phenomeNEWS - This Month's Music Review

This Month's Music Review
by Greg Ozimek

Quick music notes: Your iTunes – which is both the software program, the one that is almost required to put anything on your iPods and the program that is also Apple’s online music store – has hit a new high: three billion music downloads! That is three billion with a “B!” It took several years to reach the first billion downloads. This time it only took six months to sell the third billion tunes. We love our iPods if we use them for music or podcasts!

Sir Elton John, who claims he is a Luddite, not having or using any technology (no iPod, no cell phones, certainly no computer), says the internet should be shut down for five years because people are making music in garages and also spending too much time blogging and on the internet. So there!

Fly Away
Lisa Dawn Miller
www.LisaDawnMiller.com

Lisa Dawn Miller sings up a storm of beautiful music which display her talents as a must-hear vocalist. Fly Away is her debut album.

She self-produced Fly Away which is the result of her years of heartfelt immersion in music and developing those abilities necessary to create a stage act and an album of songs: singing, songwriting, producing and entertaining.

Her album features her beautiful interpretations of originals (the title track), standards (Smile, Over the Rainbow and brilliant well known and not so well known songs by her father (You Were There, Life Saved You For A Rainy Day). The collection includes duets with Vegas legend Clint Holmes, pop classical tenor Michael Armantge and her husband (comedian, actor, writer director, producer... and singer) Sandy Hackett.

Lisa’s father Ron was affectionately referred to as, “The only white guy at Motown Records”! She grew up in Detroit watching her dad, Ron Miller, produce artists we all know by first names: Barbara, Stevie, Diana; as they sang the songs that defined an era: For Once In My Life, Touch Me In The Morning, Yester-me, Yester-you, Yesterday, Heaven Help Us All, Someday At Christmas, I’ve Never Been To Me and If I Could.

She offered, “People often ask me where I got my vocal training. I tell them from watching my father produce Barbara Streisand, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and many others. Those recording sessions were where I learned how to express and interpret a lyric.”
A little known fact... The track Buddy sounded generic to anyone’s buddy, but then there is a sound bite I’ve heard before at the very end of the song which made me think, “Hmmmm?” A little research revealed the owner of that voice to indeed be Buddy Hackett, Lisa’s father-in-law, from the closing of one of his hot shows. I met Buddy Hackett at the Dearborn Hyatt Regency in the late 1990s, interacted with him and found him to be quite interesting. He’s one of the comedians many of us miss. Buddy Hackett (1925 - 2003).

Lisa and Sandy have earned high rankings from Vegas to Dallas to Florida with their stage presence, The Sandy Hackett & Lisa Dawn Miller Show. The show is officially billed as “A night of unbelievable song and hysterical laughter.” It combines hilarious bits with Lisa’s stunning performances (guess which of the couple wrote all of that?)

Besides children, husband and vocal career, Lisa is currently developing a musical about her father’s life and the impact his songs have had (and are having) on the world. It is tentatively titled, For Once In My Life: A New Musical About Old Songs.

One more tidbit. Lisa spent the bull-market 1990s working as a successful stockbroker, financial planner, stock portfolio/wealth management advisor and retirement planning specialist focusing on 401k retirement plans.