Billy and Doreen

I was working in Jupiter, Florida in the late 1990s.  I found out that a gay bar had opened in Tequesta.  I went there when there was a performance scheduled.  The performer was a woman named Doreen Daniels.  She was great.  She was lively and fun and her music made me happy.  She sang and the whole bar boogied.  She chose danceable, wonderful tunes.  She sang the Boys 2 Men hit about making love to you like you want them to and she sang "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel.  It was the Billy Joel song that got me because Doreen told the story of how she met her lover/manager Theresa.  She was about to sing the song when she saw Theresa in the crowd and she asked her name.  Doreen proceeded to sing the song but changed "Virginia" (Come out, Virginia, don't make me wait....) to Theresa.  I never paid  all that much attention to Billy Joel before but she led me to a new appreciation.  The boy does good stuff.

The chanteuse would tell us stories about her life and her friends.  She revealed that she sang in church.  She allowed her daughter to sing for us, and by my written request in her jar, she sang one of her own songs.  It was really good, too.  It was about her father and how she wanted to be as good of a woman as he is a man.  She may have performed another of her own works, but the one about her dad is the one I remember... probably because her heart was really in it. Sweet.

I saw Doreen in other bars closer to home after that, but I drifted away from the bar scene and she disappeared from my gaydar.  I thought I heard something about her going to Nashville, but who knows.  I miss hearing her.  She was good stuff.