If this eagerly anticipated collaboration with Steve Van Zandt sucked from one end to another, it would still have Darlene Love singing rock songs. And it doesn’t suck in the slightest- A-
A quiet week with Christmas right smack in the middle but let’s hand it to Darlene Love who completed a 28 year run on Letterman with three performances at Bb King. I caught the middle one and it isn’t enough to say well done good performances by a 73 year old woman, a 24 year old woman would have been equally impressive. The best? The Marvin Gaye medley
It’s a nostalgia trip but also its a trip into what makes life worth living by one of our greatest singers. I started by saying that Darlene belts em too hard but if you could belt em too hard at 73 wouldn’t you?
Here is the new Darlene Love album, It’s Christmas, Of Course… kinda interesting, there’s a “2000 Miles” and there’s a “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” and who can complain about that? There is nothing at all wrong with the album and I’ve all but decided to go on the Saturday… Grade? B
What I am claiming, about all three songs, is they are death songs. It dreams of something that doesn’t exist and then ties the dream to our death. Good? More. Brilliant because it is instant nostalgia, we are missing what we are hearing, and dreaming of it happening as it happens.
This would be my 28th year in a row. They never told me not to, but it was an unspoken thing. They couldn’t ask me not to sing ‘Christmas (Baby)’ on another show, but after 10 years, then 15 years, of doing this one song on this one show, I felt I had an obligation to be true to them
