14 Friday Jun 2019
Posted in Books, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Updates
≈ Comments Off on ‘Madame X’ is a Birthday Girl
In my 35+ years of fandom, this is the first time a Madonna album has dropped on my birthday – and it’s a masterpiece! As well as the delectable Madame X, I also got a copy of Marilyn Monroe In Spain, a wonderful book by the artist, author and museum owner, Frederic Cabanas … “Saludos a todos mis amigos!”
24 Monday Dec 2018
Tags
A League Of Their Own, Baseball, Madonna, Penny Marshall, Rosie O'Donnell, This Used To Be My Playground
Carole Penny Marshall was born in the Bronx in 1943. Her mother Marjorie ran a dance school, and her father directed industrial films. Of Italian descent, he had changed his name from Masciarelli to Marshall. Their youngest daughter was named after Carole Lombard, the much-loved comedic actress and wife of Clark Gable, who had died in a plane crash the year before. Young Carole’s middle name was inspired by her sister Ronny, who was ‘saving her pennies’ to buy a horse: and it was that name, ‘Penny’, which finally stuck. The family lived in a building which also housed the young Neil Simon, Paddy Chayevsky, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Continue reading
17 Monday Dec 2018
Posted in Amy Winehouse, Books, Film, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Music, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on 2018: A Year in Music
Tags
A Year in Music, All Nerve, Amy Winehouse, Back to Amy, Back to Black, Beautiful Game, Blake Wood, Bobbie Gentry, Cat Power, Charles Moriarty, Chris Wade, Comeback Kid, David Bowie, Fado, Jack Antonoff, Lana Del Rey, Lissie, Madonna, Madonna in the Eighties, Mariners Apartment Complex, Matthew Rettenmund, Mazzy Star, Mercury Rev, MLVC60, My Wild West, Nico, Nico 1988, Norman Fucking Rockwell, Piano & A Microphone 1983, Portugal, Prince, Quentin Harrison, Record Redux: Madonna, Record Store Day, Sharon Van Etten, The Breeders, The Girl From Chickasaw County, Wanderer, Woman
She may have left the stage decades ago, but 2018 was a vintage year for die-hard fans of the mysterious Bobbie Gentry, with a rare vinyl release on Record Store Day followed in September by a career-spanning CD box-set, The Girl From Chickasaw County. Continue reading
16 Thursday Aug 2018
Posted in Anniversaries, Fashion and Beauty, Film, Madonna, Music
≈ Comments Off on ‘You May Be My Lucky Star…’
Tags
Beautiful Stranger, Catholicism, Confessions on a Dancefloor, Desperately Seeking Susan, Evita, Ghosttown, Into the Groove, Jump, Like A Prayer, Live Aid, Live to Tell, Living for Love, Lucky Star, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Marvin Gaye, Material Girl, Ray of Light, Secret, Smash Hits, Wembley, Who's That Girl, William Orbit
From the age of eleven, my Saturdays would often include a trip to the record department at Boots to buy a 7-inch single. One of these was ‘Lucky Star’ by Madonna. Along with ‘Holiday’, it was one of her earliest songs played on the radio. Each weekend I stopped to gaze at her gorgeous album cover, but my savings rarely stretched to LPs. When I finally bought it, it had a different cover and my best friend (who wasn’t a fan) borrowed and never returned it. Continue reading
20 Sunday May 2018
Tags
1983, Borderline, Burning Up, I Know It, Lucky Star, Madonna, Physical Attraction, Reggie Lucas, The First Album, Think of Me
Reginald Grant Lucas was born in Queens, New York in 1953, the son of a doctor and a teacher. “Although no one in the family was a musician or singer,” he recalled, “music was an important and natural part of our lives.” He began taking piano lessons aged six, and was given an electric guitar for his eleventh birthday. Enthralled by the “music explosion” coming from Motown and England in the Early 1960s, it was “the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Continue reading
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