The ‘Friday Night Divas’ include (clockwise from top left) Frenchie Davis (photo by AP), Thelma Houston (photo courtesy the artist), Exposé (photo courtesy PR Web) and CeCe Peniston (photo courtesy executive PR & Talent).
Diva power Songbirds look to start Pride on the right note
No matter how high the temperature gets in Atlanta during this year’s Gay Pride festival, disco legend Thelma Houston won’t need any “fans.” The marquee concert for Atlanta Pride 2008 is moving indoors this year, taking place in the air-conditioned and weather-protected Atlanta Civic Center on July 4.
Houston, who’s known for classics such a “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” says she just isn’t a fan of the word “fan.”
“I don’t like the word 'fan'; it sounds so frivolous,” Houston says. “I prefer ‘supporters.’”
Houston is eager to fellowship with her gay supporters at Pride, who she says know how to party and let loose better than predominately heterosexual audiences.
“I find that gay audiences are more apt to be dancing, moving and probably know the words to the songs better,” says Houston, whose latest album, “A Woman’s Touch,” was released last year.
Houston’s breakthrough single, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” — a remake of a tune previously recorded by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes — won Houston the 1977 Grammy for best female R&B vocal performance, and helped expose her to a strong gay following.
“I have always had, since I started performing professionally, a lot of gay supporters and friends,” Houston says. “I really got it when I realized the tremendous amount of support for ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way.’”
With her star rising, Houston got further glimpses that she was becoming a gay icon during early Pride celebrations across the country.
“I suppose the first unique experience was riding in the Pride parade in Los Angeles back in the day,” Houston says. “I found that exhilarating.”
Houston’s subsequent musical projects never approached the heights achieved by “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” but the tireless entertainer has come to appreciate her gay support system all the more as her career matures.
“What I feel is most unique about the gay community is its loyalty to the people they support,” she says.
A native southerner, Houston has performed regularly in Atlanta throughout her four-decade career, including a concert at WETbar last September and a recent appearance on Fox 5’s morning show, “Good Day Atlanta.”
“It’s always a very exciting trip for me,” Houston says. “I love me some good ol’ Atlanta food.”
NEW VENUE, NEW COSTS
Sports fans have their Monday Night Football, and hillbillies have their Sunday Night Monster Truck shows. Well, now gay Atlantans have their Friday Night Divas.
Houston is one of six singers who will star in the “Friday Night Divas” event, the first paid concert in the history of Atlanta Pride. With Pride being forced to move from Piedmont Park to the Atlanta Civic Center by city officials concerned about Georgia’s extreme drought, organizers hope ticket sales to the show will help offset the $60,000-$80,000 cost of renting the Civic Center.
“There was no rental fee to use the park,” says Donna Narducci, Atlanta Pride executive director. “There were cleanup fees, and if we did any damage to the park, like tearing up the grass or driving into a street lamp, we would have to pay for that. Our clean up fee was $15,000, and we might have been hit with a $10,000 damage assessment.”
Tickets for the Friday Night Divas show range from $17.50 for balcony seats to $50 for a front-row view, which Narducci calls a “nominal fee.”
With violent thunderstorms and oppressive heat and humidity threatening previous Pride concerts in Piedmont Park, organizers hope the added costs of the Civic Center spare them a weather-related headache.
“For years, people have been asking us to do something about the heat,” Narducci says. “What we’re able to do at the Civic Center, with the new location, is a lot of different things we couldn’t do at Piedmont Park.”
MORE DIVAS
Just as Houston has lived much of her career in the shadow of “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” another Friday Night Diva is eager to escape what has been the defining element of her career in much of the public’s mind. Frenchie Davis, who was scandalously kicked-off “American Idol” in 2003 after photographs of her in her birthday suit surfaced on the internet, also takes the Civic Center stage July 4.
Since her “Idol” infamy, Davis has established herself as a Broadway powerhouse, starring in the New York production of “Rent” and the West Coast tour of “Dreamgirls,” playing the iconic role of Effie White. More than five years after teasing America with her powerful live vocals, Davis is finally preparing to release her debut CD, a compilation of Broadway numbers, old school hits and new, original pieces.
Also on the “Friday Night Divas” bill is the ’80s group Exposé, along with CeCe Peniston, a ’90s dance vocalist who put together a string of hits with “Finally,” “Keep on Walkin’” and “We Got a Love Thang.”
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