After retiring from show-business at the age of 21 in 1968, iconic singer, actress and the face of Dr. Pepper, Donna Loren (64), made a much-heralded return to the charts last year with her new album and single, Love it Away.
A strong desire to have another crack at a career in the spotlight, after having been away for over 40 years, was emphatically awakened prior to, and especially following, the critical and commercial success of her first new material since a very brief return to recording 30 years ago.
Since the release of her album, Donna - who as a young doe-eyed beauty appeared on seminal '60s TV shows, such as Batman and The Monkees - has managed to remain extremely busy with various other music-related projects, the writing of an autobiography and live appearances on StageIt.com.
Donna Loren Online
"There’s something new on the internet called StageIt.com," she says. "It’s really cool. It’s being developed and it affords anyone the opportunity to do a concert online. You have a virtual concert that you buy tickets for and in fact there’s even a tipping process.
"There's interaction, where your audience can make requests or just comment during your performance, and you can either respond then or later or whatever. I did my first concert last Friday and I loved it so much.
"I had a little film crew and a sound engineer and a pianist in my living room with my good old Steinway over here and you have about a 30-minute time period where StageIt says, 'Okay, do 10 to 30 minutes', so I did 30 minutes and an encore and now I’m just dying to do it again."
Donna Loren Sings Elvis
Another musical avenue that Donna has put her heart and soul into exploring is a tribute to Elvis Presley - a man with strong connections to Hawaii, where Donna and her second husband lived for the best part of 15 years, before moving back to California in 2009.
An EP entitled Donna Does Elvis in Hawaii was released in December 2010 and features renditions of four of Elvis's best-known hits, including Loving You, One Night, (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear and Merry Christmas Baby.
"Before I left Hawaii, I thought, 'What can I do to express my appreciation for having the honour and privilege of living in a place like this for so long?' And I couldn’t help but think of Elvis and the songs that I loved of his.
"From those years when I was going through my divorce, I was working with James Burton whom I’ve known since I was a child. During my divorce, he was primarily the musician I was working with in the studio and, of course, he was the leader of the Elvis band.
"He encouraged me to do One Night and he’s playing on that record. We decided to incorporate that with the three other Elvis songs that he did in Hawaii and then I came up with this crazy idea of Donna Does Elvis in Hawaii and I told my daughter who has a graphics art company, as she was going to do the EP cover."
Suite 101: Did you actually know Elvis?
"That’s a story that’s going in my book. I did have a connection with him, okay. I can only say that."
Donna Loren: From Child Prodigy to (Very) Early Retirement
Though her heyday was as a teenage singing sensation in the 1960s, appearing in kitsch movie classics like Beach Blanket Bingo and performing regularly on legendary music show, Shindig - where she sang many well-known songs, including Shakin' All Over and Goldfinger - Donna Loren's journey on the path to stardom began when she was still just a child.
"I did start singing as a very small child," she recalls. "I remember the first song I ever learned was Your Cheatin’ Heart when I was two years old and so it was something that just brought me comfort. Then, before I knew it - by the age of seven - it was like a family business and it just turned out that I could be the breadwinner of the family and that went on until I retired."
Suite 101: What made you decide to call time on your career at such a young age?
"Essentially, I met someone who was a producer at Warner Brothers while I was an artist at Reprise Records and in March 1968, right after I turned 21, we got married and then a series of events occurred in the first several months of our marriage, which led me to retire."
Donna Loren's First (Short-Lived) Comeback
Suite 101: But you did come back briefly in the early‘80s?
"It was during my divorce, unfortunately, that was over a two-year process. Basically with my friend, James, we’d go in the studio usually once or twice a month, over a two-year period, and we accumulated a bunch of songs.
"Then, about 30 years later, I decided to go through an old box, dust them off and put them together – not all of them, but the ones that made sense. That was seriously like therapy. I did one public appearance on television with a song that a friend had showed me called Somewhere Down the Road on the Merv Griffin show.
I had one other experience opening for Jerry Lee Lewis at a little theatre in Beverley Hills not far from where I lived. I did that and then I went on my merry way for the next 30 years."
Suite 101: What was Jerry Lee Lewis like?
"Jerry Lee Lewis? Oh boy! Well, the first time I met him was on Shindig and I stood close enough to him to see his knuckles bleed. When I opened for him all those years later, nobody wanted to see me.
"They were yelling, 'Boo! We want Jerry! Boo!' But fortunately, I won them over just before it was time for him to come on and he wasn’t even there. He has the reputation of showing up just when it’s his time to go on."
Suite 101: It's amazing he’s still alive, really...
"It really is, but there’s a lot to be said for doing what you love to do."
Donna Loren: '60s Icon
Despite her long absence from the public eye, Donna Loren, through her memorable TV appearances and refreshingly-wholesome Dr. Pepper adverts, remains a much-respected symbol of a more innocent side of the great period of political and social change that was the 1960s.
"Well, I’m sure that most people remember me from It Only Hurts When I Cry and Beach Blanket Bingo," she muses, when asked to comment on the highlights of her successful career. "I’ve pondered this question for so many years. I do love to sing and it’s just part of my being.
"It’s very curious, though, that of all the great musicians, producers, arrangers and companies that I recorded for, I managed to never have a song or a hit record that you could say, 'Oh yeah, To Sir with Love' or some song that just pops in your head.
"So for me, I guess it’s unique that I could sing Dr. Pepper commercials and travel extensively for them, perform live in all kinds of venues, travel with Dick Clark in caravans and work with lots of really great hit performers.
"On Shindig, I’m just really fortunate that I was chosen despite not having a hit. I mean, when you think about Shindig, You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling was premiered on it. Can you go a day without hearing that if you turn on the radio? Or It’s My Party? Those are the kinds of songs – Where did Our Love Go or Stop In the Name of Love - or any of those songs that you just hear all the time.
"I was allowed to perform because of my eclectic career. Being the Dr. Pepper girl was a unique position because everybody else was out there hustling the next record and I had a seven-year contract with a company, so everything else I did was gravy."
Suite 101: So being the Dr. Pepper girl opened up a lot of doors?
"Well, I had a seven-year contract; that’s like the old movie days when Judy Garland or Elizabeth Taylor and people like that had these long-term contracts. it was pretty unusual in the ‘60s, especially for an unknown like myself."
Suite 101: Would you say the 1960s was a "Golden Age" for music?
"Yes. Wouldn’t you agree? I mean, just The Beatles alone - the music that they made had so much impact on my kids, their kids...I would say it was fairly unoffensive, even to my parents’ generation, other than their hair – in those days they were mop-tops - but the music is part of our vocabulary, it’s part of our language."
Donna Loren: Modern-Day Recognition
A recent encounter with one of the biggest names in music today left Donna stunned at how her legacy, the seeds of which were sewn nearly 50 years ago, led to recognition from what would appear to be an unlikely source.
"My son is a musician," she explains, "and he was working with Jack White from The White Stripes. I was invited to be a guest and go to the concert. So I met Jack White and he’s somebody that I really respect and I really love the music that he does.
"When I met him, he said, 'You know, I’ve done my homework. I went on You Tube and I saw you singing Shakin’ All Over'. That to me was like getting an award. When a contemporary knows me from that, I’m not just Joey’s mom, you know?"
Suite 101: Maybe he could produce an album for you like he did for Loretta Lynn?
"I would love that! Yeah, Wanda Jackson too. I know, I’m in line – I’m next in line!"
Catch Donna's next Live StageIt Online Concert on October 2nd 2011 at 1 PM (PST). Tickets are available here.
Adrian Peel - Adrian is an English freelance writer and journalist currently living in Mexico. Over the past eight years, he has had articles, features ...
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