Diana Ross: Live at Caesar's Palace : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

When I think about this album, my mind keeps returning to a paraphrase from The Wizard of Oz: if she only had a heart .... Diana Ross has a few breathtaking moments here—the horn-like improvisation on "I Loves Ya Porgy," the unique, anxious phrasing on "Good Morning Heartache." Yet it all goes down the drain, due in part to her lack of understanding of Thirties and Forties music as well as her appalling lack of sincerity. She needs a firm producer to help her reach a coherent interpretation of the songs she sings, and to get some feeling out of her. Otherwise she sinks to the lowest common denominator of the audience—and at Caesars Palace in Vegas, that can be pretty low.

As for the material on the live set, the Billie Holiday numbers tend toward vulgarity, whereas the oldies numbers ("Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and a Supremes medley) are performed apathetically. And I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who can endure the 13-minute audience sing-along version of "Reach Out and Touch," culminating in solos by a tone-deaf matron in her 60s and a squeaky-voiced eight-year-old up way past his bedtime. Far more interesting are the half-dozen color photos affixed to the cover of the album.