''A One Man Show'' is a long-form music video collection featuring Jamaican singer

Grace Jones Grace Beverly Jones (born 19 May 1948) is a model, singer and actress. Born in Jamaica, she and her family moved to Syracuse, New York, when she was a teenager. Jones began her modelling career in New York state, then in Paris, working for ...

, released in 1982. The video mainly consists of music videos, with some concert footage filmed when Jones was touring with the eponymous tour.

Background

The video partly captures live performances of Jones' ''A One Man Show'' tour which was filmed at

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Drury Lane Theatre The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drur ...

and at the Savoy Theater in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1981. It includes six songs performed live on stage, mostly from the ''

Warm Leatherette "Warm Leatherette" is a song by Daniel Miller's project the Normal, released in 1978. The Normal original Overview The lyrics of "Warm Leatherette" reference J. G. Ballard's controversial 1973 novel ''Crash'', which had heavily influenced Dani ...

'' and '' Nightclubbing'' albums, plus four studio

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

s. The show's intro is a photo montage of some of the most famous images of Jones from the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the "tiger in a cage" portrait and the "arabesque" photo. ''A One Man Show'' was first released in 1982 to promote the album ''

Living My Life ''Living My Life'' is the autobiography of Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma Goldman, who became internationally renowned as an activist based in the United States. It was published in two volumes in 1931 (Alfred A. Knopf) and 1934 (Garden City Publ ...

''. The film was re-issued on VHS and

LaserDisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

and Spectrum Music through the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, after the success of Jones' best-selling hit " Slave to the Rhythm", the film was re-released under the title ''State of Grace'', then also including its promo video. In early 2006

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

' subsidiary Spectrum announced that ''A One Man Show'' was to be re-released on DVD. It however remained unreleased in this format until March 2010, when it was bootlegged on DVD as well as a CD release, both entitled ''Live in Concert''. The DVD contains three bonus video clips ("Slave to the Rhythm", "

Love Is the Drug "Love Is the Drug" is a 1975 song from English rock band Roxy Music's fifth studio album ''Siren'', released as a single in September 1975. Co-written by Bryan Ferry and Andy Mackay, the song originated as a slower, dreamier track until the b ...

" and " Crush"). The DVD release met with a negative audience and fan response, due to its low-quality picture (a VHS transfer) and some parts of the film having been cut out. There are a few lost performances that have not been published which include " I Need a Man" from ''

Portfolio Portfolio may refer to: Objects * Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase Collections * Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual * Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a ...

'' and "I've Done It Again" from ''Nightclubbing''. The film was directed by

Jean-Paul Goude Jean-Paul Goude (born 8 December 1938 in Montreuil (France)) is a French graphic designer, illustrator, photographer, advertising film director and event designer. He worked as art director at ''Esquire'' magazine in New York City during the 1 ...

and edited by Peter Shelton. It was nominated for a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

for Best Long Form Music Video in 1984, eventually losing to

Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer and bassist Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor (bass guitarist), John Taylor. With the addition of drummer Roger ...

's self-titled video. Snapshots from the performances of "

" and " Walking in the Rain" later made the artwork for the CD re-release of ''Warm Leatherette''.

Set list

# "

" (intro includes excerpts from "Nightclubbing") # " Walking in the Rain" # "Feel Up" # "

La Vie en rose "La Vie en rose" (; ) is the signature song of popular French singer Édith Piaf, written in 1945, popularized in 1946, and released as a single in 1947. The song became very popular in the US in 1950, when seven versions reached the ''Billboard ...

" # " Demolition Man" # "

Pull Up to the Bumper "Pull Up to the Bumper" is a 1981 song by Jamaican singer Grace Jones, released as the third single from her fifth album, '' Nightclubbing'' (1981). Sonically, it is an uptempo electro- disco, post-punk, dance-pop and reggae-disco song with ...

" # "

Private Life Private Life may refer to: *life in the private sphere The private sphere is the complement or opposite to the public sphere. The private sphere is a certain sector of societal life in which an individual enjoys a degree of authority, unhampered by ...

" # "

My Jamaican Guy "My Jamaican Guy" is a single by the Jamaican singer and actress Grace Jones, released in 1983. Background "My Jamaican Guy" was the third single to Grace Jones' 1982 album ''Living My Life'', her third and last album recorded in the Compass Po ...

" # "

I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango) "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)" is a single by Jamaican singer Grace Jones, released in 1981. The song is a reworking of Astor Piazzolla's "Libertango". Background The song juxtaposes "Libertango", an Argentine tango classic written by c ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:One Man Show 1983 films Documentary films about pop music and musicians Grace Jones 1980s English-language films