I went to see Patti Austin give an outdoor concert at the local county park the other night. She was pretty good, still a diva at age 55 (and not ashamed to admit her age either). Maybe she talked a little too much, trying hard to be “personal” with the crowd; if she had cut it back by 3 minutes, she could have gotten another song in. But hey, when you pay zero for admission and get up pretty close to the stage, you can’t really complain.

I could have stood to the side of the stage and had gotten a really close look at Patti at work. But I decided to step back about 200 feet, so that I could also watch the backup singers. Those three girls were singing their hearts out. They did a soulful round of “shu-bop-shu-bops” during Ms. Austin’s cover of Little Anthony’s “I Only Have Eyes For You”. And they were out-of-this-world during the encore, supporting Patti’s cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady” with a machine-gun barrage of “what-it-is” refrains.

Backup singers always go unappreciated. Whenever I watch a concert now (mostly on TV, unfortunately), I always keep an eye on the backup singers. They’re the ones that make the star sound good. To all you backup singers out there, you’ve got a fan right here.

Oh, as to the Space Shuttle – I’ll be back about that later in the week, once they’re getting ready to come home.