After posting of my delight at being reunited with Mari Wilson, I noted that I wanted to hunt down another favorite from the early 80s-Karla DeVito. Well, wonders of the World Wide Web…
Karla DeVito’s 1981 album Is This a Cool World or What? was often blasting on the stereo at our cool apartment on the top floor of a pre-war brick building on Capitol Hill in Seattle. I played this album over & over, singing along to her originals & her great covers of Jim Steinman’s Heaven Can Wait, The Grass Roots’ Midnight Confessions & John Fogerty's Almost Saturday Night.
Karla started in theatre in her native Chicago. She went on to be a backup singer for Meatloaf. Karla later struck out on her own & as a solo artist she opened for Hall & Oates & Rick Springfield, & did club dates of her own. She met her husband of 27 years actor-singer-writer-director-cutie pie Robby Benson (Ode To Billy Joe, Ice Castles, Beauty & The Beast) while they were both appearing on Broadway in The Pirates of Penzance. The Bensons live in NYC where Robby is a professor at NYU. Karla continues to do voice work. Dig that crazy 80s look on her album cover!
Thanks so much Steven for this great mention!!!
ReplyDeletePlease check out my you tube channel -- I uploaded 11 clips from my personal archives of my 1982 MTV New Years Eve concert -- in support of IS THIS A COOL WORLD OR WHAT?! with my incredibly talented band at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOYiQNXju18
They really are amazing and we had a blast!!! Drummer Robert Medici is from Portland.
(On the final song ALMOST SATURDAY NIGHT i thank everyone and then blow a kiss to my darling boyfriend in the balcony -- he's still my darling boyfriend 27 years later!!!)