OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Terrific Kay Cole!

Greetings music hussies, and welcome to another edition of Manor Music Monday, today with a Broadway spin - or jazz lightly inflected with a touch of hot-cha! Meanwhile, did you survive your 4th of July weekend? Did the nation? And if you're in another country, are you still laughing at the cheeseball spectacle known as "Salute to America 250 Celebration" on the National Mall? If it helps you to stop, know that most of us were embarrassed, even mortified. But anywaythat'stoopolitical, let's swing back to music, life-saving music. 

Tonight, at the Manor's exclusive "Knob-Slapping" after-hours club and taqueria, DJ Li'l Scratch will grand jete forth, as only he can do, and spin wonderful tunes by the delightfully multitalented Kay Cole.

Recognize the name? Woo-hoo! Congratulations! You're officially an old, because she was in the original Broadway cast of "A Chorus Line," being one of three dancers who both inspired and performed the number "At The Ballet" (here they are on "Donahue" singing it fifteen years after the show opened). She actually began working in professional theater at just six years old. Growing up "on the road," she built an extensive resume as a versatile triple-threat performer, starting with the original Broadway production of "Bye Bye Birdie" in 1960, in which she created the role of "Sad Girl," and later, in Broadway's production of "Hair."

And get this, she even married her childhood sweetheart, Michael Lamont, an actor and prominent production photographer, whom she first met as a wee one when they were both in "Birdie." Awww. They were married until his death for 34 years.

Her career since has mainly consisted of work as a choreographer, but in 2017, she recorded a solo LP - and it's gorgeous. This is no "dancer-who-sings," as they used to say, but a genuinely skilled vocalist who, for example, makes you forget all about Green Day with her gentle, Old West Saloon Girl rendition of "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams." In fact, she transforms every song, some of them highly familiar, with her own unique interpretations. As far as I know, it's her only LP. Which is a crime.

Want to hear the rest of Kay? Lucky you, it's right here: 

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Getty Images, Kritzerland Records