The king of kings!

The King lives!
















On June 25, 2010, will be the one year anniversary since the world lost the most famous Icon/legend to have ever dawned a stage, screen, magazine cover, award show, and once again, The king of pop, Michael Jackson has broke another record.

It sounds strange to say this, but Michael Jackson is coming off one of the biggest years of his career. Jackson has sold more than 9 million albums and nearly 13 million digital tracks in the U.S. in the year since his death. He was hotter than he'd been at any time since his glory days in the ‘80s. He even achieved a career goal that had eluded him in his lifetime--a hit movie. .







I think what happened in the past year is that people focused on Jackson's music for the first time in many years, and remembered how much they liked it. Sadly, it took Jackson's death for people to look past all the controversies--large and small, troubling and trivial--that turned a lot of people off..







In the year since he died, Jackson has sold 9,023,000 albums in the U.S. This has enabled him to vault from #47 on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the top 200 album sellers in its history (which dates to 1991) to #18 this week. That's a tremendous one-year gain..

Jackson's posthumous sales are among the most impressive in the history of the music business. Nielsen/SoundScan didn't exist when Elvis Presley died in 1977 or when John Lennon was killed in 1980, so precise comparisons aren't possible, but the Billboard charts shed some light on the matter..








With his smash compilation Number Ones, Jackson became only the 13th artist to have the best-selling album in the U.S. posthumously. And with the subsequent soundtrack to Michael Jackson's This Is It, he became one of only five artists to have the best-selling album in the U.S. with two albums after his death. Bandleader Glenn Miller and rappers 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. each had three posthumous #1 albums. Nirvana, featuring the late Kurt Cobain, had two..

Eight other artists had one posthumous #1 album: Presley and Lennon are joined on this list by Janis Joplin, Jim Croce, Selena, Aaliyah, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles..

Jackson long wanted to be a movie star, a sort of modern-day Fred Astaire. In death, he got at least part of his wish: a #1 box-office hit. Michael Jackson's This Is It topped the box-office in its opening weekend at the end of October with a domestic gross of more than $23 million..

The soundtrack album entered The Billboard 200 at #1 that same week, with first-week sales of 373,000. (It was eligible for that chart because it was a new compilation.)








That made Jackson only the sixth music star since the early ‘80s to star in a movie that came in #1 at the box-office and also spawned a #1 soundtrack (on which the star was featured). He followed Prince (1984's Purple Rain); Whitney Houston (1995's Waiting To Exhale); Will Smith (1997's Men In Black); Eminem (2002's 8 Mile); and Miley Cyrus (2009's Hannah Montana: The Movie)..

Michael Jackson's This Is It grossed more than $72 million in the U.S., which made it the top-grossing music concert film in history. (The old record was held by Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus' 2008 movie Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour, which grossed more than $65 million.) The movie grossed an additional $180 million in foreign markets for a combined worldwide gross of $252 million. It was also a hit on DVD, with U.S. DVD sales estimated at $43 million..

Beyond the box-office success, the movie helped Jackson's image because it showed him in action and in charge. And we haven't seen that side of him since his heyday. Since Bad came out in 1987, he was usually on the defensive, facing slipping sales, image problems, criminal charges, and all the rest. His life spun out of control. Here, he was seen as being in control again..

In the weeks following his death on June 25, Jackson toppled records that had stood for decades. In the week after he died, he had the three best-selling albums in the U.S.: Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson, and Thriller. Since 1963, when Billboard combined its separate stereo and mono charts into one comprehensive listing, no other act had accomplished that feat. (The Beatles came closest, nailing down three of the top four spots in May 1964.).

For two weeks in July, Jackson had six of the 10 best-selling albums in the U.S. This broke a record that had stood since April 1966, when Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass had four of the top 10.








As I noted last summer, this has a strong sense of déjà vu for me. I wrote a column for Billboard in 1983 and 1984, when Jackson was setting new records virtually every week. I never imagined that it would all happen again, and certainly not under these sad circumstances..

In the week after he died, Jackson became the first artist to sell more than 1 million digital tracks in one week. (He sold 2.6 million, obliterating the old record.) Combining solo hits with songs he recorded with his brothers, he had a staggering 49 of the top 200 titles on the Hot Digital Songs chart that week. He held down six of the top 10 spots..

In each of the first seven weeks after he died, Jackson had three of the five best-selling albums in the U.S.: His biggest seller throughout this period was Number Ones. The hit-studded collection sold more copies in the first 16 weeks after Jackson's death than it had in the five and half years between its release in November 2003 and his death. At its peak in July, Number Ones sold 349,000 copies in one week. That constituted the biggest one-week sales tally for a non-holiday catalog album in Nielsen/SoundScan history..

Number Ones logged six weeks as the best-selling album in the U.S. That was the longest that an artist who had died had the nation's top-seller since 1980-1981, when Double Fantasy, by John Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono, topped The Billboard 200 for eight weeks. It was the longest that a greatest hits set was the best-selling album in the U.S. since 2000-2001, when the Beatles' 1 held the top spot for eight weeks. It was the longest that Jackson had the top-seller since 1987, when Bad held the top spot for six weeks..

Jackson's phenomenal posthumous success forced Billboard to change its long-time policy of excluding catalog albums from The Billboard 200. Beginning with the chart for the issue dated Dec. 5, 2009, catalog albums were able to compete alongside current product on the magazine's flagship chart. The move came too late for Jackson's albums to take their rightful places in the top 10, but it was welcome development nonetheless..

When Nielsen/SoundScan released its final sales tallies for 2009, Jackson had four of the year's top 20 albums: Number Ones at #3, Michael Jackson's This Is It at #12, Thriller at #14 and The Essential Michael Jackson at #20. This constituted a record for the SoundScan era. The old record was held by Garth Brooks, who had three of the top 20 albums of 1992. (In Brooks's case, however, all three made the year-end top 10.).

By coming in at #3 for the year, Number Ones ranked higher on Nielsen/SoundScan's year-end chart than any album ever had following the artist's death. 2Pac's All Eyez On Me was the #6 album of 1996. The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death was the #6 album of 1997..

Number Ones sold 2,355,000 copies in the U.S. in 2009. It sold all but 117,000 of those copies after Jackson's death..

Jackson had seven of Nielsen/SoundScan's top 100 albums of 2009. In addition to his four albums that made the year-end top 20, Off The Wall was #66, Bad was #68 and Dangerous was #98..

Jackson had nine of the top 200 digital songs of 2009. His biggest hit was "Thriller," which sold 1,096,000 copies during the calendar year. His other top-selling songs for the year were, in descending order: "Billie Jean" (938,000), "Man In The Mirror" (890,000), "Beat It" (830,000), "The Way You Make Me Feel" (671,000), "Don't Stop ‘Til You Get Enough" (611,000), "Smooth Criminal" (605,000), "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (557,000), and "Black Or White" (511,000).







Since the digital era began, the song "Thriller" has sold 2,362,000 digital copies. Only one song from the ‘80s has outsold it. That's Journey's ubiquitous 1981 smash "Don't Stop Believin'," which has sold 3,819,000 copies. But Jackson tops the arena rock band in one respect: He has a second song on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the 200 best-selling digital songs in its history. "Billie Jean" has sold 1,898,000 copies in the digital era..

Thriller is closing in on Dangerous as Jackson's best-selling album of the Nielsen/SoundScan era. Thriller has sold 5,816,000 copies since 1991. Dangerous has sold 6,363,000 (combining two editions of the album). This is remarkable because Thriller was released more than eight years before the start of the Nielsen/SoundScan era. By contrast, all Dangerous sales are contained in the SoundScan era..

Jackson topped charts all over the world after his death. Number Ones and The Essential Michael Jackson both reached #1 in the U.K. The latter album topped the U.K. chart for seven weeks, which was the longest run for an American artist since Justin Timberlake's Justified stayed on top for seven weeks in 2003..

Jackson also had a pair of #1 albums in Japan: King Of Pop (Japan Edition) and Michael Jackson's This Is It!








PDT by Paul Grein

Black is the new Vogue

Black is always in Vogue!

The old, is the new look

I love the mixture of 'The Old' and 'The New.'
The architecture structure of these vertical columns of the Old look of rome,
Combined with the modern touch of plate plexiglas.

The Body oil collection that's in the know? 'Sade'

The Sade Body oil collection.


Great for women of all color!

Genuine!

The love I hold in my heart for you is more precious than diamonds and gold.
It's above and beyond any treasure that you might possess.
It's for one man, and one man only.
The man I see in you.
The one who wants to be in love with me.
My love is for you genuine,
and it all belong to you!
Forever loving you.

I love you more today, than yesterday: Diana Ross

On June 9th, 2010, at 8pm at the Los Angeles 'Nokia' theater, Miss Diana Ross brought her 'I love you more today, than yesterday' tour into town with full force.
Entering on a multi-tiered stage by way of a hydraulic lift before descending a winding staircase like a queen primped for a ball. The Superstar Diva showed off her enviable physique in a colorful array of glamorous dresses, fancy wraps and feather boas that would've made a fashion designer blush. She struck poses, shook hands and blew kisses. The cheerful legend basked in the overwhelming adulation, flashing constant smiles and interacting with the crowd.















Diana also brought the hits and material that spanned decades of dominant pop tastes. Miss Ross touched on disco, R&B, jazz and soul, counting on a slick 18-piece band to process the changes. Projected beautiful visuals of period videos and photos framed multiple songs trends and artistry.


Touching on her early days as a member of the most famous girl group in history, The Supremes, Miss Ross sang chart topping hits, such as, 'Reflection, Forever came today, Love child,' and the most famous Supreme hit ever, 'Stop in the name of love,' transitioning into her early solo hits, 'Touch me in the morning, Theme from Mahogany,' into her first number one solo hit, 'Ain't no mountain high enough,' before bringing down the house with her on flavored rendition of 'I will survive.'





As the show was coming to it's finale, Miss Ross ordered the house lights to be turned up so that she was able to good a glimps of the audience and then introduced her family, as well as extended Motown family to the adorning fans, starting with the man who "made it all happen for her," Berry Gordy jr.,










At the show's finale, the house lights, once again fell black and appeared on the screen, again, was Diana, but this time singing duet with the King of Pop, myself, Michael Jackson.




But, before singing her top 10 hit, 'Missing you' and her rendition of 'You are not alone,' Miss Ross had a special surprise for the audience, by introducing Michale's children to the Ross fans, where the kids were greeted with a standing O!




This was the best concert I've witnessed this year. My one and only wish was that the new up and coming female, as well as male artist of this generation could have attended ti witness real entertainment at it realness, because Ross kept it very REAL.

Bravo, Miss Ross......Bravo!

MUSIC REVIEW: Grammy award winner, Jody Watley

Music Notes. Mark de Clive-Lowe featuring Jody Watley


Review: Jody Watley
Every diva on the planet should be sending out an APB to track down Mark de Clive-Lowe and hold him hostage in the studio for a few hours. More than any other producer in House, he has an uncanny ability to play to their strengths and the creativity to give them just the right canvas to work on. With a few exceptions I can no longer remember but which must be there somewhere, I don't think Jody Watley has ever sounded better. "Get down down down down down" is as old as the Blues, but the lyric just works so well with the cacophony of instruments MdCL has put together that it sounds like you're hearing it for the first time.







In Strictly style, a more commercial remix is offered up by Ralvero which to be honest probably doesn't belong on here. So much electro these days just sounds like the same - like what George Clinton said about the death of commercial disco: "It all had one beat. You can't make love the same way every time you do it." Pass on it in favor of Mark de Clive-Lowe's own remix, which is rooted in that gorgeous urban soul sound he's made his own. [ - Terry M. - ]

Today's hot look! ' Funky and freash'

Keeping it Funky!









Hot....Hot....Hot!

"Only If!"

If only I could feel your touch,
It would bring joy to my lonely
heart.


If only I could see your smile,
It would bring sunshine to my
dark world.





It would bring us closer together
with love.



If only your arms could hold me,
then I wouldn't have to feel so alone
and my soul wouldn't have to cry out
for your love.













If only you were here with me,
you would become a reality.




However, since we can't be together,
I'll just have to continue dreaming
about you until that day come to be.

Untold Heros & heroines: Thelma Houston

Thelma Houston (née Jackson; born May 7, 1946, Leland, Mississippi is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She scored a number-one hit in 1977 with her cover version of the song "Don't Leave Me This Way", which won the 1978 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.





Houston is the daughter of a cotton picking mother. She and her three sisters grew up primarily in Long Beach, California. After marrying and having two children, she joined the Art Reynolds Singers gospel group and was subsequently signed as a recording artist with Dunhill Records.

In 1969, Houston released her debut album, entitled Sunshower, produced by Jimmy Webb. In 1971 she signed with Motown Records but her early recordings with them were largely unsuccessful. Her most notable single during that period was "You've Been Doing Wrong for So Long" which peaked at #64 on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart in 1974. However Houston's vocal prowess on that track secured her a nomination for a Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. In April 1974 Houston joined the cast of The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, playing various characters during the shows skits. The show was canceled in August and for the next several years her work was limited to demo recordings and performing at small venues.

Houston took acting classes and received her first role in the 1975 made-for-television film Death Scream. In that same year Sheffield Lab released "I've Got the Music in Me" a recording by Thelma Houston and Pressure Cooker that went on to become a benchmark vinyl recording for audiophiles. The following year she recorded songs for the soundtrack to the film The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings starring Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones. In 1975 Houston appeared on the Golden Globe Award broadcast performing the nominated song "On & On" and also was featured in a tribute to Berry Gordy on that year's American Music Award broadcast singing "You've Made Me So Very Happy". That year Houston's version of "Do You Know Where You're Going To" was being set for single release when it was pulled and the song given to Diana Ross to serve as the theme song for the movie Mahogany. In 1976 Houston sang backing vocals for Motown labelmate Jermaine Jackson on his album My Name Is Jermaine.












Houston released her third album Any Way You Like It in 1976. The first single released was her version of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' 1975 song "Don't Leave Me This Way". In February 1977 the track hit #1 in the U.S. on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts as well as on the Club Play Singles chart. "Don't Leave Me This Way" won Houston the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the Grammys for 1977. Besides its US success "Don't Leave Me This Way" became a hit in at least twelve countries, including the UK where it reached #13 despite the concurrent single release of the Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes which reached #5. Also in 1977 Houston teamed up with Jerry Butler to record the album Thelma & Jerry and that November 1977 she co-starred in the film Game Show Models. It was announced in February 1977 that Houston would star as Bessie Smith in a filmation of the play Me and Bessie, to be produced by Motown; after an announcement that December that Houston was set to portray Bessie Smith in a biopic to be produced in 1978 by Columbia Pictures nothing more was heard of the project.







The second single from Any Way You Like It was Houston's rendition of "If It's the Last Thing I Do", a standard written by Charlie Chaplin; the track had been recorded and prepped for single release in 1973 but canceled. The impact of "If It's the Last Thing I Do" was far less than that of "Don't Leave Me This Way", as the former fell short of both the R&B Top Ten and the Pop Top 40. With the lead single from her 1978 album The Devil in Me: "I'm Here Again", Houston returned to the style of "Don't Leave Me This Way" without recapturing the earlier single's success. Houston did enjoy considerable commercial success in 1978 via the inclusion of her track "Love Masterpiece" on the Thank God It's Friday soundtrack album which sold double platinum but her own album release that year Ready to Roll again failing to consolidate the stardom augured by "Don't Leave Me This Way". The album's second single: "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning", gradually accrued airplay entering the national charts in March 1979 and ascending as high as #34 (#19 R&B) that June. "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning" was issued on a new album by Houston: Ride to the Rainbow but the track's relative success was not enough to forestall Houston's planned departure from Motown.








Houston continued recording into the 1980s, beginning with the RCA release Breakwater Cat which reunited her with Jimmy Webb who'd produced her debut Sunshower and which like their earlier collaboration was a commercially overlooked critical success. In the 22 December 1984 Billboard magazine interview, Houston admitted to "'no real commercial success' since the single 'Don't Leave Me This Way' broke on the Pop charts in late 1976" indicating that the disco backlash had left her with "no real base of audience support" and that her current album Qualifying Heat, executive produced by Houston herself, was a concentrated initiative to restore her as a viable chart presence; the album featured three cuts from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis - including the single "You Used to Hold Me So Tight" - and production work from Glen Ballard, Dennis Lambert, Cliff Magness and - in his first known recording work - Lenny Kravitz (then billed as Romeo Blue), who each produced a cut apiece. "You Use to Hold Me So Tight" became Houston's most successful post-'70s' release with a #13 R&B peak but it parent album was a comparative failure - charting #41 R&B - and Houston would not cut another album for six years.

The constant ranking of her '80s releases of the '80s as moderate or minor R&B hits led Houston to concentrate on alternate exposure: having appeared in the independent film The Seventh Dwarf in 1979, Houston made guest-starring appearances into the mid-1980s in several popular television programs including Cagney & Lacey, Simon & Simon - a January 1986 appearance that featured her performing "You Used to Hold Me So Tight" - and Faerie Tale Theatre. Houston also appeared in the 1987 CBS after school special Little Miss Perfect (1987) - as "Prison Singer" - in the 1988 film And God Created Woman.

On the 19 May 1985 NBC broadcast Motown Returns to the Apollo Houston performed "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" in the guise of Dinah Washington. Houston continued to contribute to movie soundtracks, recording "Keep It Light" for the 1985 film Into the Night and she remade Bill Withers' "Lean on Me" for the 1989 film entitled Lean on Me. Houston also co-wrote and sang back-up on the song "Be Yourself" for Patti LaBelle's 1989 album of the same title.











The fall of 1990 saw the release of Houston's first album in six years, Throw You Down, a long-planned collaboration with producer Richard Perry which briefly extended Houston's career as a minor R&B chart presence. The title song reached #5 on the U.S. dance chart. A remix of "Don't Leave Me This Way" was released, and once again charted on the Hot Dance Club Play chart at #19 in 1995. Subsequent singles include "I Need Somebody Tonight" and "All of That".

In 1994, Houston participated in an AIDS benefit at New York’s Algonquin Hotel, performing gospel music with Phoebe Snow, Chaka Khan and CeCe Peniston as "Sisters of Glory". Intended as a one-off performance troupe, the Sisters of Glory remained together - with the addition of Mavis Staples and Lois Walden, and without Chaka Khan - to perform at Woodstock '94. Houston performed with the Sisters of Glory for the Pope in Vatican City and in 1995 Houston, Snow, Peniston, Walden and Albertina Walker recorded the Warner Brothers album Good News in Hard Times as the Sisters of Glory.

Houston provided backing vocals on guitarist Scott Henderson's 1997 Atlantic album, Tore Down House. and in 1998 she made cameo appearances in two films: in 54 Houston portrayed herself singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" supposedly at Studio 54, and in Beloved Houston played 'One of The Thirty Women'.

In 2000, Houston toured successfully throughout Australia in the stage musical version of Fame. Upon returning to the U.S. Houston toured with Nile Rodgers and Chic, and with was among the opening acts of the originally intended finale of Cher's Farewell Tour in Toronto on 31 October 2003. Houston regularly performs at Teatro ZinZanni in Seattle and San Francisco.












Her version of "Don't Leave Me This Way" continues to be popular today. In recent years she has been invited to sing this song on dozens of TV shows and specials including NBC's Today Show, ABC's Motown 45 and The Disco Ball...A 30-Year Celebration, and PBS' specials American Soundtrack: Rhythm, Love and Soul, Soul Superstars, and Old School Superstars. "Don't Leave Me This Way" was mentioned by VH1 as being among the greatest dance songs in 2000, and was ranked number eighty-six on the channel's countdown of The 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders. She won an episode of the NBC show Hit Me, Baby, One More Time with her renditions of her own hit and "Fallin'" by Alicia Keys. On September 20, 2004, Houston's rendition of "Don't Leave Me This Way" was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in New York City.

On August 14, 2007, Houston released her first studio album in seventeen years, A Woman's Touch. The album features cover versions of songs by male artists such as Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, and Sting that Houston had been inspired by. The first single from the album was "Brand New Day". On August 20, 2007, Houston's 1984 album Qualifying Heat was reissued as an import title in the U.S. with a bonus track.

She sang "Don't Leave Me This Way" on American Idol Wednesday April 22, 2009 and on "America's Got Talent" on September 16, 2009.

Untold Heros & heroines: Marki Bey

It is probable that only in Hollywood - and then, only in the early '70s - could a word like blaxploitation be coined. The root and meaning of the word is obvious; for some time, cheap action flicks featuring the underused minority actor community were the flavor of the month in theaters. The problem, of course, was the ploitation part. Most often, these flicks were simply recast versions of earlier, all-white movies, made quickly and efficiently and hurled into distribution. In an effort to distinguish themselves from the other Shaft and Black Caesar clones, some filmmakers started striking out into other filmic territory. After awhile, things got a little absurd, as in Blackenstein (shudder); and some that were at least halfway original in concept, like Sugar Hill.

We start off promisingly enough with your typical voodoo ceremony, complete with snakes, chicken blood, and convulsing dancers possessed by loa. The opening credits run over this scene, and it is scored by the song "Supernatural Voodoo Woman" by The Originals (courtesy Motown Records), which, while listenable, is a bit too slow for the antics onscreen - our first indication that something is up. The second indication is when the ceremony is over, lights come up and applause thunders; we have been watching the floor show at the incredibly successful Club Haiti.

In attendance is Diana "Sugar" Hill (Marki Bey), the fiancee of the Club's owner, Langston (Larry B. Johnson). A short round of loverly billing and cooing is interrupted by the arrival of four thug-types, led by Fabulous (Charles Robinson), who will be modeling all the retina-scorching Huggy Bear pimp clothes for this outing (although Langston's jacket with the odd scalloped lapels bears mentioning). Fabulous comes bearing news (okay, a veiled threat) from Morgan, a local crime lord who wants to buy Club Haiti. Langston, of course, refuses, and in a remarkably lame fight scene, gets beaten to death in the parking lot for his defiance.




















Since the attackers all wore stockings over their heads (though who could not have recognized Fabulous' attire?) the police can do nothing, so Sugar returns to her run-down ancestral mansion, where (for some reason) the local ancient voodoo queen Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) is living. Sugar begs Mama Maitresse to use her voodoo powers to grant her vengeance on Morgan and his gang, so Mama takes Sugar waaaaaay into the swamp in back to her voodoo altar, that they may conjure up the Lord of the Undead, Baron Samedi.

Now, it was during the lengthy journey into the swamplands that I found myself thinking, "I could have started the movie here and still recognized it as an American International picture." Then I tried to figure out why I would have thought such a thing. Best I could come up with was that, although we are supposedly in the swamplands of Louisiana, the sound effects are exactly the same as those used in 1950's jungle movies, complete with that tell-tale bird that goes oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-OO! OO! I kept expecting to hear an elephant trumpet.

The Pips reunion is not going quite as planned...In any case, Baron Samedi arrives (in broad daylight; I still don't know if that was brilliant or a mistake) and Sugar petitions him for his aid. "And what will you give me?" asks the loa. "My soul!" Sugar answers without hesitation. "Ha! It's not your soul I want," Samedi replies. "The Baron is quite a lover," explains Mama Maitresse. To bear this out, the Baron is immediately flanked by a pair of zombie babes. Impressed by Sugar's lack of fear in his presence, Samedi agrees to help, causing a number of slaves buried in the swamp during a fever epidemic a century before to rise up, still shackled and carrying machetes. "Put them to evil use!" bellows the Baron. "It is all they know or want!"

Sugar wastes no time in tracking down and giving Langston's killers their comeuppance. One winds up on the wrong end of the zombie's machetes in a dockside warehouse - a positive ID is only possible when the police find his head in what appears Teach YOU to work for the Man, Fabulousto be a bag of grits. Another is tossed into a pen full of hungry pigs (Sugar: "I hope they're into white trash.") Yet another is forced via voodoo to stab himself to death. And Fabulous, visiting his favorite massage parlor, finds himself locked in a room full of zombie ho's.

Complicating matters on Sugar's vengeance trail is her old beau Valentine (Richard Lawson ), a police detective who starts to suspect that voodoo is at the root of this one-sided gang war, and that Sugar is somehow involved; also concurrent is the Big Boss Morgan's (Robert Quarry) continued attempts to obtain Club Haiti from Sugar by dint of his questionable suaveness... this to the dismay of his equally racist cracker moll Celeste (Betty Anne Rees). This leads to the mandatory catfight between Sugar and Celeste, which is every bit as lame as the earlier fight scene (you would think there is no way to screw up a catfight, but a way was found).

So let's get back to the zombie mayhem. After one hit man looking for answers winds up nailed to the wall with machetes, the very last member of Morgan's gang is locked into a coffin loaded with snakes. A thoroughly pissed-off Morgan tries to hunt down Sugar in her mansion, but finds instead a room filled with all his dead henchmen, now quite undead and ready to off him. The horrified Morgan is smashed through a window by a Spring Loaded Cat™. There's a bit of a chase, out into Maitresse's swampy church, where Morgan meets the end determined for all bad guys who run into a swamp, i.e., a convenient pit of quicksand.

"Calgon, take me away!"To keep her part of the bargain with Samedi, Sugar gives him Celeste. The Baron acknowledges that he would much prefer Sugar herself, but a deal is a deal, and he carries the unwilling, go-go booted moll into a nearby smoky special effect. The end... to the tune of "Supernatural Voodoo Woman", natch.

As one can tell from the summary, the plot is strictly first-year revenge drama stuff - it is the addition of voodoo and the resurrected slaves that causes one to hope that this movie might actually carve out its own identity, possibly bring some illumination to the blackness of the experience, not merely using it as a backdrop for a cheap horror film. There is only one thing that keeps Sugar Hill from fulfilling that promise: the script itself, which is shabby beyond redemption. The first scene between Sugar and Langston is mildly painful, leading into the stand-off between Langston and the thugs, which was scripted by constantly pulling down the lever on the Cliché-o-matic® and appending the epithet "boy" to the end of every other line.

Once the zombie plot kicks in, at least, our attention is distracted from the trashbin dialogue. The actors struggle mightily with their lines, and manage to overcome this burden for the most part; practically every speaking role is competently acted. Several of the henchmen/zombie victims are truly unfortunate exceptions. Then, they are only called upon to confirm they are racist cretins, snivel a bit, and then die.

Do you remember when Robert Quarry was apparently being groomed as a new horror star? Whatever happened to that? Sugar Hill was reportedly Quarry's last film under his AIP contract, and he doesn't look like he's enjoying it. Sporting a southern accent worthy of Joseph Cotten, Morgan makes us wonder just exactly what a Big Crime Lord does all day. From all "Hi, I'm Robert Quarry for Chess King..."appearances, he lounges around his apartment, drinking and abusing his underlings, especially his moll and Fabulous.

Which leads us to another criminally undeveloped subplot. After Langston's beating death, the first scene with all of the gang meeting in Morgan's apartment finds Fabulous, the sole black member of the gang, shining Morgan's shoes. Morgan urges him to work on the (symbolically?) white patent leather some more, claiming that "We'll make an honest nigra of you yet." We have the possibility of some real dramatic tension here, a sort of reverse Othello situation. Why does Fabulous put up with this? What is he getting from this relationship? Is it part of some elaborate scheme on his part? We'll never know, because Fabulous smiles and goes back to work on the shoes.

So, really, thank the God of Bad Movies for those zombies. Though they are remarkably intact for having spent a century in the ground, they are nonetheless some of the creepiest shamblers to grace the screen. It's not merely the cobwebs, graveyard dirt and shiny bug-eyes that grace each zombie, no, it's the fact that these undead like to smile. A lot. If evil truly is "all they know, or want," well, these fellas really enjoy their work. Those grins are unnerving in the extreme.

Samedi contemplates ending the Pauly Shore problemAs Baron Samedi, Don Pedro Colley simply folds up the film neatly and tucks it under his arm. Colley did actual research into voodoo beliefs and crafted a Lord of the Undead who is perversely full of life, whose manic grin is echoed in that of his minions. When I first saw Sugar Hill years ago, it was Colley who impressed me and continued to be memorable, long after every other detail of the movie had faded away. Samedi maintains a presence throughout the picture, appearing as a bartender, a cab driver, and even a slow-witted groundskeeper who isn't so slow that he can't introduce himself as "Old Sam"; this goes so far as to confirm the Baron's lesser-known function as a trickster spirit.

I've gone almost the entire review without talking about the leading lady, the title character, haven't I? Marki Bey is a bit problematic - I get the impression she was being offered up as the next Pam Grier, but that was a crowded field at the time and Bey didn't quite measure up. It's not that she's a bad actress. She holds up quite well against the heinous scripting, but she is victimized by one of the strangest motifs I've yet seen in a film.

You see, it's her hair. In the common, day-to-day scenes, Bey's hair is processed, flat, dark red. But put her around some zombies and she's suddenly sporting a Jim Kelly afro (and dazzling white jumpsuit). Punching the timeclock, she's Jackie Brown; punching some villain's timecard, she turns into Get Christy Love.