You Down With BDD? Yeah, You Know Me!

Alpha males, which scientists may observe in their natural habitats barking, scratching and punching, have favorite sports teams. They like to keep track of the teams' games and get a thrill when their team does well. It isn't that they themselves did well, or that they're proud of choosing the team that did well, it's that they are happy their team has justified their faith in them, and if they win the biggest game of all, the fans in that stadium cheer and scream and throw beer at each other and go "WOO!" in a falsetto voice because they're so excited their team has hit such a height.

I am not an Alpha male. I love Barbra Streisand. In my mother's album collection I found Simply Streisand (1967), which was fortuitous because in chorus we were working on the song All the Things You Are ("You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long..."), which is offered on Simply Streisand by Barbra in spectacular fashion. Listening to her version helped me work on my version, but it made me realize that our chorus didn't have a prayer of ever breathing life into the song as Barbra does. I listened to the rest of the album and simply fell in love. When I had the chance, I bought her first album (because why not start at the beginning?), The Barbra Streisand Album. Not only did she do great ballads like I'll Tell the Man in the Street, Happy Days Are Here Again and Much More (really, a song called Much More from the musical The Fantastiks, not much more music, although there was that too), but she captivated me up-tempo with My Honey's Lovin' Arms and Keepin' Out of Mischief Now, and then tickled my funny bone with Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. Well, over the years there were many, many more Barbra records to buy and savor (52 gold and 31 platinum albums, and counting!) and my love for her has soared like Dorothy Gale's house in a tornado. I've been so proud to see her win Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and whatever else the entertainment industry can come up with and I feel as excited as if she's my hometown team winning every game in a season! And when she sings "I've come home at last!" from As If We Never Said Goodbye on her Back to Brooklyn live album, the audience at Barclays Center cheers so loudly the roof on that arena may now be retractable...that's my Super Bowl!

Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco, came to my attention in 1975 with a little ditty called Love to Love You Baby, which she moaned and groaned to a number 2 slot on the Billboard chart! Who knew sharing 23 orgasms with a disco beat could lead to such success? Donna then continued her Marilyn Monroe streak with songs like Try Me, I Know We Can Make It, Spring Affair, and I Feel Love, but on the album that contained that gem she gave us a musical romp through the 40s, 50s and 60s called I Remember Yesterday. I loved her already, but this medley showed me a new Donna, a varied Donna, a Donna who was more than just sexy! And in 1978 she and her producer/magician brought us the dramatic MacArthur Park Suite and my little heart danced all over my living room! Of course, Jimmy Webb's lyrics never made much sense (why would anyone hold birds in their hands while kneeling as her cotton dress foams on the ground? What is going on in this park?!), but Donna's vocals soared to the sun and blinded us with its brilliance! After giving us (and the Osca
r Awards telecast) the Last Dance, this new suite solidified her place in heaven's firmament...if, that is, Heaven is a Disco, as Paul Jabara once posited. Her next career move was to sing about Bad Girls and Hot Stuff (but not in that order) and she sat atop the Billboard 200 for six weeks, the album becoming her third double album to top that chart consecutively. In case you're wondering, that's pretty rare!

Everyone I knew was aware of my massive love for these two massive musicians, and they simply couldn't wait to tell me they recorded together. Well, if you love the Mets and the Yankees, you can watch them face off in the Subway Series every year, but for Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand to record together? I didn't believe it! They were collectively pulling my leg - and if all of your friends are pulling your leg, you're gonna topple over. So I toppled over when I first heard No More Tears (Enough is Enough). Have you heard this song?! Go listen, I'll wait...

Is that amazing?! You don't have to answer, I can see it in the tears on your face. Yes, I was just as thrilled the first time I heard it! So it was true that Babs and LaDonna got together without my knowledge and had a little offspring with the help of their Latino lover Paul Jabara (heaven IS a disco, isn't it?). 'Natch, Barbra's son Jason (who we later learned is gay) talked her into doing this one. She hesitated. "Would it make me look foolish?" she foolishly thought. But Jason loved Donna, he loved his mom, he loved disco...and he made her see she was no fool when the song reached number 1 on the Top 100 Thanksgiving week, 1979 (for which I still give thanks).

Barbra is from New York and Donna hails from Massachusettes, but somewhere in the Deep South, a country girls was doing some trailblazing of her own. Dolly Parton had been around for 10 years before

I ever heard of her. She had told the world about her Tennessee Mountain Home on The Porter Waggoner Show, but I don't think our cable station carried it (though we did get Lawrence Welk, hmm...). She also told the world I Will Always Love You (and eventually took that sentiment to the top of the charts on three separate occasions, with a fourth by then-unknown New Jersey girl Whitney Houston), but that wasn't what drew me to her. Her country crossover sensation was Here You Come Again and her she came to claim my undying love and adoration. Everyone knows her heart is as big as her chest, but when I heard the rest of that album, I was smitten in a way I didn't think possible. Dolly's false eyelashes and false hair and false, no those are real, awakened things in me that puberty didn't fully explain. But her clear soprano voice singing songs of hope, love and tragedy (some of them "just plain pitiful") tugged at my heartstrings and made me dream about the country I had not known before. Since then, we've been together through the Rockin' Years while I worked 9 to 5 and Dolly acquitted herself quite nicely in movies like Straight Talk and The Best Little Whorehouse (but we don't talk about Rhinestone).

So if you're down with Barbra, Donna and Dolly, then you're down with BDD, and you're down with me!