This weekend, Carol & I had the pleasure of seeing Eartha Kitt perform at Blues Alley in Washington, DC.

When she began the night, along with some racy cabaret-style songs, she also reminded us that she was now 78 years old. But, that was the last anyone thought about her age.

Nobody will mistake Ms. Kitt for a twenty-something, but they are far less likely to think that she is nearly an octogenarian. The amount of energy and pure presence (not to mention amazing voice) that she was able to deliver to her audience was nothing short of astounding for a performer of any age. Without her wealth of life experience, the supreme confidence with which she strutted around on the small stage would have been impossible.

To add to the entire evening's enjoyment, her accompanists (piano, bass, drums, and congo drums) were nearly as energetic and equally as polished at their performances.

After having the night to sleep on the performance, I decided to do a Google search the morning after to see whether there was a review of her three-night gig in DC. Sadly, there wasn't, so this will have to suffice, but I did find an extraordinary number of general news articles from all over the world with her name in them. For the last 30 days alone, no fewer than 3 pages of links point to stories with "Eartha Kitt" in their body. And, if there was any doubt of her name recognition, only a small fraction of those articles were about Ms. Kitt. The remainder used her as an iconic representation in phrases such as "the Eartha Kitt of Shiraz" (that's no joke, it actually came from a wine magazine.

So, if you have the chance, and you enjoy a bit of racy and fun music, I'd strongly encourage going to see her.