Obsessive fans know the sheer agony of waiting years, even decades, for their favorite oldies (ahem, classic) artist to finally release a new album of substandard material on a record…
A TOUCH OF SHALAMAR Singer, songwriter, and producer Jody Watley first boogied her way to fame at the age of 14 as a dancer on the legendary music program Soul…
A SIMPLE GIRL WITH A DREAM I have one thing to say – RuPaul Andre Charles was an unlikely success story to say the very least. As a young drag…
CALLING GLORIA Laura Branigan is a classic example of a great and underrated talent whose life and career were cut short far too soon. Laura possessed an elastic alto voice…
SHE’S A MODERN GIRL (na na na na na) Back in the neon-colored days of the ’80s, Sheena Easton ruled the Adult Contemporary charts with a well-manicured fist. Sheena first…
LOCATION: Anytown, USA TIME: The Early ’80’s A young, burgeoning music fan has got to start somewhere. This is the brief, snappily-written story of how a young man with a…
TWO TONS O’ TALENT San Francisco’s Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes first rose to fame in 1977 as Two Tons O’ Fun, background singers of choice for drag-tastic disco diva…
WHAM! BAM! Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou seemed an unlikely choice to become a pop music superstar. However, after meeting schoolmate Andrew Ridgeley and forming a group called Wham!, a pop star…
A TENNESSEE GODDESS Dolly Rebecca Parton has had one of the most enduring and multi-faceted careers in music history. She is beloved for her iconic status as a pop culture…
“IS THAT GIRL SINGING AT THE MALL?” Yes, she was. In 1987, Tiffany Darwish unleashed her self-titled debut album upon a world of dazed and confused teenagers swathed in stone-washed…
The early musical output of popular artists is the stuff of semi-legend and fan obsession Á¢€” Aretha Franklin’s Columbia recordings, Little Richard the blues singer, Madonna’s New York demos, and…
I’m DJ D from Retro Remixes, and this is my shiny new column, fresh out of the bubble wrap. Pop! Pop! Pop! This feature, a spin-off of my blog, will…