Sketch by: Big Al Ligon (early 70’s)
Mister D: I wish I knew who wrote this, because it is hilarious. I was gonna write a few tidbits on the show (as much as I could watch of it) but this person says it all. A few places I disagree with him, but somehow “the people” have to take the word “diva” back from VH-1. This show was a catastrophe…I finally had to walk away during the Stevie medley…it was that bad.
I know VH-1 has approached the real Divas like Streisand and Midler…both have turned it down. There are other real divas out there…maybe they turned Vh-1 down too. Until they can get the right talent, VH-1 should stop “bastardizing” the word Diva!!!
And whoever wrote this…if you’re reading, please send me your name and who you write for….this was great reading and too too funny….
P.S. Whitney….get your act together…you are a diva…you’ve just lost your way
VH-1… WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?
Another schlock spree in 2003
Incidentally, DIVAS DUETS surely “sucked” cow manure last night… MARY J.
BLIGE could probably find Osama Bin Laden in the foothills and mountain ranges
of Afghanistan far quicker than she could ever find the right key of a song
she’s singing, BEYONCE’s incessant “vocal riffing” and poor Tina Turner
impersonation was deplorable, BOBBY BROWN was a dilapidated circus clown,
WHITNEY HOUSTON’s voice is shot straight to hell and she was an embarrassment as she “coked”, ugh… I mean croaked, burped & choked her way through her own songs AND with a pot belly, to boot (God, I hope she’s pregnant)… it would seem that the only thing her & Bobby have in ‘common’ is an addiction, JEWEL was an intimidated joke who clearly was NOT comfortable showing so much skin and/or performing in such high heels (she looked like Mother Theresa being forced to work a night as a Las Vegas showgirl… at gun point), CELINE DION not only looked completely wind & sun burned, but what was she thinking when she got up there with her ‘homage to Annie Lennox’ buzz cut and had the nerve to “lip synch” her one number, I mean I thought I was watching a show whose title was “DIVAS DUETS LIVE” (it’s safe to say that desert living does NOT agree with her), ASHANTI (who couldn’t a hold a clear straight note in a brown paper bag with a handle) was clearly out of her league, but then again, the other ladies were all so God awful, perhaps she was indeed amongst her peers & contemporaries, CHAKA KHAN had the best vocal delivery of the night, but either her mic setting was as low as her cleavage, or she’s lost a helluva lot of her vocal power, QUEEN LATIFAH’s opening outfit was a bulge busting mess (although her other outfits more than made up for it through the night) and her vocal delivery of a rewritten rendition of her “CHICAGO” song had all the energy and pizzazz of a slug crossing my front lawn in the moonlight, and LISA MARIE PRESLEY is so obviously on Prozac that she had an out-of-body experience as she sent her “lifeless” corpse to perform on stage while she stayed home eating fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches – puhleeze enough already!!!!! And didn’t rock icon, PAT BENATOR look like she was the mother in “THE OTHERS” or “THE EXORCIST” when she was on stage with Lisa Marie? You just know she fired her agent first thing this morning for putting her up to that, it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion…
Even SHANIA TWAIN was smart enough to sing for 120 seconds with STEVIE WONDER and then disappear before that dreadful finale’ screamfest (that Lisa Marie & Celine Dion also wisely stayed away from)! I’m sure this was one night that Stevie wished God had taken his hearing instead of his sight!
The night actually belonged to the “new” girl from the VH-1 “Born To Diva” TV
show, Tarralyn Ramsey, who got up there and wailed the hell out of Whitney’s “I
WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY”… but even as good as she was, it’ll take her
another 10 years of singing and living to even remotely be entitled to approach
the word “diva” (which is bestowed upon you by the public and NOT by a
‘publicist’)! Hell a true Diva doesn’t even find her true voice, power, range
and supply until she’s a least 40… THINK ABOUT IT!!?
When are the producers of this show going to STOP BASTARDIZING THE WORD, “DIVA” with screaming hags, has-beens, wannabe’s and women clearly still in the midst of “learning” the art of performing?
DIVAS DO NOT sing with their hands, pointing to each “imaginary” note that they are plucking from the air for our alleged satisfaction…
DIVAS DO NOT use their hair as a prop while performing, in fact, they should
forget it’s even there, as they make the hairs on our backs (that we didn’t
even know where there) stand up…
DIVAS DO NOT lip synch (unless it’s for the recording of a music video)…
DIVAS DO NOT ever even need to touch the mic while performing a ballad, instead trusting to leave it in the stand, and expertly practice the dying art of
“chantuesing” the entire song and only let their most prized possessions touch
the mic… their voice… their heart… and their soul…
DIVAS DO NOT run from simply singing the melody of a song, because they’ve come to trust both the fact that they have the skill and experience to (#1) follow
it and (#2) sing on and in pitch with it…
DIVAS DO NOT need to vocally “cheat” by “riffing” a song to death, for a real
DIVA is not afraid to use her diaphragm to hold long, straight, belt notes…
riffing or “melisma’s” (as their scientifically called) should be sparingly
used to accentuate and punctuate another level of emotion within a song, stress
the importance of a particular word/phrase and/or to modulate upward within a
song structure… THAT’S IT… to over use it is to dilute it’s poignancy and
potency…
DIVAS DO NOT need to rely on vocal acrobatics to sell a song, but instead trust
the lyric & melody, in combination with their ability to make us “feel” (and
live) the words with her, purely on the strength of her inescapable magnetic
essence to draw us (the listener) into her world and reality… words like
“mesmerizing”, “spellbinding” and “enchanting” were all invented to describe
one’s experience in the presence of a true diva…
DIVAS DO NOT have any insecurity of “sharing” the stage or spotlight, for their
inner being and fire should be so powerful that even within a crowd, they’re
the only thing that anyone can focus on vocally or visually…
DIVAS DO NOT work a stage, they own it…
DIVAS DO NOT (merely) sing a song, they live it…
It is an insult to true “DIVAS” everywhere when they put on shows like this and
make the only qualifying criteria that one must bleed from their vagina once a
month and have recorded at least one song in their lives. Hell who are they
lining up for next year’s show, YOKO ONO, NAOMI CAMPBELL, BRITNEY SPEARS,
ANNETTE FUNICELLO, ZSA ZSA GABOR & the earthly remains of NELL CARTER!!! ‘Give
me a break’, indeed!?
I’ve worked with true LEGENDARY DIVAS like Dame Shirley Bassey, Dame Cleo
Laine, Loleatta Holloway, Lena Horne, Iris Chacon, Linda Clifford, Eartha Kitt,
Ernestine Jackson, Linda Hopkins, Diahanne Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Freda Payne, Peggi Blu, Ann Nesby, Chita Rivera and Debbie Allen my whole life, and I know what makes and separates a mere female singer into a diva, and VH-1 ain’t got one of their whole shows right yet… because it takes more than a hit record and international noteriety to be a diva… shit, Miss Piggy & Hillary Clinton
(who even has a Grammy Award) have that!!
Can I get an Amen!?
