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Madonna doesn\u2019t like to reflect on the past \u2013 she\u2019s always been determined to keep moving forward, her US publicist Liz Rosenberg once told me.<\/p>\n
So her first greatest hits Celebration tour \u2013 which kicks off at London\u2019s O2 Arena on Saturday, 40 years after the release of her first, self-titled album \u2013 marks a departure for the Material Girl. At the age of 65, the restlessly creative global pop icon is finally honouring her past.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s scheduled to play an exhausting 78 shows, winding through Europe and North America to finish in Mexico City on April 24 next year.<\/p>\n
Dates had to be postponed when Madonna was hospitalised in June with a serious bacterial infection. Those close to her feared she had been overworking but, for her, success means never taking anything for granted.<\/p>\n
Interviewing her friends, musicians and ex-lovers for my biography, I was struck by her fearlessness, combined with singular focus and self-belief.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Madonna\u2019s hairdresser L\u2019nor Wolin recalls working with her and director Mary Lambert on the Like A Virgin video shoot in Venice. L\u2019nor sat in a gondola as Lambert filmed with a hand-held camera.<\/p>\n
She recalled: \u201cMy job \u00ad is to tell Madonna when the bridges are coming. She is standing up and dancing and lip-synching. I shout \u2018Duck!\u2019 two split seconds before she\u2019s gonna get beheaded. She leaves it to the last second\u2026She has no fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madonna also has a deep-thinking inner life that drives her. Growing up in Detroit, she was a cheerleader in high school yet by 16 \u00adhad drifted away \u00adinto \u00adballet and bohemianism.<\/p>\n
School friend Kim Drayton says: \u201cThere was a real transformation. She was in the thespian society and didn\u2019t shave her armpits. Everyone was like, \u2018Oh, what happened?\u2019 She was popular as a cheerleader, then became very individual and was kind of stand-offish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ex-boyfriend Wyn Cooper remembers Madonna as \u201ca free spirit\u201d but also someone who took herself seriously: \u201cShe wasn\u2019t overly charismatic, you\u2019d never have guessed she\u2019d become a world famous pop star. That\u2019s why it was so surprising when she became big.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was as if Madonna\u2019s stage \u00adpersona fermented privately inside \u2013 fed by a diet of Hollywood musicals, Motown and offbeat poetry \u2013 until she found the right outlet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Her first manager Camille Barbone said: \u201cAn element that was so important to her success was that women didn\u2019t resent her.<\/p>\n
She studied dance at the University of Michigan and moved to New York in 1979, signing a record deal with Sire, part of Warner Records. Launching on the early 80s pop scene with streetwise choreography that attracted an army of wannabes, she used her magnetism as a live performer.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally when women see their boyfriends riveted on a girl there\u2019s resentment, but the girls were riveted too. She was open and honest in her songwriting. No frills.\u201d The stage is where Madonna feels most comfortable. From her first The Virgin tour in 1985, she built her audience through live shows.<\/p>\n
She has kept herself relevant with constant reinvention, from early days crucifix earrings and tousled hair via sculpted muscles on the 1990 Blond Ambition tour, to the disco leotard and diamante cross in 2006\u2019s Confessions. Image changes are not just cosmetic \u2013 each tour is linked to an album that marks a shift in her life.<\/p>\n
While recording 1989\u2019s Like A Prayer, Madonna was breaking up with Sean Penn \u2013 it became known as her divorce album. And co-\u00adproducer Steve Bray, recalling her hit Express Yourself, compares the star to Daenerys Targaryen in Game Of Thrones, emerging from the fire: \u201cIn love you get burned, but it doesn\u2019t destroy you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Backing singer Niki Haris says on Blond Ambition, Madonna was like a warrior: \u201cCone bras, bustiers, platforms\u2026anything she could do to make it bad, she went for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show was about her Catholic upbringing, fusing sexuality and spirituality. For the Like A Prayer section, the set was a church and Madonna \u201cinsisted that the Greek pillars be real,\u201d says lighting designer Peter Morse. \u201cShe had 40ft aluminium castings rise up hydraulically from the floor. Nothing was phoney or fake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madonna remains culturally important because she taps into the zeitgeist, drawing on her experience as a woman and mother, with a laser-sharp eye for detail.<\/p>\n
As she has matured, her shows have evolved. Because her mother died of cancer when Madonna was five, much of her music has been about trying to escape death. She admitted: \u201cI\u2019ve always been aware of my own mortality. I\u2019ve always had that feeling of, \u2018What is the point of living and life?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That altered when she became a mum and realised that \u201cwe\u2019re here to share, to give\u201d. In a recent Instagram post to mark the birthday of twin daughters Stella and Estere she wrote: \u201cIn a way…we are all displaced children, looking for connection. Looking for love.\u201d<\/p>\n
[ad_1] Madonna doesn\u2019t like to reflect on the past \u2013 she\u2019s always been determined to keep moving forward, her US publicist Liz Rosenberg once told me. So her first greatest hits Celebration tour \u2013 which kicks off at London\u2019s O2 Arena on Saturday, 40 years after the release of her first, self-titled album \u2013 marks …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}