Now it's Della Reese's turn...

[Big RR]

I just heard this morning that Della Reese died (another one I'd bet would have died years ago). Ordinarily, I would have allowed this to pass without comment, but I do have a rather vivid memory of her. When I was a kid, my parents had stacks of albums of Broadway and pop (well easy listening pop) hits, but I was drawn to classical music (probably because of my work as a boy soprano with the organist in our church--he opened a world of music to me which I sang along with the adult choir; my earliest recollection is singing Panis Angelicus when I was around 3 and couldn't even read, but I could remember "nonsense" (well, Latin was nonsense to me then) syllables set to music). One of the albums my parents had was Della Reese singing "Don't You Know", based on an aria from La Boheme, and it led me to explore the opera albums in our library. I still enjoy opera to this day, but it began with that song.

I didn't really follow her career a lot after then, but one song like that is enough to me. Requiescat in pace.

[Long Run]

She had a nice turn in Touched by an Angel, and hopefully she was.

[RayThom]

Who knew? I thought she died years ago.

I didn't see her one time since "Touched" was cancelled. I just assumed...