For the past few few years now on the “BaDeYa, say do you remember 21st night of September”, my blessed and magic day because it’s the first line in the first hit record I ever had, I’ve made a tradition of performing live, something that took me over three decades to get together. Other than last year when I was in Detroit conducting one of the 50 sing-alongs for ”The D”, the unofficial official theme song I cowrote for Detroit, in a laundromat with people essentially spinning around in dryers while singing.
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September,
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CALLING ALL DETROITERS! I will be APPEARING LIVE for the first time EVER in the Motor City 3 PM, Sunday, “the 21st (almost) night of September”! Andrae and I plus a 10 piece band – singers, dancers, tires, fire eaters, live tigers – well, a couple of those may not be true but I guarantee you it will be a spectacle among spectacles!
Categories:
"The D",
Allee Live Performance,
Art,
Boogie Wonderland,
Comedy,
Detroit,
empowerment,
Film,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Lyrics,
Music,
Party,
People,
Self expression,
September,
Songwriting,
The Color Purple
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Sorry, sorry, sorry for no new entries in an eternity. I’m working around several clocks and all the energy that used to be poured into this blog has to now go into slogging through the close to 5000 vocal tracks and 3000 hours of footage so that I can complete “The D”/ Allee Willis Loves Detroit before my 100th birthday. Although joyous work for a completely worthy cause – DETROIT! – it all makes me very tired, especially when the 100 Terrabye server goes down and makes my collaborator, Andrae Alexander, and I experience death by technology.
Categories:
"The D",
Allee Live Performance,
Allee Willis Loves Detroit,
Art,
Creative process,
Detroit,
empowerment,
Forgot to Categorize,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Music,
Self expression,
Songwriting
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So I’m donning my ruby red slippers and jetting to Detroit to ride high atop the NBC-WDIV Wizard of Oz float in the Thanksgiving Day Parade (!!!) and to do 10 more sing-alongs for “The D”.
Categories:
Allee Live Performance,
Allee's live performances,
Animals,
Art,
Creative process,
Creativity,
Detroit,
empowerment,
Holidays,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Party,
Self expression,
Songwriting,
Travel,
TV/Radio
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Got back to LA from leg #1 of “The D”, my song/video/documentary tribute to the SOUL of Detroit, last week sick as a dog, happy as a clam, and just now rising from the dead to finally write this update. After a year and a half of ups and downs including times I didn’t even know if we were going to make it to Detroit I can honestly say these were among the all-time greatest three weeks of my life! And an exceedingly auspicious debut for “The D”.
Michigan Opera Theatre Children’s Choir:
Categories:
Allee Live Performance,
Allee's live performances,
Art,
Creative process,
Creativity,
Dance,
Detroit,
Discography,
empowerment,
Fashion,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Music,
Party,
People,
Place,
School,
Self expression,
Songwriting,
Travel
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I really meant to be doing far more of these updates but the schedule is thankfully and gratefully so packed here in Detroit that I can barely get into bed before it’s time to get up and start singing again. The participation here has been insanely enthusiastic and wonderful.
Categories:
Allee Live Performance,
Architecture,
Art,
Celebrity,
Creative process,
Creativity,
Dance,
Detroit,
Discography,
empowerment,
Film,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Lyrics,
Mumford high school,
Music,
Party,
People,
Place,
Reality tv,
School,
Self expression,
Songwriting,
Theater,
Travel,
TV/Radio
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Hard to believe that after working on “The D” a solid year and a half, my ever-growing crew of 15 and I are descending upon Detroit in less than a week to record the song, video and feature length documentary. We’ll be recording and filming groups of 50 to 1000 people at each of 40+ locations where people will be singing “The D”, dancing, and showing their Motor City spirit however they can. Nothing like this has ever seen attempted- not just the largest number of people ever on a record, but the largest number of people as the original artist on a record. A partial list of locations participating is at the end of this email.
Categories:
Allee Live Performance,
Allee's live performances,
Art,
Celebrity,
Creative process,
Creativity,
Detroit,
empowerment,
Financial,
Hollywood,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Mumford high school,
Music,
Party,
People,
Self expression,
September,
Songwriting,
Travel
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This is an update to all those who have donated or signed up to participate in “The D”, my multimedia song-video-documentary extravaganza I’m recording and filming via a series of sing-alongs in Detroit from 9/10 – 10/1, 2013:
Categories:
Allee Live Performance,
Allee's live performances,
Art,
Creative process,
Creativity,
Detroit,
empowerment,
Film,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Party,
People,
Self expression,
September,
Songwriting,
Travel
Protected under a Creative Commons license
