Club Dance Mix Music
Dance Diva Talks Gay Rights, Music Industry,
and No More Tears, Part III

From GayCalgary.com, October, 2008.
By Jason Clevett

For Parts I and II, click here.

__ Club Dance Mix Music

That said, Amber is not a big fan of cover songs. There is one exception, and the result is her duet with former C&C Music Factory singer Zelma Davis covering the 1979 classic "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)" by Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand.

“I have always loved that song, I am a huge fan of Barbra Streisand. For six years I said if I ever did a cover, I would want to do that song. It was just a matter of finding the right partner because you need big chops to do it. You don’t want to embarrass yourself. You want to make sure that you do it properly and even then you will still run into people who will say ‘It’s not Barbra and Donna.’ That was not the point. We wanted to do a good job with our interpretation and it was paying homage to people we adore as vocalists.”

So the project was simply an idea in her head until 2004, when she performed at Gay Pride in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Zelma Davis was opening for her.

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“I saw her on stage and thought, wow! She is five foot two, this little tiny thing with a huge voice. I said, my god where the hell do you pull that voice from? She laughed and we started talking and we right away connected. We were sitting next to each other on the plane and I said, listen, would you be interested in doing a duet with me because I have this idea. She is a huge Donna fan so she said yes. I said I wanted to have my stuff straightened out first and see what route I was going, because it was a very insecure market at that point in time. It was the beginning stages of non-existence. We stayed in touch all these years and became good friends. Finally last year my producer came for a surprise visit and I just brought her in and got the vocals done. We are very happy with the outcome, we didn’t abuse the original but we brought it into 2008. It took a long time to prepare because I wanted to do it right. You want to make sure when you pay everything out of pocket there are a lot of things you have to watch. When I actually started researching this song I saw some versions out there and they were just not right. So it made me more ambitious to do it better and I am confident to say that we did a good job with that.”

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Talk of the pride event took as once again back to the subject of gay rights and the current climate in the US regarding gay marriage.

“It is just ridiculous. I always say love is love. Think of all these kids who are created by straight people and have the chance to be adopted by gay parents, why should they not have the same rights? I couldn’t care less if it was called marriage or legal partnership as long as they have the same rights.”

“It is not a gender issue. We have too many issues in the world where people hate each other, wars are being fought, and people are killing each other every day. People don’t ask me why I am straight. It is what you are born with. My neighbour’s son, from day one I said ‘that boy is gay’ and everyone said ‘no he’s not.’ I said, trust me, I have gaydar, he is gay! And he is! It is something that is there, I believe it is a genetic thing that

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is predestined in the person and there is nothing wrong with it. You are just as fine as everybody else. The less we make an issue as an outsider, the less issues people will have with themselves because that reflects on them, and they think something is wrong with them. It just pisses me off. I am pro gay rights and give support wherever I can.”

In fact, there are times when Amber wishes her own 17-year-old son were gay.

”Teenagers give you issues and I am at that stage with my son with rebellion and testing his grounds, and it can be very hard. I said to my Mom, my neighbour has a gay son and I wish my son would be gay for god’s sake! I don’t know why it is, but they are very close to their Moms, they just adore them. Just let him be gay already so he comes back to me!”



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