Bette Midler chats about her 2014 album It’s The Girls with Song Clips

While recording her special programme for Radio 2, For The Girls, Bette chatted to producer Malcolm Prince about her 2014 album It’s The Girls and revealed which classic girl group she would have liked to have been a member of.

Tune in Sunday, September 28th for the full interview: Click Here

She’s loud, she’s brash, she’s fearless – and Bette Midler can sing. Really well. She fell in love with the sound of vocal harmonies when she was a child. It was the melodious effect of female voices singing as one that sparked her lifelong interest in music.

Radio 2 producer Malcolm Prince, best known to UK listeners for the (good-natured) abuse he suffers each week on Paul O’Grady’s show, flew to New York at the end of September, met Miss Midler for a lunchtime recording, flew back the next day, edited and delivered. You don’t mess with the Midler.

And what can we expect to hear? Well, as the lady says herself “I’ve done a movie for the boys [For the Boys, 1991], so this is a special show For the Girls [sic]”.

From these introductory words to her uplifting conclusion, Midler delivers high-energy, full-on, intoxicating segues and links. The music is worthy of a show on its own – the Supremes, the Shangri-Las, the Andrews Sisters, the Spice Girls, the Go-Go’s, and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to name some of her choices.

But it would just be a themed list of hits without Miss Midler. She brings the raunchy magic that turns this into something very special. You can almost feel the excitement as she describes what these girl groups mean to her: “Singing together takes something incredibly intimate – a sound that begins inside you – and shares it with a roomful of people.” And that’s exactly what Bette’s done here.

Thank you, Miss M, this is divine.

ABOUT THIS PROGRAMME
The actress and singer celebrates the music of her favourite girl groups, featuring tracks by the Boswell Singers, the Andrews Sisters, Spice Girls, Wilson Phillips, the Chiffons, the Shirelles, the Shangri-Las and the Dixie Cups. There are also examples of how the music of these all-female bands influenced Midler’s own recordings.

CAST AND CREW

CAST
PresenterBette MidlerCREW
ProducerMalcolm Prince