''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 List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...

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 Dru ...

and at the Savoy Theater in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

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 D ...

'' 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 promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...

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

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, an ...

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 ...

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 Americ ...

' 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" 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'' and "I've Done It Again" from ''Nightclubbing''. The film was directed by Jean-Paul Goude 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 pre ...

for

Best Long Form Music Video The Grammy Award for Best Music Film is an accolade presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally named the Gramophone Awards, to performers, directors, and producers of quality videos or musical programs. ...

in 1984, eventually losing to

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

'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" # " Demolition Man" # " Pull Up to the Bumper" # " Private Life" # " My Jamaican Guy" # " Living My Life" # " I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)"

References

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