29Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Soul O’ The Day – I’m Here and so is Oprah, Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia and LaChanze

29Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Soul O’ The Day – I’m Here and so is Oprah, Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia and LaChanze

Last night on the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS Oprah Winfrey was the first one to receive her award. Not only did my song,“I’m Here”, co-written with Brenda Russell and Stephen Bray, from my musical, The Color Purple, get played during the montage of Oprah’s life but it was then sung to her live by Jennifer Hudson, backed by the choir at Oprah’s alma mater, Tennessee State University.

It was a spectacular moment, not only for Jennifer Hudson and Oprah, but for me as a songwriter, who rarely gets to hear their music performed in a way they imagine it while writing as so many songs mutate from a fabulous little gem to an unrecognizable life form once they’re in the hands of an artist or producer. In my case, I’ve been blessed to see this particular song performed spectacularly by an bevy of fantastic singers and actresses, most notably Fantasia, LaChanze, Jeannette Bayardelle and Hudson. Here’s Fantasia, who played Celie, who WAS Celie, on Broadway for a year as well as for many months on the First National Tour, singing “I’m Here” at the Tony’s in 2007.

I would’ve much rather shown you Fantasia in costume as Celie singing “I’m Here” as it’s performed in the musical but it’s one of the quirks and, to me, one of the most backwards and archaic practices of musical theater, that they don’t allow performances to be filmed. Which means that unless you were one of the 1,000,000+ people who saw The Color Purple on Broadway you not only will never get to see LaChanze, the brilliant actress who originally starred on Broadway as Celie and won a Tony for her performance, but you will never get to experience the show as it was originally conceived. As such, all you can do is stare at this CD cover for the next 4 minutes while you listen to LaChanze sing “I’m Here”.

How beautiful does LaChanze sound and how dumb is it that you can’t see her?! Or that you can’t see Fantasia, who lives the life portrayed in “I’m Here”?! And the same for Jeannette Bayadelle, one of Celie’s understudies on Broadway who graduated to the lead role for the First National Tour. There are scattered and muffled pieces of Jeannette singing the song on YouTube, taken on cameras snuck into the show, but that’s not the way for you to see these great singers and actresses and it’s certainly not the way for you to see the show.

It’s nutty to me that people can’t be exposed to theater the way they are to all other entertainment mediums because of some ancient rule that the only filming allowed is of one performance that lives in the archives at Lincoln Center that only the authors and producers of the show can see. And by appointment only. How out of touch is that?!!! But you don’t want to get me started on everything I think needs to be adjusted in the world of theater so that new generations can embrace it as enthusiastically as ones did did back in the 40s and 50s, when hit musicals were on the tips of everyone’s tongue and not just the elite and tired few. Okay, enough… this post is about the brilliant performance of Jennifer Hudson last night and the brilliance of Oprah as an outstanding human being, not to mention how completely overwhelmed and thrilled I am to see the effect of “I’m Here” on the honoree:

Often times as a songwriter you’re the one left behind. Everyone knows the artist, in some cases the person who has the least to do with what you’re hearing or seeing, and many people know the producers. But songwriters create in the privacy of their little hovels and and rarely get the glory unless they’re recording artists themselves. I’m not complaining –  well, I am – but I know that I’ve been blessed to have my songs covered by artists all over the spectrum of music. And one of the nicest gifts of all was watching TV last night and seeing this bunch of people kicking back and enjoying my song:

28Dec 2010

My Song Sung to Oprah on The Kennedy Center Honors TONIGHT, Tues., Dec. 28!

28Dec 2010

My Song Sung to Oprah on The Kennedy Center Honors TONIGHT, Tues., Dec. 28!

Sorry this is so last-minute (not as sorry as I am for that crazy smile on my face) but if you have a chance to catch or TiVo The Kennedy Center Honors tonight, Jennifer Hudson is singing my song, “I’m Here”, to Oprah when she gets her honor. The Kennedy Center Honors are on CBS, I think at 9 pm. I’m told it’s toward the beginning of the show but with this said, you never know how things are going to be edited and whether the song is going to be there or not. But I have a lot of friends who were there and said it’s fantastic. Of course, it’s a great honor to know that “I’m Here” is part of such an honor for Oprah!

“I’m Here” is the lead character, Celie’s, big song or as they call it in the theater, the 11 o’clock song, in the musical I co-wrote with Marsha Norman, Stephen Bray, and Brenda Russell, The Color Purple.

Here I am with my co-authors the first time we met Oprah in 2005 when she walked into a rehearsal to announce she was coming onboard:

The Color Purple ran on Broadway for two and a half years and is going into its fourth year on tour.

That’s not seventh place American idol winner Jennifer Hudson in the poster, it’s first place Fantasia, who starred as Celie for a year on Broadway and for some of the First National Tour. Coincidently, LaToya London, who came in fourth, played Celie’s sister, Nettie, on tour.

Our original Celie on Broadway was the brilliant LaChanze, who won the Tony for Best Actress, our only win out of 11 nominations, one more than the movie got with the same number of noms.

Oprah definitely enjoyed producing The Color Purple:

There’s nothing inherently kitschy about Oprah Winfrey but in terms of my connection to her as producer of my musical, I love the kitsch value of the following photo. One waits a lifetime to be spoken to by Oprah and here I am not even paying attention…

Here we are opening night of the First National Tour in Chicago, May, 2007. I have no idea who we were all looking at.

The lyrics of “I’m Here” are a testament to the survival of the human spirit despite incredible odds. I saw an interview with Paul McCartney, who also receives an honor tonight, saying that what touched him the most was that all of the winners came from exceedingly humble beginnings and overcame incredible odds to become who they are. So “I’m Here” seems like a perfect match. You can read the lyrics and hear an incredibly fuzzy made-by-someone-who-snuck-a-camera-into-the-theater recording of Fantasia singing the song here. To hear the real thing, a version I co-produced with Fantasia and a 30 piece live orchestra, check it out on iTunes on Fantasia’s Back To Me CD.

For anyone doubting whether they have any worth, “I’m Here” is your theme song. Lucky for me, it’s Oprah’s tonight.

27Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Clothing Dust Proteetive Set

27Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Clothing Dust Proteetive Set

When I first looked at this Chinese import from the Dollar Store I thought that it was much too straightforward to qualify as a product I love because of really bad translations on the packaging. But then I saw that the spelling of Protective had mutated to ProteEtive. So I started nosing around the packaging and found that it very much lived up to my high expectations for cheap products coming from the Orient.

Although I’ve never heard a clothing garment bag referred to as a “Dust Protective Set” let alone a “Dust ProteEtive Set”, it’s pretty clear to me that these are, in fact, garment bags. However, I’m really not sure how I’m supposed to be “sweeping neat” or what the act of sweeping has to do with anything proteetive anyway.

Similarly, I’m very happy that “the dust protective defends the tide” but I’m not sure what the ocean has to do with anything. And the cover of a “Dust Protective Set” doesn’t seem to be the right place to start a song lyric. I’m also grateful that my new garment bags are “beautiful generous” though I prefer those qualities in people. I almost thought that the last selling point was about to make sense but ultimately am much happier about the forgotten ‘c’ in “practial convenience” than if these people had enough money to hire a skilled translator.

As far as the graphic goes, I understand the garment bag and the suit that goes in it but I’m not sure what that loaf of bread looking green thing is doing there.

Perhaps it’s just another illustration of the proteetive bag lying prone to show you that it can be  overstuffed, or oversteefed, with clothes. I do hope that the bags themselves are constructed better than the title of the product, though I would never rip the plastic to get them out as I’m far more concerned with proteeting the sanctity of the Proteetive packaging than I am about proteeting my clothes.

Thank you, aKitschionado Margaret Lewis, for your generous contribution of one Dust Proteetive Set to the physical collection of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com!

23Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Grinch Who Made This Christmas Tree Hat

23Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – The Grinch Who Made This Christmas Tree Hat

I always hated these theme hats but ever since I’ve had my Kitsch O’ The Day blog I’ve found one that’s dumber than the next and that seems to serve the cause of Kitsch well. In the case of this particular Christmas tree chapeau, I hope that most people who don it bought it for themselves as opposed to getting it from under the real tree as it lives up to excessively few of its claims.  For example, the label definitely leads one to believe that the star on top lights up and stands erect as any good tree topper should:

In real life, the star flops over like a dead fish.

Although it might look like the star is lit in that last photo it’s just that I shot it in too bright of light. In fact, the wire connected to the star is clearly not connected to the battery terminal.

Inside the hat, the battery case flops around on your head like another dead fish. Should you attempt to adjust the sized-for-a-child-and-grips-your-head-like-a-vice hat on your now bruised head, the battery case flops out like the ornament that’s always too ugly to put on the tree.

So far my cat, Niblet, has hacked up six bunches of tinsel that have fallen off the tree hat. If you even look at this thing it sheds.

All in all,I think it might be less frustrating to wear a real tree on my head. I hope Fun World Div., Easter Unlimited, Inc. of Carle Place, NY by way of China is making a New Years resolution to take better care of their trees before extracting $30 for the malfunctioning stump that sits atop my head this Christmas!

22Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschy Khristmas Shopping List #2

22Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschy Khristmas Shopping List #2

99¢  and discount stores in general are fabulous all year round but there’s no question that the season they shine most at is Christmas, when all stops are pulled out and the shelves are packed with more crap than even a kitsch loving aKitschionado such as myself can absorb. These stores at this season offer the perfect storm of circumstances for me, especially as I needed some Christmas arts and crafts supplies to make Pigmy Will Christmas ornaments.

So I got my head together to stand in line as these severe discount stores are the kind of places where there are five or six cash registers but only one or two staffed at a time. But despite the long lines and shelves stuffed with misplaced items because people change their minds on the go and stick things anywhere, it’s always a delight to see what’s offered at this most special time of the year. Here are a few of the things that crossed my eyeballs within the first 10 minutes of walking into two such establishments in North Hollywood, CA.

This seems like an awful lot of plaster or whatever these things are made out for four little hooks:

This looks like it was made by someone who’d drunk too much Red Bull and was let loose in a crafts store:

This kind of kitsch scares me:

Could there be any more going on in this frame to take away from a photo?

I know that this Stocking Wave-Cap is impressive but what I want for Christmas is that foot shaped emery board next to it:

I’m buying everyone on my list a “snug and comfy” non-Snuggie-looks-just-like-a-Snuggy Fuzzy Wuzzy:

And maybe some Elvis in a can…:

I bought ten Elvises in a popcorn filled guitar.

Forget about the doggie Santa suits; I like that pink coat with the fur collar down in the bottom right corner:

I didn’t know that Barbra Streisand had her own line of beauty products:

If the best thing you can say about your pantyhose is that they are “Beautifully  effective” I’m not even excited about them being Velvet.

As if there already wasn’t enough of this in the world, we don’t need more of it at a buck a pop:

And whoever buys this, please take me to your home and let me see what other supreme kitsch you have inside:

If you were kitschilousciously koncious this Christmas shopping season you could have everything on this page for under 100 clams. May you have a excellent 99¢++ Christmas!

20Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Elvis Presley Christmas Ornament

20Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Elvis Presley Christmas Ornament

If I wanted anyone serenading me with Christmas carols it would be Elvis. This Christmas ornament of The King captures his 1950’s essence complete with slim body, pompadour and up-curled lip though some 1970’s puffiness is starting to invade his cheeks.

Hallmark did a nice job of capturing his ever-on-point foot to match his snarled lip:

I’m not sure what this Elvis is made of. He’s not quite plastic and not quite metal but is heavier than a normal Christmas ornament and has a nice secure screw in his head.

In case the buyer or recipient has no idea who Elvis was Hallmark has provided a nice explanation, borrowing a little from Frank Sinatra.

I hope you have a very Elvis holiday season with lots of fried chicken and peanut butter and banana sandwiches!

After too many peanut butter and banana sandwiches with bacon Elvis has left the building…

19Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschy Khristmas Shopping List #1

19Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschy Khristmas Shopping List #1

Last weekend I drove down to San Diego to see a performance of my musical, The Color Purple. I rarely get a chance to see the show but when it’s anywhere near LA I choose which performances I’m going to see by which town has the best thrift shops and then I make a whole trip out of it. For this performance I mapped out all the second hand shops between LA and San Diego. But we left too late so dealt with the shopping jones in one antique mall in Solana Beach on the way to SD. I especially love antique malls this time of year because the Khristmas Kitsch comes out in full force.

Which is why no one should ever travel without a camera at this time of year. There is far too much kitsch to document by storing the wonderfulness in your head only.

The first thing I came across was this Bedazzled holiday fauna interpretation. These trees on felt or velvet are common Khristmas kraft faire but this one was done with more precision than most that line thrift shop shelves this time of year, with everything lying at the bottom of junk drawers messily glued on to form the tree. This crafter used chunks of resin to fill in the gaps between jewels instead of just accepting patches of black velvet  looking like dead branches on the tree.

I am so not a Mickey Mouse connoisseur so don’t know the vintage of this, but were I to let the mouse run around my house it would likely be in the form of this plastic cup with the big feet and double holed grip.

You can always count on a sweater smorgasbord this time of the year.

I dig homemade Christmas decorations but for $95 Santa’s mail won’t be delivered anywhere near my house this year.

Were I of the right religion I would definitely have gone for the following. If anyone ever spots Moses rolling through the rushes in mosaic let me know.

I’m definitely not into these little guard guys but you always see them around at Christmas. This one is particularly festive. I especially love his rubber chair leg tip shoulder:

I know that it was the individual bunches of tinsel that were for sale here but if I were someone who was decorating for Christmas I would’ve bought this whole thing and used it as a giant ornament:

Barbie, of course, always gets in on the Christmas action. With this kind of packaging I wish she were made out of chocolate:

Little baldheaded children with long eyelashes always look good dressed for the holidays:

I know that snowmen always abound in Christmas decorations so nothing special here other than the homemade quality of these three. I especially like how off-center the nose is on the guy all the way to the right (the snowman’s right, not yours):

I always like light up yard decorations of Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. I love how coiffed Jesus is in this one, especially in his pink pantsuit, and how much baby Jesus looks like a bubbling soufflé.

Vintage Pebble Art is great all times of the year but looks especially good in these praying Christmas portrayals:

Although it has nothing to do with Christmas, The Color Purple, the musical I co-wrote and which is what brought me down to San Diego in the first place, has an awful lot to do with a little girl praying and writing letters to God. Seeing my show for the last time for a few months until I fly to Detroit in April to conduct my high school marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the lobby of the Fox theater, where The Color Purple will be, was an excellent early Christmas present for me, especially after a day of such kitsch as aforementioned lighting up my eyes with wonderment. Look what God has done!

And speaking of purple and Christmas, it’s still not too late to order a lovely Pigmy Will ornament for the tree or to use as a hat on little baldheaded rubber Christmas children.

15Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschtastic Mansion and the Folks Inside

15Dec 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Kitschtastic Mansion and the Folks Inside


I always love this time of year in LA because the Christmas parties really kick into high gear. There aren’t as many of them this year because all pennies are being pinched but there was a killer one last night at a house RuPaul is renting for the month for just such holiday festivities. The added bonus last night was that it was our mutual friend, Tom Trujillo’s, birthday.

There’s nothing especially kitschy about all of us – except me I guess – but we all embrace our vast love of kitsch in the way we live and entertain. In Ru’s case, the house he rented takes appreciation of the genre to staggering heights.

First, some of the attendees and then, more photos of the kitschtacular edifice itself.  Here’s a closer shot of Ru, me, birthday boy Tom, and Prudence Fenton.

Here I am with Santino Rice, of Project Runway and RuPaul’s Drag Race fame:

I love my soul sistas and sisters in real life, Scherrie Payne, formerly of The Supremes, and Freda “Band Of Gold”, “Bring The Boys Home” Payne.

Here’s me and five-time Grammy-winning composer, producer, conductor, arranger, and songwriter, Mervin Warren.

(L-R) Mito Aviles, Prudence, me, ChadMichael Morrisette and RuPaul.

Now onto the co-star of the evening, the house, mansion, palace or whatever you want to call it. First of all, it was massive. From the street it just looks like a long bush but from the back, if you put the following three photos side-by-side, it’s a hunka hunk o’ burnin’ living space:

The entire outside of the house is distressed so you constantly felt like you were whizzing through Europe.

There are three floors that I know of, possibly more, but we had already walked so much I was going to have to hire a car to take more of the tour. Most of the ceilings look something like this:

Many of the ceilings twinkled:

Most of the walls gave lots of time to the women:

The walls that weren’t giving props to the ladies had screens embedded in them with moving images of exotic places:

All of the staircases are very rustic yet ornate:

There are tons of little seating areas like these:

And lots of statues everywhere:

That statue overlooks the pool which overlooks the city of LA…

… and leads to a disco complete with a stripper pole downstairs:

I don’t know what I was thinking not taking a photo of the unbelievable pole dancer from Jumbo’s Clown Room who came to entertain Tom. I guess I was too busy running around taking photos of myself next to all the statues.

Pound for pound, it was a wonderful night with wonderful friends inside a wonderful wheel of brie house. I’m sure I’ll be back before Ru’s rental is up…

15Dec 2010

Writing and Recording with DMC!

15Dec 2010

Writing and Recording with DMC!

Nothing especially kitschy here but soulful and slammin’ and I’ve always been a massive Run DMC fan so was most excited to be in the studio yesterday writing, recording and singing with DMC! My friend Gail Zappa, pictured with us, married to Frank and mom of Dweezil, Moon, Ahmet and Diva, set it all up as DMC’s producer, the great Jared Lee Gosselin, was recording in Frank’s studio.

I had an absolute blast, we wrote lightning fast – finished 90% of the record in a day –  and it sounds fantastic! A little more work on it this week and hopefully it will be out in about a month. Will keep you posted.

Special words from the God of Kitsch who watched over us: