Happy birthday today to the lovely Sheryl Lee Ralph. Who? I hear people ask.
This oft-forgotten diva was one of the original cast of
Dreamgirls on Broadway, is latterly a minor star of US daytime soap operas, and is a significant champion of fundraising for AIDS charities.
But it is for this song that I (alongside a generation of queens) am eternally grateful. For way back in 1984, when I entered the long-lost "Tunnel" club in Cardiff, my first ever venture into a gay club, still a quivering virgin, it was this Hi-NRG classic that was playing.
The world changed with Sheryl Lee Ralph...
In The Evening
Where are people when you need 'em
When you need some help
They're just not around
Doesn't anybody work here?
I ain't got all day
What a crazy town
New York
Life in the city can be so hard
But after dark
New energy finds me
I light up the night and live like a star
In the evening the real me comes alive
I can feel it
In the evening
Something happens that I can't describe
But it helps me to survive
It's like magic
Like something in the air
You can feel it
Close your eyes now
And your heart will take you there
Just let it take you there
Monday morning in the line at the bank
Standing around trying to cash a check
To pay for a one-room apartment with a beautiful view
Of the alley in the back
All day you got to fight
To keep it for the rights
Every day I work like a soldier
Working to live, living for the night
New York
New energy finds me
I light up the night and live like a star
Magic
Feel it
Feel it feel it
Magic
Feel it
Sheryl Lee Ralph on Wikipedia