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[32:36] Ben Rimalower: As her um music director accompanist, and then isn't he even better known to the general public? Like, didn't he work on the Carol Burnett Show?

[32:48] Daniel Nolen: Maybe. I mean, I I was looking him up. There's he has a ton of other like uh credits, yeah. Uh like like uh writing for for stars, but yeah, um the B one was the one that I latched on to.

[33:01] Ben Rimalower: Well, um I kind of blame him for the parts of this show that I don't love. Um but the parts of the show that I do love that I give credit to anyone other than Miss Ross is Bruce Vilanch. Um, another Broadway, Broadway man.

[33:17] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I love him.

[33:18] Ben Rimalower: He wrote all the banter and stuff, or at least some of it, you know, it's like it's just a bunch of names. But you know, speaking of RuPaul, there's a good episode of Ru and Michelle's podcast with Bruce, and he talks a lot about working with Diana. And you know, he's in the movie of Mahogany. He has like a scene in that movie. I think he did a pass on that script, too.

[33:38] Daniel Nolen: That makes sense.

[33:39] Ben Rimalower: You know, I've actually never seen Mahogany, which is insane. Um I mean, that movie is insane. I I watched it for the first time a few years ago, and it's so crazy. She's really great in it, though. We should definitely have Bruce on the pod.

[33:52] Daniel Nolen: And um actually it would be a fun thing to have our uh Tuesday, Thursday, April, August viewers vote on would be what of Bruce Vilanch's work should we have him on the pod to corn show?

[34:04] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes, yes. Let's see, he did he works. I mean, I I mean, is he still like writing Bette's tweets? Is that who's like tweeting?

[34:11] Daniel Nolen: Judy Gold writes Bette's tweets.

[34:15] Ben Rimalower: Oh, which once you know that, it's like of course she does.

[34:20] Daniel Nolen: It makes so much sense.

[34:21] Ben Rimalower: It makes so much sense. They're all caps, I mean, it makes so much sense.

[34:24] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For some reason, when Judy Gold does it, I don't mind it, but when Bette does it, it bugs me a little. Although I'm very pro Bette right now, I know. But but I um I mean, yeah, I I summertime's always a good Bette time for me because of I listen to her so much. But I can't quit her, but you know, oof, it was touch and go for a minute there. Speaking of, um, did you see Dublin Zotrop's Insta story today?

[34:49] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, and I'm still trying to think of an answer.

[34:52] Daniel Nolen: No, no, but did you see the one about Bette? The one with with the politics with Ben Platt and Bette and Judith?

[34:58] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, no, but did you see the what the person had written had written? You know, because it was a question, like who are wrong answers only.

[35:06] Daniel Nolen: Oh, yeah, I mean, I I saw all of them, yeah. I gotta find it. It was really funny. Wrong answers only. It was right. The politician, Bette, and Judith, and then Platt. My favorite answer that I saw was uh Tommy, Angelica, and Chucky from Rugrats all grown up, because that would make Bette Chucky.

[35:26] Ben Rimalower: Um this was this person wrote Katherine Helmond, comma, a self-made actor, and a woman who wasn't all in from Mike Bloomberg.

[35:41] Daniel Nolen: I mean, the Rugrats joke is your generation, but do you get Catherine Helmond?

[35:47] Ben Rimalower: Yes, I know who Catherine Helmond is.

[35:49] Daniel Nolen: Yeah. I mean, like from Who's the Boss with Judith, yeah.

[35:51] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, Judith is um, yeah, and and uh Ben is the yeah, that's funny. This is like the um I'm gonna tell my children version of that question. Like I'm gonna tell my kids that this is Catherine Helmond, a self-made actor.

[36:07] Daniel Nolen: Anyway, um, but so diving in.

[36:11] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[36:12] Daniel Nolen: Um An Evening with Diana Ross). I'm so mad about the quality. This is another one, and I'm especially gonna be vocal about bitching about this now, because I would like to believe part of the reason that, if not the entire reason, that um Liza uh New Orleans is now available on Prime.

[36:32] Ben Rimalower: Yes, oh my god.

[36:33] Daniel Nolen: Right after. Because we bitched about it.

[36:36] Ben Rimalower: So I mean, the truth is it might have even been before because I just didn't even look because I just didn't think it ever would have been.

[36:45] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[36:47] Ben Rimalower: But I think I think someone I I saw people tweeting about it after our our thing.

[36:52] Daniel Nolen: So, well, but of course, maybe that was, you know, we inspired them as well.

[36:56] Ben Rimalower: I'm so however, I think this Diana one, I mean, it's so deceiving because the thumbnail they use for the preview is like this really high quality picture of the uh "Dance Tin Looks 3" number. And so you think it's gonna be really high quality, and then you click on it and it's just like I mean I I I'm pretty sure it's it's someone filming their TV screen. Because every now and then you can see like the camera shift, and it's like oh and it's not the camera that's filming her, it's the camera that's filming like the frame.

[37:24] Daniel Nolen: Oh how funny.

[37:25] Ben Rimalower: I didn't even notice that.

[37:26] Daniel Nolen: Oh, but but on my TV, it was so big and so fuzzy that like I really only know it's Diana Ross) by the audio. Like by the audio. It could have been that that same woman from uh Puerto Rico. It actually honestly, it could have been a white lady, it could have been just a palm tree.

[37:46] Ben Rimalower: Bruce Vilanch.

[37:48] Daniel Nolen: Serious.

[37:48] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I just have no way of saying for sure. Honestly, I think it would have been better if I watched it on my phone. But it just pisses me off. This was an HBO production.

[37:58] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[37:59] Ben Rimalower: But I will say, I have to believe um that Diana's shit is together. Um, and like so if she wants you could put it out. Like, I don't know.

[38:10] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[38:10] Ben Rimalower: Like Liza, you just know that Liza's like just, you know, a mess. But like, I mean, I know Diana's had her moments, but I think generally speaking, I imagine that Diana's.

[38:19] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I mean, Diana's together. Just toured last year.

[38:22] Ben Rimalower: Yeah. And um, it's funny you said that thing about the expensive tickets because I tried to get a ticket to see her at Radio City last year, and I mean, hundreds. The cheapest one was like four hundred dollars.

[38:32] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[38:33] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I tried to get comps and they they turned me down.

[38:36] Daniel Nolen: No, no, no.

[38:36] Ben Rimalower: But I'm really mad that I didn't go. I should have, I mean, I guess I just didn't have the money, but anyway. But I think she'll come back. I mean, like I said to you last week, I think my dream would be to see her at like the Ice Palace in January Grove.

[38:48] Daniel Nolen: Oh, yes, please. God.

[38:51] Ben Rimalower: But so this is 77, which is really that sweet spot of late 70s music performers that we live for.

[39:00] Daniel Nolen: Okay.

[39:01] Ben Rimalower: Um, so starting with this little like um pre-filmed thing.

[39:07] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[39:07] Ben Rimalower: I was like, her like origins. Children, what is happening? I mean, I love the overture. Um, but I mean, you have to give it to her that it is less egotistical than My Name Is Barbara.

[39:20] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, of course.

[39:22] Ben Rimalower: I mean, at least it's like other people.

[39:25] Daniel Nolen: Like, right, right.

[39:27] Ben Rimalower: Well, and I have to say, the tone throughout the whole evening is I mean, Diana Ross) is so gorgeous. She's like the most beautiful diva ever. But she's so self-deprecating, and and she makes fun of her looks all the time, and it's so interesting to me because I'm like, you it you really I mean, Barbara, she can kind of pull it off because we're all like, yeah, I mean, she is a little funny looking, but uh Diana, I just don't buy it, you know, because she's obviously like a model.

[39:56] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, but it's also like I mean, I've always I have bought it. I mean, obviously, she's the most beautiful. I mean, that whole that breathtaking sequence in the Dreamgirls movie, like about what is it, when I first saw you, is that the song that he sings to Dina?

[40:13] Ben Rimalower: Um I don't know.

[40:14] Daniel Nolen: And it's just like this beautiful photography of Beyoncé, just in all the different like uh costumes from Dina's film career and like photo spreads from her modeling career. And it's just like one after another of her just like the most exquisite photos, but it's literally a ripoff of this moment in Diana Ross)'s career.

[40:37] Ben Rimalower: I mean, so obviously, like she is the model to like end all models.

[40:41] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[40:41] Ben Rimalower: But like I also I buy into the narrative of her story, her origin story of being like just a little girl with skinny legs, you know, just like oh yeah, well, that for sure. Like just like playing jump rope on the corner. Like, I you know, so I believe that that's how she I you know, I believe her I buy into the mythology she's she's told, you know.

[41:02] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yes, yes.

[41:04] Ben Rimalower: Um, and you know, don't we all um uh we were talking about this in writing group today, how like you know, we all are people talk about inner child as if it's like your inner child is like the part of you that like is playful and like wants to like you know have fun, yeah. You know, but we're talking about like the inner child is also like the part that's like wounded and like fragile, you know, and like has these feelings, you know.

[41:29] Daniel Nolen: Um I was talking about I love that uh Alison Fraser thing, uh, where she's like on I forget what song it is on New York Romance, where she's like, Explore my battered ego and my shattered id. Introduce me to my long lost inner kid. Hi, how are you?

[41:49] Ben Rimalower: I feel that Diana Ross), especially in the 70s with all the like self-help and est and like you know, all that shit. I feel like for sure she was doing a lot of inner kid work by 77.

[42:02] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, definitely. But okay, then you're gonna love this. I don't know if you came across this factoid, but the actual opening number that she walks out singing, um, I wouldn't change a thing. Do you know who wrote that?

[42:27] Ben Rimalower: Um, that's uh, uh, motherfucker. Now I can't remember it. It's a song I'm fucking obsessed with. Um, God damn it. Uh, see, I wouldn't. What album is it on? Oh god. Um, it's uh, I always thought it was like a Supreme song, but it's not, it's a Diana Ross) song. But it almost has like a, I mean, it almost sounds like the very, very late period psychedelic Supremes. It's um, wait, I was so close a second ago. Hold on. Um, is it love hangover? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not that late. It's um, like, don't say anything. Don't speak. Um, it's god damn it. Wait, just talk amongst yourselves. Um, well, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't talk. This is just gonna have to be edited out. You're gonna, this is gonna be worth it.

You're gonna love what I'm gonna tell you so much. Um, oh, I know where I know where I can find it easily. Hold on. Um, wait, where's the first album? Here we go. I can't believe I I'm literally obsessed with this song. I can't believe I I couldn't remember it. It's um, um, These Things Will Keep Me Loving You. Mmm, wait, I don't remember this. No, I I'm pretty sure she sings it later in this concert, but maybe not. Maybe that's why I couldn't find it here. But um, but she sings it and it's constantly on the Fire Island playlist. These things will keep me loving you. Um, I've been so into that once. I was downhearted. These things will keep me loving you. Um, anyway, I'm obsessed with this song.

So I looked it up, and it's by Johnny Bristol. So now I've gotten obsessed with Johnny Bristol just this week. But Johnny Bristol wrote this song right here that she opens with I Wouldn't Change a Thing if I had to do my life all over again. And do you know what he also is known for writing?

[44:39] Daniel Nolen: What?

[44:39] Ben Rimalower: Hang on in there, baby.

[44:41] Daniel Nolen: Ah!

[44:41] Ben Rimalower: I knew you were gonna say that. I knew it was gonna be something off Thighs and Whispers. That is fabulous. I mean, it makes sense that that late 70s songwriting. And I've been listening to this Johnny Bristol album um all week, and I think I'm ready to say this. He is going to be the first and possibly only man that I'm gonna add to the Thighs and Superman Fire Island playlist. Wait, it's like it's like his solo album. Like he's, he had many solo albums, like some of these songs he even had as a hit himself. Hang on in there, baby. He actually had a hit with before. Um, he's a great singer. He's fabulous.

[45:20] Daniel Nolen: I've never, I never heard of him.

[45:21] Ben Rimalower: I never had either. Was he like what kind of, I mean obviously?

[45:25] Daniel Nolen: Motown era, he was a Motown songwriter, and he wrote a bunch of stuff, um, some really big things for Motown um artists. And then around the early 70s is when he branched out and had a solo career.

[45:40] Ben Rimalower: Mmm, gotcha. Um, and then some of the stuff, some of the stuff from his solo career then got covered by some of those same or different artists afterwards, like Diana and Bette, etc.

[45:51] Daniel Nolen: Wow. Okay, I'm writing him down because I'm definitely gonna give that a deep dive.

[45:55] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, you're gonna love him. He's fabulous. Um, anyway, I thought you'd be so happy to know that. That's like my, yeah, Hang on in there baby by Bette Midler. It's like my favorite, my favorite song of the summer to listen to. I have to say, and I I don't expect you to agree with this, but I like Johnny Bristol's original Hang On in There Baby better than Bette's. And I like Bette's a lot. But the Bette, it's like I used to not like that album, and then I started to love that album, but I still didn't love that song. And now I love that song, but I like Johnny's version better.

[46:29] Daniel Nolen: Okay, I'm just gonna.

[46:29] Ben Rimalower: And I think there's somebody else that had a hit with it, a bigger hit than he did. And of course the Bette version was a flop. Um, but I I'm now I I haven't listened to the person that actually had the big hit with the song, but I need to. Um, anyway, um, but yeah, that's such a good factoid.

[46:49] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[46:50] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I feel like he is just like the, he encapsulates that moment in that sound so well.

[46:58] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[46:59] Ben Rimalower: I'm okay. I'm I'm looking him up right now. Johnny Bristol. It's because it's like it's a little bit um like Motown 70s kind of soul, but it also has like a very um like showbiz kind of brass to it, yeah.

[47:03] Daniel Nolen: But it also has a sort of like Laurel Canyon kind of hippie vibe, too. It's like really like a fusion of those three things, and I feel like so much of his stuff fits that diagram. His most famous solo recording, Hang On in There Baby. Um, so anyway, um, then she does that song in my lifetime, um, which I wrote it down but I actually had no notes on it.

[47:26] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yeah, one line on a time which I love. Um, and then we go into insane insanity the show tune section which in fairness this is not the order this is much shorter and way out of order from what the actual live show well at least what the live show on Broadway was. Um, well no and because the album is um, I believe recorded not on Broadway and the album is long and in a very different order.

[48:22] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, very short. I mean I love that she has special material for the music in the mirror yeah but she has special material for a little but it goes south like at certain points she's just showing off that like Billy Golden I guess Billy Goldenberg is bragging that he knows the song titles from a chorus line yeah literally everyone and um like it reminds me of like um uh uh there's I don't know why but like there's this amazing Forbidden Broadway I think maybe my favorite forbidden Broadway number ever is from Forbidden Broadway um strikes Back, I think it's called. It's like the one from like 97 cute and it's the one with the Patti LuPone masterclass thing and the Elaine Stritch zip and um anyway and rent and everything.

[49:15] Ben Rimalower: And it has um, it's supposed to be Barry and Fran Weisler, the you know, schlocky stunt casting producers of Chicago, but this is before Chicago or Chicago had just opened. They weren't even really talking about. They were known at that time for other schlocky revivals with stunt casting, notably Greece, which at the time that Rosie O'Donnell starred in that Tommy Toon production of they called it the Tommy Toon production, but it was directed by Jeff Calhoun. But anyway, that production of Greece ran for years and years, and it had an uh different stunt casting as it kept going. So anyway, it's an infomercial. This is the concept of this Forbidden Broadway number.

[49:56] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[49:56] Ben Rimalower: It's an infomercial of Barry and Fran Weisler. And by the way, it's great impressions of them. Hello, friends. This is Barry and Fran Weisler. Are you an out of work TV recording, movie, or print artist? Like so they're trying to offer like C-list celebrities a role in Greece. And they're like, and like there's one point when he's like, but Fran, I can't act. I can't sing, I can't dance. And she's like, no problem, Barry. Like, so it's this infomercial. And the song they said, they're like, you're the one that we want. Ooh, ooh, ooh, honey. The one that we want. It's so fucking funny. Anyway, but so um they uh this is so long-winded, but they're like, I'm at the end of it. But they're like, We're the we're the Tony, we're we're the we're the Broadway producing team that brought you such classy hits as the Tony Quin Zorba, the Richard Shamberlain, My Fair Lady, and the Smash It Revival of Greece at the Eugene O'Neill Theater.

[51:05] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[51:05] Ben Rimalower: Anyway, so oh, and then she goes, classy theater, classy show. I mean, I literally I could do the whole thing. Anyway, it just reminded me of that when she's literally like um, you know, all I have needed was dance ten looks three and nothing, and what I did follow. And it's like it, yeah, and she she she calls back to what I did for love like several times. It's not like she wraps it up and goes back to the first song. It's like she sings what I did for love, and then there's a whole new section, and then she closes with what I did for love again. For no reason. And I wrote, Please say she's gonna sing one.

[51:48] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I mean, that totally.

[51:50] Ben Rimalower: But she didn't.

[51:52] Daniel Nolen: Nope, nope, nope.

[51:53] Ben Rimalower: How do you do a schlocky? She even made a joke about it. I think it's before the song even started, where she's like, she has that gold sparkly thing on. She's like, chorus line ain't got nothing on me. And like, I was like, was a chorus line that huge in pop culture? That I was like, you know what? Because it's on Broadway. I mean, the video wasn't filmed on Broadway, it was the tour, but like, it'd be kind of like if you opened a Broadway show the same season as Hamilton.

[52:23] Daniel Nolen: Mmhmm.

[52:24] Ben Rimalower: Like you would have to, like, you, you know, if if you were, if you were doing if Martin Short did a one-man show the same season as Hamilton, he would make jokes about Hamilton, you know?

[52:33] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[52:33] Ben Rimalower: So, like, I guess a chorus line was that. Um, also, then it's like she has this chorus line section, but then you know, she goes back to her like regular Diana material. And then when she goes into the acting section like an hour later, she then starts singing other songs from Chorus Line, nothing, Danston looks three. So it's so crazy. There's no rhyme or reason everything. There's no rhyme or reason. It's so bizarre. I think I think I have I think that's this weird editing of how they conceive the TV show. But you know, anyway.

[53:06] Daniel Nolen: Um, but okay, then I wrote down this line that she says, because she is an extended um section of film clips of the Supremes.

[53:17] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes. Now, she sang those songs live in the theater. So this is just like a choice they made for the broadcast. Um, which I don't love. Um, but the first thing I want to say is before we even get into that, um, she says I was always known as the girl in the middle.

[53:36] Daniel Nolen: Ha ha.

[53:38] Ben Rimalower: Um, and this I could write a dissertation about this because it really it's like this question, right? Is she an ensemble member throwing shade at her cohorts? Or is she a big star self-deprecatingly recalling her humble beginnings? So, like saying like the middle could mean like the front man, like the star, but it could also mean like the poor middle child who doesn't get a big thing.

[54:09] Daniel Nolen: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[54:10] Ben Rimalower: It's definitely the star. But the it's like, is she um, it's like I was always the girl in the middle, is almost like a humble brag, right?

[54:20] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[54:20] Ben Rimalower: Because she because she says I was always known as the girl in the middle. And clearly, like a big thing for her is like wanting to not be the girl in the middle, wanting to be fucking Diana Ross), you know? So like she definitely means that like I was definitely better than those two girls.

[54:37] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[54:37] Ben Rimalower: But like I don't want to be the Sherelles, the Shangri-Las. Yeah, I want to be. I want to be a fucking, I want to be, you know, Barbra Streisand, you know?

[54:47] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[54:48] Ben Rimalower: And um, and indeed now she literally is Barbra Streisand, you know?

[54:53] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[54:53] Ben Rimalower: But so, you know, if she's, you know, if she was at a dinner with Barbra and Olivia Newton-John and Donna Summer for like great pop stars of the 70s, you know, and they were sitting at the dinner table. Diana could say, I was always known as the girl in the middle. It would be like Barbra being like, I was always like the Jewish one who couldn't dance. You know, like I don't know why I did Barbra like Harvey Fierstein, but whatever. I wasn't mad. But you know, my stepfather always told me I was ugly. We're all just these like fucking huge superstars, and like we're talking about like our humble beginnings as like what we were before we were this. But if you are, you know, Florence Ballard or Mary Wilson, it's a little bit like uh rude, you know?

[55:41] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[55:42] Ben Rimalower: And I feel like that's such the um, you see, that's just what it is when somebody breaks out of the unit. I mean, in a way, it's kind of like the Beyoncé thing coming out of Destiny's Child.

[55:53] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[55:54] Ben Rimalower: That's yeah, very um, and the other thing I wrote down around this section was um the Supremes, oh, this once they started like the video month, the video stuff. I was like, the Supremes were not a girl group. They were the girl group. Do you know it's like a template from which everything else came? Well, I don't know if they actually were the template because they weren't the first, you know. Um but I but it's just, you know, part you could say it's because of their talent, you could say it's by luck, you could say it's because Diana was screwing Barry Gordy, you could say it was because of Diana's star quality, you know.

[56:34] Ben Rimalower: But the fact is their impact is so much bigger, you know, that they, you know, and so it's weird because in one, I realized watching, I was getting annoyed with this montage of this footage.

[56:48] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[56:49] Ben Rimalower: Because it was like you kept seeing them sing the same songs again and again in different dresses. But what I realized was this is not a montage of the Supremes recording art career as recording artists. This is a montage of the Supremes career in pop culture and on television. So the point they show them on like Ed Sullivan and all those. So the point wasn't here are all the songs they had hits with. The point was here's all the times they did a television special, here's all the times that they were on Ed Sullivan, here's all the times they were on the Tonight Show, here's look, look at all the different dresses they wore, they sang the same song on Ed Sullivan. That's how big they were. That they kept coming, that they were ubiquitous, you know. And so I get that point, but it would be much more fun to watch them sing more of their hits than the same fucking song in four different dresses, you know.

[57:48] Daniel Nolen: Um, but on the other hand, I just do I have to say, like, if there's any star that you're gonna lean into the just sheer goddamn glamorous stardom, it should be Diana Ross).

[58:04] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yeah. I mean, I know that breaks Barbra Streisand's heart, but it ain't her, you know. Like, no matter how many turbines she wears, no matter how many photos she takes from the left side of her face.

[58:17] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[58:19] Ben Rimalower: It's always gonna be Diana, you know. Um when you talk about stars, you know, later stars. I mean, obviously Lady Gaga, but even someone like Beyoncé, there's still something of it being a commentary with Beyoncé, you know.

[58:36] Daniel Nolen: Well, and Beyoncé, yeah, she doesn't have that, you know. They talk about like Elizabeth Taylor on film. I think Diana Ross) has that same quality where it's like her something happens with her face when she's on screen, yeah, and her voice, and it creates almost like an energetic, it's like something otherworldly that somehow like passes through the screen and like transcends time and space and like envelops your whole being and your whole body.

[59:06] Ben Rimalower: I mean, um, it's like she radiates just warmth and joy and charisma and beauty and the whole package, whether it's you know her giant, beautiful pearly smile, those big eyes, her beautiful silky voice, the big, you know, uh hair. It's I mean, the whole presence, all of her and the the generosity and the graciousness with which she uh interacts with the audience, holding herself like a true star, but also just like the Queen Mother, like kissing babies and shaking hands, you know.

[59:40] Daniel Nolen: Totally. She's also a little bit of a throwback to another era. Like, it's funny you talk about Elizabeth Taylor, because you know, Diana's it's almost like watching like a star from MGM or something, you know.

[59:52] Ben Rimalower: Yes, it's like that. She has that like old-timey movie star, you know. I mean, because I think Beyoncé is incredibly charismatic on screen, um, and has crazy star quality. But like, but but Diana, you know, it like when you watch her in like Lady Sings the Blues, it feels like it could be from that era.

[1:00:15] Daniel Nolen: Um, and actually, funny enough, I feel like some of her posture in this concert reminded me of Judy.

[1:00:22] Ben Rimalower: Oh, that's fascinating.

[1:00:23] Daniel Nolen: I can see it.

[1:00:24] Ben Rimalower: Yeah. I mean, probably just because she's so damn skinny, you know. And those dresses she wears with like the big shoulders and like kind of straight down. Some of the hairstyles, even too. It's like, it's like the way that they like tried to like, you know, sort of like whitewash Diana for like a mainstream audience in the 60s, and then, you know, in terms of the Supreme stuff, and then the way they tried to like make Judy hip, some there, there's like a there's like a crossover there where they have the same hair and dress, you know.

[1:00:59] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:00:59] Ben Rimalower: Um, oh, the other the one thing I did like about seeing all these clips of the Supremes was that knowing all the like studio album versions of these songs, you might not recognize that unlike recording stars of today, the Supremes were a touring act.

[1:01:24] Daniel Nolen: I mean, they made their living all through the 60s, like on the road.

[1:01:29] Ben Rimalower: On the road, yeah. And so it was fun to see the live endings of these songs. Because like they really had great voices, you know.

[1:01:39] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:01:39] Ben Rimalower: So the songs on in the studio had these like great, you know, Motown like pop fade outs and shit. You know, but they were also capable of like just doing like a big money note, you know. So it was kind of fun to see that in some of these like Ed Sullivan TV special clips and stuff. Um, and I mean it's worth any medley of them. Uh even if you heard just fucking like, you know, what's that terrible song of theirs that I hate the beach ball or whatever, you know, or you're the composer. Like, you know, any of their like, you know, D sides would be worth it for an hour if you get to hear someday we'll be together, because that is such a fucking great song.

[1:02:19] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:02:20] Ben Rimalower: I think my favorite is the happening.

[1:02:23] Daniel Nolen: Really?

[1:02:24] Ben Rimalower: I love for some reason that just really does it for me.

[1:02:27] Daniel Nolen: That's so weird.

[1:02:29] Ben Rimalower: Um I really love someday we'll be together. Um, although then when she started talking and she said the word memories, I got so scared.

[1:02:42] Daniel Nolen: Uh oh.

[1:02:43] Ben Rimalower: I really thought she was gonna sing the way we were.

[1:02:45] Daniel Nolen: Oh shit.

[1:02:46] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I mean, that would that would make sense. I thought that was cool.

[1:02:49] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that would have, that would have, that would have totally scanned in that. I was so ready for it.

[1:02:54] Ben Rimalower: But she didn't. Instead, she did this weird, like, wait, did she even sing this or was this just instrumental? There was like an all strings, like symphonic sounding Baby Love.

[1:03:07] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, she did sing that.

[1:03:08] Ben Rimalower: She sang, like she sang it over the montage.

[1:03:12] Daniel Nolen: I thought it was um, I thought it was Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[1:03:15] Ben Rimalower: Speaking of memories, like I it was so crazy. I thought it was like PA Yezu.

[1:03:23] Daniel Nolen: Like P.

[1:03:24] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, it was like Baby Love.

[1:03:27] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:03:39] Ben Rimalower: That one?

[1:03:40] Daniel Nolen: No, no, no. That's what is that? That's little uh music of the night, right?

[1:03:45] Ben Rimalower: No, I'm singing PASU, but it's uh what's it? It's like going down, like it was very that's the part that I kept hearing in the like baby la da da da da I need you uh need you.

[1:04:03] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, da da da da da da da da.

[1:04:10] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, like my hot um leave me sad. Don't throw our love away. I'm so in love with you. I don't know. Whatever. He's he stole it from them. But um, but it really sounded like that to me with this weird symphonic arrangement. Oh, and then she sings the fucking what I did for love again.

[1:04:30] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, which again, like that kind of gave me this um I mean, this uh it kind of seemed like the fact that she then closed this video Supremes montage with What I Did for Love, it kind of seemed a little uh shady to like her time with the Supremes. It was almost like See, that's what I'm talking about.

[1:04:52] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, it was like, well, I did that for love, so but you know, we all have made mistakes. You know, it's it's kind of like she's not really, you know, honoring that as like a really creative and monumental time. She's kind of like, well, I'm ready to move on, but I'm acknowledging this as like part of my past because I have to. But it wasn't really with like reverence.

[1:05:13] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:05:14] Ben Rimalower: Well, you know, the truth is it was not far behind her.

[1:05:18] Daniel Nolen: Well, and now I guess seeing it with, you know, from today's vantage point where Diana's such a star and like her own uh person, uh performer and and movie star nominated for all these awards, it's hard to understand the you know where she's coming from in the context of uh the 70s and and uh being with the Supremes. But I guess at that time, like, you know, she probably was really it was a risky career move trying to go out and and branch out without um those other two girls.

[1:05:50] Ben Rimalower: Right. Well, but I mean I think she was a risky, but also um, you know, they had a lot of unhappy times together.

[1:06:01] Daniel Nolen: Sure.

[1:06:02] Ben Rimalower: You know, I mean the Dreamgirls stuff is really based on a lot on their actual experience. I mean, you know, that was the shit that was going on in the road. I mean, you know, sh it started off with Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson, but then Florence was out and Cindy Birdsong was in. I mean, you know, now it's like a joke because the Supremes, you know, there's even a group that tours as the Supremes singing the hits to this very day. And so, you know, you can look at like a list. I mean, there have been as many Supremes as there have been, like, you know, uh, you know, alphabets or whatever, you know.

[1:06:36] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:06:36] Ben Rimalower: But more, more. But like, um, but at the time, it's striking that even Diana in the 70s, when she mentions them by name, has to say not just Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson, but Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Cindy Birdsong. Like, that's how unharmonious it was that you know it Diana wasn't even the first to go, you know.

[1:06:58] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and then she still was in there, they were on the road, the road was grueling, they didn't have a lot of creative freedom, they probably didn't have very favorable financial deals as artists, you know. And then, you know, and then she went solo, and then she had a very roller coaster rocky relationship with Barry Gordy, which I believe by 77 was over.

[1:07:19] Ben Rimalower: Um and this is the era of her, you know, I can't cover up my feelings in the name of love. It's my turn to see what I can see. I mean, it's basically that song they wrote for Beyoncé in Dreamgirls.

[1:07:33] Daniel Nolen: Um, yeah, listen, you know, and like, and here she was, like exploring all these new avenues, and you know, this time's just for me, you know.

[1:07:42] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, it's like so.

[1:07:44] Daniel Nolen: I think that it was yeah, it's exactly it's my house. By the way, listening to all these records she recorded in those years, um, a lot of the B sides, you know, and I'm very familiar with the song It's My House, because you always sing about it, you always talk about it. But there's all these other songs. I keep thinking, oh, this is it's my house, but it's not. There's just a lot of songs on the same theme. Like, this is my I ain't been licked. Yeah, this is my space, I want to share it with you. Like, there's so much, you know, she clearly was doing a lot of self work. And so I think that as a huge star and as a person who had come out of this success, but also adversity in the success, this was a hard-won independence and a hard won success she was having now.

[1:08:28] Ben Rimalower: So I think maybe it's not completely shady because I think it's partly about her own personal struggles, not necessarily like the obscurity of those losers.

[1:08:39] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, that's that's very true. And it's funny you bring up the the Barry Gordy relationship because I just listened, well, like a few months ago, I finally listened to that uh Dolly Parton's America podcast, which you know, I love Dolly so much, so I was eating it up. But Dolly's relationship with Porter Wagner is so similar to the dynamic that was going on with Diana and Barry Gordy. You know, he like made her a star. Um, but with that also came this sense of kind of control. And then Dolly, you know, eventually wanted to break out of that and go on her own. That's when she wrote I Will Always Love You, which was kind of her goodbye song to him. And, you know, some of the stories she tells on the podcast are so, you know, devastating hearing the way she was treated as a woman in the business back in the day by this kind of you know, big-time TV star who was also kind of a misogynist.

[1:09:38] Ben Rimalower: Uh, and she had to do the same thing as Diana and and really Only worse. I mean, as a black woman, it had to have been, you know, I mean, certainly in the in the South in the 60s, you know, I mean, they were going to places that were segregated. I mean, you know, um anyway, so you know, there's a lot, and and by the way, the other girls had a hard time in the Supremes, too. It's I don't see it's not completely shade, but um, but it definitely is like, well, I'm a solo act now, you know?

[1:10:11] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, very much. Um that's and that is the that is the theme of this show is very like here. I am, you know, it's and with the don't want to skip ahead, but at the end with all the other divas who are kind of passing the torches.

[1:10:23] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes, yes.

[1:10:24] Daniel Nolen: So, okay, anyway, uh, but in this section, some I mean, I know it's the 70s and stuff, but like I think I appreciate Patti LuPone at Le Mouche a little more now.

[1:10:34] Ben Rimalower: Because when David Lewis wrote that monologue for Patty about, um, this was our place, nobody could see in, our parents didn't know where we were going, where we went, and this was our place, and we used to sit on the floor and prick our fingers and mix our blood, and we'd become blood brothers and blood sisters, blood sisters, you know, and it's so weird.

[1:10:55] Daniel Nolen: It's like it's David Lewis making a comment on the shit that Diana's talking about here, where she talks about this like childlike stuff.

[1:11:05] Ben Rimalower: Um, and just when I was like, God, this is too much, I can't handle this writing.

[1:11:13] Daniel Nolen: There she has this moment here, um, when she said, oh, she's talking about we would play hide and go seek, you know.

[1:11:22] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, and then she says, but we called it hide and go get it.

[1:11:25] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and she cracks herself up when she says that.

[1:11:29] Ben Rimalower: And the way she relaxes in that moment, yeah, I cracked open. My heart just fell to pieces for her.

[1:11:37] Daniel Nolen: Like, yeah, it's like this most stilted, horrible, like 1970s, touchy-feely free-to-be you and me dialogue about we would play hide and seek.

[1:11:48] Ben Rimalower: But when she, it really feels off the cuff. Maybe she said it every night, but she does an excellent job of portraying it as off the cuff.

[1:11:53] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it does feel very off the cuff.

[1:11:55] Ben Rimalower: I actually called it hide and go get it. And it audiences, and it's just, by the way, props to the director of this TV show.

[1:12:09] Daniel Nolen: Because I don't know if I've ever seen, you know, such excellent use of audience footage.

[1:12:16] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes.

[1:12:17] Daniel Nolen: They cut, yeah, totally.

[1:12:19] Ben Rimalower: They cut to these audience members and they're just like completely just wrapped up in every word she's saying.

[1:12:26] Daniel Nolen: I mean, they, and it's like, you know, you want to sort of go to these clichés of like, you know, that, you know, like, um, a black audience being like, you know, amen sister or whatever, you know, you go girl, um, you know, or like white people like clapping off the beat or something.

[1:12:45] Ben Rimalower: I don't know, you know. You expect it to sort of be like a joke, but it really isn't.

[1:12:50] Daniel Nolen: They literally all look like they're on ecstasy.

[1:12:54] Ben Rimalower: Every single time the audience, they cut to the audience, and by the way, it's a huge audience, of course it's sold out, and it's not like they're using stock footage, it's different every single time.

[1:13:02] Daniel Nolen: And you see them, they just are like, they're just, they, it looks like they're each making one-in-one eye contact with her.

[1:13:11] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's truly like she is this, um, uh, not saint, but she's like this, this, uh, this, uh, almost like a religious figure, and, and they're like, you know, here to commune with that spirit or whatever, and, and she's like giving them something, she's giving them her blessing.

[1:13:36] Daniel Nolen: You know, it's like they're, they're having this, um, they're worshipping her, you know. It's, it's like being in church and, and I don't know, it's like the invitation, you know, growing up in a Baptist church I have a lot of experience with this, um, type of, you know, altar call when you come to the front at the end when to, you know, make a decision or make a profession or faith or whatever you call it and I never felt that growing up in church so much as I did like the first time I, you know, heard Barbra Streisand or the first time I watched Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz or whatever, but it's that same type of like I need to do something with this, like she's putting out almost like a call to action.

[1:14:15] Ben Rimalower: When you talk about somebody like Barbara, you know, for example, like, or Bet, like it's not, you know, I mean in a way you get it with any diva when they do like their hit, you know, but, but it's more than that because it's like with Diana or with a Barbara or, but with somebody that had these pop hits, you know, um, these songs when they sing, when they call to memory something like "Baby Love," you know, or, um, uh, you know, in Diana really in a way more than even Barbara, Bet, because the, I guess with Barbara and Bet today it would be like if they sang, um, "The Rose" or, uh, "The Way We Were," you know, but like it's like when the artist has a pop hit, not necessarily a thing from a show or a movie, but a pop hit, something that was like the music of the time of the moment in the world, that's, that's what I think also takes it into another level of that religious religiosity because it's like that, that makes it feel like they've been there throughout your life in this consistent way.

[1:15:25] Daniel Nolen: You know, it's like, it's like, you know, you don't know what happened to your high school boyfriend, you know, your grandma's dead, but the music that you listen to with them is still here, and the person that sang it is singing it to you now, you know?

[1:15:39] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah.

[1:15:40] Daniel Nolen: And, and, and music very much like, you know, God or praying to a higher power. It's like that's something that you turn to in times of need, and it's completely non-judgmental. It's a, it's a, it's a source you can go to to comfort or to, uh, you know, to try to learn from or to feel something.

[1:16:05] Ben Rimalower: Well, and because it gets to you, it gets to you on not just literal ways, you know. I mean, that's why little children, you know, and certainly adults, but you know, a little kid that doesn't have language skills yet, when they hear music, it, it can affect them, you know, and the, because we experience it on these other levels besides just being like, oh, this song is about "Baby Love," I need you, you know.

[1:16:29] Daniel Nolen: Um, and so when an artist is somebody that you've associated with that for years, and you feel that you've grown up with them and you've watched them through their struggles and their successes, and you've watched them have children, you know, as you've lived your life in the same time, you know, when you were, you remember, you know, Diana Ross) was a star when JFK was shot, when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. You know, it's like that, you know, we'll feel a certain way someday about the artist that impacted us during this quarantine, you know.

[1:17:00] Ben Rimalower: Yes, very true.

[1:17:01] Daniel Nolen: And I mean, it's a touchdown. Even like we, you and I were listening to, um, Lady Gaga the other day, and we were listening to her first several albums.

[1:17:12] Ben Rimalower: And I haven't listened to, I haven't listened to those albums in so many years, but like it totally, and I love Lady Gaga, but I'm not like, you know, I'm not like her, like a super fan.

[1:17:23] Daniel Nolen: But those albums transported me back to when she was, you know, all anyone could talk about, and you know, "The Fame," and then "The Fame Monster," and then she had all those crazy music videos, and then she did "Telephone" with Beyoncé, and then "Born This Way" was like a huge hit.

[1:17:39] Ben Rimalower: And though hearing those songs, like you're saying, these times in our life, and not only my life, but our collective consciousness as a culture, and as you know, for me, it was when I came out in college, and that coincided with Gaga's message of inclusivity and diversity.

[1:17:57] Daniel Nolen: And I think, you know, and now, you know, I, when we were talking also about all the, all the people we'd want to see perform at the Ice Palace, and we said Gaga and Diana. And so seeing, you know, that and having that context, not only on a huge worldwide, uh, cultural level, but on a personal level, is like really, really, really magical and transcendent.

[1:18:23] Ben Rimalower: It's like, it's, it's, it's not just feeling good because you're hearing a song, it's like actually really personal, even though millions of other people are loving the same song and the same artist.

[1:18:33] Daniel Nolen: These things will keep me loving you.

[1:18:37] Ben Rimalower: Um, then she has to ruin the moment by singing "Home." Although at least this time there's an actual little girl to be Dorothy, and she's just singing it.

[1:18:47] Daniel Nolen: But I do, I do love this song.

[1:18:50] Ben Rimalower: I love the song so much. I love it so much when Stephanie Mills sings it.

[1:18:55] Daniel Nolen: Um, or Whitney Houston, you know.

[1:18:59] Ben Rimalower: Yes, oh my god. That Whitney doing it. Was that, that's the first song Whitney sang on TV, right?

[1:19:05] Daniel Nolen: Um, it's the first appearance. Uh, but I think she sang two songs, and I don't think it was technically the first.

[1:19:11] Ben Rimalower: If you want the reason, maybe it was not the first, but her first appearance.

[1:19:13] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yes, yes. Um, love, uh, she sings "Home," and this is with the video of, um, the kids in the neighborhood, and then it's, it turns into like a dance break.

[1:19:25] Ben Rimalower: I have to say, this is a first for me. I fucking love this ballet.

[1:19:27] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, me too.

[1:19:30] Ben Rimalower: I loved it too. I, I loved this ballet.

[1:19:33] Daniel Nolen: And then I was like, it is a ballet, yeah.

[1:19:35] Ben Rimalower: She can really dance.

[1:19:36] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:19:36] Ben Rimalower: And, um, I'm like, did she do this live on Broadway on Broadway?

[1:19:41] Daniel Nolen: Hmm, I don't know.

[1:19:43] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I assume.

[1:19:45] Daniel Nolen: Or, or, or did they just, I mean, did they play the videos on, on the stage? I mean, or did she just have other people come on and dance live? That'd be interesting to know.

[1:19:55] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[1:19:56] Daniel Nolen: Um, well we could watch it at Lincoln Center.

[1:19:58] Ben Rimalower: No, maybe not.

[1:19:59] Daniel Nolen: Um, we can find out though. I wish I was still in touch with that Diana Queen from college.

[1:20:05] Ben Rimalower: Um, maybe Michael Musto would know.

[1:20:07] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:20:08] Ben Rimalower: Um, I, uh, loved her going out into the audience when she's like, am I too fat to fit through here?

[1:20:15] Daniel Nolen: Oh, I love that.

[1:20:16] Ben Rimalower: Oh, but before I want, before she does that, uh, so the second time she goes back into "What I Did for Love" after "Home."

[1:20:25] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, um, even though I was like, oh, this again, she, the way she belts out that final phrase, I was like, oh, she's really belting. Like, this is, we don't think of Diana Ross) as like a belter, but like she's in phenomenal voice.

[1:20:39] Ben Rimalower: She really is totally.

[1:20:42] Daniel Nolen: 100%.

[1:20:43] Ben Rimalower: So then, yeah, so then that's kind of the end of like the, what does Patty say? This is the beginning of the theater section.

[1:20:50] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, exactly.

[1:20:50] Ben Rimalower: So that's the end of the theater section. Um, so then I have to say also, just in terms of like all that stuff with the audience and like the belting, like she is the perfect pop voice, and like she is just like, you know, one of the greatest, uh, recording stars there ever has been.

[1:21:08] Daniel Nolen: But you do watch her in this and you go, there's a whole other gift she has for live performance.

[1:21:14] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[1:21:14] Daniel Nolen: That like I really feel that as a Diana Ross) fan, not having seen her live, I am missing out.

[1:21:21] Ben Rimalower: I know. I really regret not seeing her at City Center a few years ago.

[1:21:25] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:21:25] Ben Rimalower: Tickets were like $40.

[1:21:27] Daniel Nolen: Um.

[1:21:29] Ben Rimalower: So yeah, so then she starts making her way through the crowd like a goddamn star.

[1:21:34] Daniel Nolen: Literally, people are kissing her hands. She's, she's giving the mic to kids to, uh, sing, uh, "Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand."

[1:21:42] Ben Rimalower: Love, love, love, love, love, love. And as she's doing this, the whole inner, like the crowd work, the live performance chops, her connection to the audience, it really clicked with me. I was like, oh, wait, is Diana Ross) like, I mean, even though this would have had to have been years ago, like, is she like my number one choice for the meme we should have had?

[1:22:06] Daniel Nolen: Well, you're the one that has seen "Mahogany."

[1:22:09] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I mean, I just think like not only does she have the voice and the star quality, but like, can you imagine how she would wear those clothes?

[1:22:19] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:22:20] Ben Rimalower: Oh my god.

[1:22:20] Daniel Nolen: Okay. If Diana is name, who is your dream Vera?

[1:22:26] Ben Rimalower: Oh.

[1:22:28] Daniel Nolen: I mean, I kinda wanna say Barbara just because I have her on the brain.

[1:22:32] Ben Rimalower: But you know, Barbara would never have gone for that.

[1:22:35] Daniel Nolen: Disgusting.

[1:22:36] Ben Rimalower: Um, I don't know.

[1:22:39] Daniel Nolen: Uh, I mean, I feel like it would have to be, um, I want it to be a like a star from like that same era, but like, well, it's not Jerry Herman, but we do get somewhere show tunes when they go into like a weirdly brassy version of "Send in the Clowns" with a fucking mime.

[1:22:56] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, the mime came on, and I literally like said to myself, I was like, uh oh, are we about to get "Send in the Clowns?" And then sure enough, it happened.

[1:23:05] Daniel Nolen: I have to say, it is an epic fail on James Le Pine's part.

[1:23:09] Ben Rimalower: Oh, no, sorry.

[1:23:09] Daniel Nolen: You know who I want as Vera? I just thought of it.

[1:23:11] Ben Rimalower: Who?

[1:23:12] Daniel Nolen: Grace Jones.

[1:23:15] Ben Rimalower: I mean, that's severe.

[1:23:17] Daniel Nolen: I want it severe.

[1:23:19] Ben Rimalower: I mean, it's like, I feel like B. Arthur was doing a Grace Jones impression.

[1:23:26] Daniel Nolen: Anyway, that reminded me because I've been really into the Grace Jones "Send in the Clowns" cover lately.

[1:23:33] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes, love it.

[1:23:35] Daniel Nolen: Um, well, anyway, uh, epic fail on James Le Pine's part that when they did si, uh, six by Sondheim, and you know that HBO special?

[1:23:48] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah, so good.

[1:23:49] Daniel Nolen: By the way, HBO, so they have the footage. And they did that crazy medley of like they were like all the people that have ever sung "Send in the Clowns."

[1:23:58] Ben Rimalower: Oh yeah, and then like, and like not in the same key.

[1:24:01] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and it's like ridiculous. They have Krusty the Clown and like a pointless Bernadette clip from the 80s.

[1:24:07] Ben Rimalower: Like, yeah, it's like it's such a crime that they didn't have Diana belting it with brassy arrangement and a mime. Like, how did this, that not make that just bad research?

[1:24:18] Daniel Nolen: Um, then I also said it's actually impress like that it's impressive that she can do this kind of like clean pop singing live.

[1:24:29] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[1:24:30] Daniel Nolen: Like in a way it's almost more important impressive than the belting, because like belting is like what do you do? You fill up your lungs and you sing for the gods, you know?

[1:24:39] Ben Rimalower: But like, but like to do that, like I mean that careful, delicate like phrasing and like song styling.

[1:24:49] Ben Rimalower: Some of it I did wonder if it was dubbed because there were a few moments where I was like, oh, like her mouth, there's something off.

[1:24:57] Daniel Nolen: Like her mouth was.

[1:24:59] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, maybe that was like a quicker delay. If Diana didn't sing live on Broadway in '77, she would have been dragged for it.

[1:25:05] Daniel Nolen: There's no.

[1:25:06] Ben Rimalower: No, I mean I'm sure she sang live on Broadway, but like in the TV broadcast, I'm wondering if they like needed some better audio on certain parts, so they like, you know, interspersed live singing with, I don't know. I mean, there were just a few parts I was like, is there her mouth is moving to a different set of words than what I'm hearing?

[1:25:23] Daniel Nolen: But maybe that was like a delay in the, and then what is she singing then when the audience starts dancing with her?

[1:25:29] Ben Rimalower: Was it "The Boss"?

[1:25:29] Daniel Nolen: No, it was um, it was one of her big '70s hits.

[1:25:36] Ben Rimalower: Oh, "Love Hangover," yeah.

[1:25:38] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:25:38] Ben Rimalower: And I was like, are those planted dancers or just—

[1:25:38] Daniel Nolen: No, I was wondering that too.

[1:25:45] Ben Rimalower: Just like random gay guys in the audience.

[1:25:45] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, like they all came up on stage, and I was like, is—I mean, obviously, it was somewhat planned because she wasn't like calling for security, but like that seems really scary if those were just like random audience people coming up on stage to dance.

[1:25:58] Ben Rimalower: But that's what I mean. Like, it's not like these stars nowadays. I mean, like, Diana was like on the fucking road for years, you know. Like, I do not think she's scared of anyone that like bought a ticket, you know.

[1:26:09] Daniel Nolen: I mean, it reminds me of like a couple years ago whenever Celine was singing in Vegas and like some rando just like hopped up on stage and was like just trying to sing with Celine Dion, and like Celine kind of went with it, but then like after that, she like cancelled two of her concert dates.

[1:26:27] Ben Rimalower: That's it.

[1:26:28] Daniel Nolen: And I think it was because she was like so like traumatized.

[1:26:31] Ben Rimalower: Um, speaking of traumatized, this special version of "Tits and Ass."

[1:26:37] Daniel Nolen: Well, first, yeah, we go into the acting section where she's gonna be able to do it.

[1:26:40] Ben Rimalower: This is what I hate about variety shows.

[1:26:43] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, this is literally exactly the kind of thing that made variety shows die.

[1:26:49] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[1:26:50] Daniel Nolen: Like, this is so awful.

[1:26:52] Ben Rimalower: Well, and it's—and it's not, and it makes no sense because they kind of winkingly uh censor all the mention of "Tits and Ass." So like if you don't know the song and you're watching this at home, you have no idea, like well, definitely it seems clear for this entire production that they are all under the impression that everyone knows "A Chorus Line."

[1:27:15] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's like, I mean, I guess maybe like at that time with, you know, the lack of um, uh just, you know, everyone was buying vinyl records and, you know, buying show tunes was probably much more common in the average household.

[1:27:29] Ben Rimalower: But not really, not in the '90s.

[1:27:32] Daniel Nolen: This is so we're gonna be able to extend. I mean, this really is like Diana Ross) sings the core, uh sings "A Chorus Line" plus a few Diana Ross) hits.

[1:27:41] Ben Rimalower: Seriously.

[1:27:42] Daniel Nolen: Um, then so a few more "A Chorus Line," nothing, and dancing looks three. And then she goes into the "Lady Sings the Blues" section where she sings a ton of uh songs from that. And I mean, I love that movie, and I love her singing those songs, but I don't think I appreciated her singing those songs as much as I did here when she sings "God Bless the Child."

[1:28:03] Ben Rimalower: I mean, it's part of like the magic and like weird like alchemy of Diana Ross). Like, she has this way of singing a sad song, but like almost happily.

[1:28:15] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

[1:28:17] Ben Rimalower: Like, it's like very like benevolent.

[1:28:20] Daniel Nolen: Benevolent, yeah.

[1:28:22] Ben Rimalower: You know, her energy is just so uh, it's not only warm, it's actually like it's happy.

[1:28:29] Daniel Nolen: It's cheering.

[1:28:32] Ben Rimalower: It's j—yeah, she has a jo—a j—a radiant joy about her that's—

[1:28:32] Daniel Nolen: Radiant, exactly.

[1:28:38] Ben Rimalower: It's like no matter what the material is, she wants you to feel happy.

[1:28:42] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and that's what I've heard her concerts are like too, which is why I'm dying to see her, because um, she knows what her audience wants, she knows the songs to sing. Um, I heard—I heard Tracy Ellis Ross interviewed once, and she said, I mean, it's kind of like when they were all on that Macy's Day float a few years ago. Tracy said that like her and all her family go to see, you know, Diana Grandma in concert, and they're all dancing, they all know the songs, you know.

[1:29:10] Ben Rimalower: So, like, that's how she is, just I feel like in real life too, with her fan.

[1:29:16] Daniel Nolen: Um, so then this is—oh my god. This we get to like, oh, we take a real left turn, and suddenly the audience disappears, and there's only three people in the audience, and it is Diana Ross) in playing each of these divas in full old age extreme makeup playing almost full characterization.

[1:29:41] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I mean I was like, should she have won like an award for this? Like her acting is wonderful.

[1:29:45] Daniel Nolen: I will say my first note was oh my god, who are these actresses?

[1:29:50] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I was like, I want each of them to play, like I want to cast them all in like a production of, you know, uh, "Follies."

[1:29:50] Daniel Nolen: "Picnic," yeah, "Follies."

[1:29:58] Ben Rimalower: But I don't know if it was her acting or just the bad video quality.

[1:30:04] Daniel Nolen: Well, I mean, maybe it was the bad video uh helped, you know, uh make the makeup look more realistic, but I—it took—I mean, obviously I knew she was playing Josephine Baker because she just had makeup on regular makeup, but then the other two, I was like, oh wait, those are Diana too, Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters.

[1:30:26] Ben Rimalower: But she does like a completely different, uh, you can't tell it's Diana's voice.

[1:30:30] Daniel Nolen: I mean, she definitely takes on a whole new vocal inflection for them.

[1:30:33] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah.

[1:30:34] Daniel Nolen: And I don't know, I would—I just thought it was fabulous. I mean, I was like Diana should have—like some people should have written her, like, she should have been in like a biopic of like a—of each of them.

[1:30:37] Ben Rimalower: Of each of them, yeah, of completely different type than the type she is.

[1:30:49] Daniel Nolen: Totally.

[1:30:50] Ben Rimalower: Um, I mean, Josephine Baker wasn't that much of a stretch to imagine, but like the fact that she was so good as like Ethel Waters and stuff, it's like that's not what you think is—that's not what you expect from her.

[1:31:01] Daniel Nolen: You know, so maybe the answer is to star opposite Diana as Mame in the Diana Ross) movie version of "Mame," the only choice for Vera is Diana.

[1:31:13] Ben Rimalower: Oh yeah.

[1:31:14] Daniel Nolen: Oh, that'd be great.

[1:31:15] Ben Rimalower: Diana plays all of them.

[1:31:16] Daniel Nolen: And Diana is Gooch.

[1:31:20] Ben Rimalower: Um, I think she could do it. And then it goes, she starts talking about like from this like silly material, it goes into like really serious stuff about like the civil rights movement and the struggles of the previous generations.

[1:31:35] Daniel Nolen: And I was just like, you have to hand it to the 1970s.

[1:31:39] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[1:31:40] Daniel Nolen: Because like it doesn't matter how ridiculous one thing they're doing is, they will just dive headfirst into something that's real.

[1:31:51] Ben Rimalower: Like I feel like nowadays you would never have those two like slammed up against each other like that.

[1:31:57] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:31:58] Ben Rimalower: And then, yeah, and there's that um, there's that bit that in in this section that I love, and it's basically kind of she's talking about taking, you know, the energy of these uh divas, these artists that came before her, and using that. You know, it's like they're passing the torch to her, and she's carrying on their legacy while also creating her own and starting her own journey.

[1:32:26] Daniel Nolen: And that, I don't know, that was very inspiring for that.

[1:32:31] Ben Rimalower: And then she sings, and then she goes right into singing the theme from "Mahogany."

[1:32:35] Daniel Nolen: Which God, you know what? Say what you will.

[1:32:39] Ben Rimalower: I was right there with her.

[1:32:41] Daniel Nolen: Same. I mean, this song is especially out of context. This song is so beautiful, and like I listened to this song all—it's on my "Lady Belts and Ballads" playlist because it's—"Belts and Ballads" has to be.

[1:32:52] Ben Rimalower: It just makes—it just makes me like our fucking podcast should be called "Lady Belts and Ballads."

[1:32:58] Daniel Nolen: Well, maybe we could do a rebrand.

[1:33:01] Ben Rimalower: Time for it.

[1:33:01] Daniel Nolen: Um, but I mean when you think about it in the context of "Mahogany," it's ridiculous because that movie's—

[1:33:08] Ben Rimalower: I've never seen it.

[1:33:09] Daniel Nolen: I don't even know the context.

[1:33:11] Ben Rimalower: It's really crazy. I mean, there's like—I mean, she's so good, but it's so culty and campy now. But there's like a scene at the end where like, uh, I forget who plays opposite her, but isn't it Billy D. Williams?

[1:33:25] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:33:27] Ben Rimalower: And he's trying to like crash this car, and she's like in the passenger seat and she's trying to stop him from crashing the car, and it's—it's like so extreme and like overacty, but you know.

[1:33:39] Daniel Nolen: That sounds like a scene from "The Main Event."

[1:33:42] Ben Rimalower: It's very, very "The Main Event."

[1:33:44] Daniel Nolen: It's like her "Main Event," but worse.

[1:33:47] Ben Rimalower: How worse than "The Main Event"?

[1:33:49] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:33:50] Ben Rimalower: I mean, at least "The Main Event" is—I mean, this is true, like camp trash. I mean, now it—you know, people uh worship it because it's um one of those movies that's so terrible that it almost takes on a whole new wonderful quality. But I mean "The Main Event" is just like bad writing, bad everything. It's uh, but it doesn't have any kind of redeeming trash uh quality to it.

[1:34:13] Daniel Nolen: So this is—so "Mahogany" is better than "The Main Event" in 2020.

[1:34:19] Ben Rimalower: "Mahogany," yes, it is better and more enjoyable to watch because it's so crazy and extreme. I mean, "The Main Event" I feel like actually back in the day, people thought it could be good.

[1:34:30] Daniel Nolen: I think "Mahogany" came out and everyone like that.

[1:34:33] Ben Rimalower: Well, Barbara.

[1:34:35] Daniel Nolen: Barbara is not people, despite how many times she tries to tell you she does.

[1:34:39] Ben Rimalower: No, no, we're all just people.

[1:34:41] Daniel Nolen: Speaking of the introduction, I have to say that this—I love that this is the crazy long intro to the theme from "Mahogany."

[1:34:49] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[1:34:50] Daniel Nolen: Like it's almost like she's not gonna sing it. Like, because I feel like on the album and stuff, it's very like, do you know? And here it's like the whole tune plays out instrumentally. Like, it's like the bridge has already played before she even comes in with do you know?

[1:35:08] Ben Rimalower: I mean, this is I guess this is like her "The Way We Were."

[1:35:12] Daniel Nolen: You know, as far as the song in her um canon goes.

[1:35:16] Ben Rimalower: Or is it her—is it her "Evergreen"?

[1:35:19] Daniel Nolen: Or maybe her "Evergreen," yeah.

[1:35:21] Ben Rimalower: Although it feels a little more like um "The Way We Were," just like um that time and and the—the fact that it's played like at the beginning of the movie.

[1:35:30] Daniel Nolen: And you're right, because it's very theme for "Mahogany," theme from "The Way We Were," and um, it's like the theme from "Ice Castles."

[1:35:39] Ben Rimalower: It's very—it's very like you can hear it like played like—like um in an elevator without vocals, you know?

[1:35:47] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, or like on a music box.

[1:35:50] Ben Rimalower: It's like so—or like an ice cream truck.

[1:35:54] Daniel Nolen: A thousand percent.

[1:35:55] Ben Rimalower: I totally—I've told you this so many times, but there is an ice cream truck that rolls through my neighborhood every now and then playing "Send in the Clowns."

[1:36:04] Daniel Nolen: And it's like obviously, you know, it's like the—the ice cream truck is like decorated with like clown spots or whatever, but it's literally a Sondheim song playing ice cream truck.

[1:36:15] Ben Rimalower: When you buy your fudge, call Steven Sondheim gets paid.

[1:36:23] Daniel Nolen: Okay, so then she closes with the big hit, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."

[1:36:28] Ben Rimalower: Yes, she does.

[1:36:29] Daniel Nolen: People go crazy.

[1:36:31] Ben Rimalower: Um, and then it closes with another video of Diana and the children.

[1:36:37] Daniel Nolen: Fucking kids.

[1:36:39] Ben Rimalower: And then the credits roll.

[1:36:41] Daniel Nolen: And um, yeah.

[1:36:44] Ben Rimalower: Uh, Billy Goldenberg music direction, and then uh I can't read my own writing.

[1:36:51] Daniel Nolen: Norman Campbell directed, and then conceived by Joe Leaton, as we said.

[1:36:57] Ben Rimalower: Wow.

[1:36:58] Daniel Nolen: Wow, okay.

[1:37:00] Ben Rimalower: Loving it.

[1:37:01] Daniel Nolen: I was, you know, every time we start recording, I'm like, well, this was an hour and 10 minute concert, so I'm sure this one will be a little shorter for the listeners, but nope.

[1:37:09] Ben Rimalower: No, no, no, no, no, no.

[1:37:11] Daniel Nolen: We're giving you a full hour 40.

[1:37:13] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, maybe.

[1:37:14] Daniel Nolen: But it's good because I feel like I feel like this one I needed to really settle into and ramp up because you know, I've just been in such like a uh mellow, like not talking to anyone place.

[1:37:28] Ben Rimalower: So this was good.

[1:37:29] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, totally.

[1:37:32] Ben Rimalower: Alrighty. Well, anything else to say?

[1:37:35] Daniel Nolen: I guess now we're doing Tuesday, Thursday again, so tune in to that.

[1:37:39] Ben Rimalower: Please do.

[1:37:40] Daniel Nolen: Um, do we know anything about our next episode that we need to promote or no?

[1:37:46] Ben Rimalower: We do not.

[1:37:47] Daniel Nolen: Okay, cool.

[1:37:48] Ben Rimalower: Well, stay tuned.

[1:37:50] Daniel Nolen: Um, alright.

[1:37:51] Ben Rimalower: Well, uh, it was good talking to you, Benji.

[1:37:51] Daniel Nolen: Good talking to you, Daniel.

[1:37:55] Ben Rimalower: See you soon.

[1:37:57] Daniel Nolen: Bye.

[1:37:57] Ben Rimalower: Bye.

[1:38:00] Ben Rimalower: Thanks for listening to Ben Rimalower's Broken Records on Broadway World.

[1:38:04] Daniel Nolen: For more episodes, visit Broadway World, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever podcasts do be.

[1:38:10] Ben Rimalower: And be sure to check out our new twice-weekly live stream video chat, Tuesday, Thursday, April, August.

[1:38:16] Daniel Nolen: Available on the Broadway World Facebook page and the Broadway Podcast Network YouTube channel Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.

[1:38:23] Daniel Nolen: This episode was edited by me, Daniel Nolen.

[1:38:26] Daniel Nolen: Thanks to Emmy-winning composer and lyricist Lance Horn for the Broken Records theme song.

[1:38:30] Ben Rimalower: Follow us both, Ben Rimalower and Daniel Nolen on all y'all's socials.

[1:38:34] Ben Rimalower: That's Ben Rimalower, B E N R I M A L O W E R.

[1:38:40] Daniel Nolen: And that's Nolen with an E, not Nolen with an A.

[1:38:43] Daniel Nolen: Because Nolen with an A isn't it.