Durward Discussion: Up In One

14 May 2010

Five on Friday - Up In One

Peter Allen

Our buddy Travis of Trav's Thoughts has created a wonderful meme called "5 on Friday". The rules are simple:

1. Grab the banner, make your post title Five on Friday, and be sure to link back here.

2. Go to Playlist.com to make your play list of five songs. You may choose a particular theme to share with us, or post random tunes if that's your vibe for the day. You can simply post the play list, or you can add a little summary about what you are sharing.

2a. Don't feel restricted by the tracks listed on Playlist.com. You're welcome to use any type of media to share your Sets.

3. Be sure to sign Mr Linky so everyone can visit your Set.

4. No tags, but feel free to invite your friends to play along if they need a post topic on a Friday.

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In 1980, I had the pleasure of seeing Peter Allen perform live in his show, "Up In One" in Los Angeles. If you are not familiar with the term, "Up In One" refers to the star being forward in a single spotlight. That was where Allen always wanted to be and where he seemed most at home. It was an interesting evening given that a large percentage of the attendees were truly celebrating being Gay and taking the rest of us along for the ride. With Allen up on stage and that group of admirers, break out your maracas because flamboyant was an understatement. He kept perfect control of an unusually wild and appreciative audience, and throughout the show, my date kept leaning over and saying, "He wrote that?" .... "He wrote that?" ... "He wrote that?"

As hard as it is for me to believe, many people at the time simply didn't know the name of the creator of the music even though many of the songs had become huge hits sung by virtually every major vocalist of the late '70s simply because his career was so New York and International rather than on radio and TV. Thanks to the musical, The Boy From Oz, Allen may actually be better known now than he was alive. He was an amazing showman and we lost this huge talent to AIDS way too young, but fortunately we have the music.

The only real problem I had was that Playlist.com failed me completely, and You Tube had the popular songs of the period but few of the intensely personal and beautiful songs such as "Where The Sun Never Shines" or "5 O'Clock In LA", so you might want to visit ITunes to get a true feel of the breadth of his work.