Fame reunion!

In the 80s, I was a big fan of the show, Fame.  You could say I watched it religiously, even though the storylines were kind of cheesy and the musical numbers were often either corny or badly sung.  Fame had a lot of good dancers, probably due to Debbie Allen's influence.  However, there were only a couple of good singers.  Lee Curreri, who played Bruno, was legitimately a talented keyboard player and composer, but his singing left something to be desired.

Anyway, Fame is evidently still very popular in Italy.  A few months ago, they had a reunion concert in Italy and quite a few of the original players gathered to sing the songs that were featured on the show.  Here are a few videos from that concert, as well as one they did at The Troubadour in Los Angeles to raise money for the Actors' Fund.

In loving memory of Fame players lost...

"Starmaker" again...  I'm struck by how nice Cynthia Gibb's voice is here.  She's obviously invested in a lot of training, since she sounds much better here than she did on the show.

This was one of my favorite songs on Fame...  I believe Lee Curreri actually composed this.  It sounds a bit like something Boz Scaggs would have recorded.  It holds up to time.

Nia Peeples sings one of her best known ballads from the show.  She was probably the best singer they had when the show aired.  Jesse Borrego is there to dance with her.  They were a couple on Fame before Nia's character, Nicole, was killed off.  I think in real life, Nicole was engaged to Carlo Imperato, who played Danny Amatullo.

Debbie Allen sings at the L.A. reunion.

And you can click here to see the Fame gang in Los Angeles, singing their iconic theme song.  I can't say this is the best rendition I've heard, but they sure look like they're having fun.  I best this show was a blast.  I think even Eartha Robinson got in on this one...  She was a dancer on the show!

I'm going to have to keep my eyes peeled for future Italy shows.  Apparently, they've done shows there at least twice since we moved back to Europe.  These clips are making me feel old, though... I can't believe the 80s were so long ago.  Where did the time go?