Listen: Kim David Smith's MOSTLY MARLENE Album Out Now

Mostly Marlene, recorded live at the New York hotspot Joe’s Pub, features guest vocalists: pop wunderkind Bright Light Bright Light and New York cabaret legend Sidney Myer. In addition to the concert, the 21-track album also features bonus studio duets with Tony-nominated playwright and performer Charles Busch, downtown luminary Joey Arias, Australian opera star Ali McGregor, and Smith’s own darling mother Linda Randall. The album and concert feature music director Tracy Stark on piano, in addition to Matt Podd on accordion, Skip Ward on bass, and David Silliman on drums.
 
The recording celebrates the music associated with Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), the German/American actress, singer, fashion icon, and provocateur. With a focus on Marlene’s collaborations with Weimar-era composer Friedrich Hollaender, the program sees Smith’s queer mega-muses – Minnelli, Minogue, Madonna, and more – collide with Dietrich’s reimagined repertoire in luxurious musical rearrangements, traveling from Weimar Berlin, to Hollywood, through to the battlefields of Europe, and beyond.
 
The album features selections performed by Dietrich in her iconic film career such as “Falling in Love Again” (The Blue Angel, 1930), “The Boys in the Back Room” (Destry Rides Again, 1939), “Black Market” (A Foreign Affair, 1948), and “Just a Gigolo” (Just a Gigolo, 1978), in addition to songs she performed in concert and recorded in the studio. The album also includes Smith’s performance of Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” – in an original French translation by cabarettist Gay Marshall – and his barn-storming all-German rendition of Kander & Ebb’s “Cabaret.”