There is a temptation to lump Diana Ross's ongoing "Workin' Overtime" world tour with the other pop music legends who are dragging their tired old bones from city to city to cash in on the wave of 1960s nostalgia that is cresting in America's culture.
There's the Who, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan - and Diana Ross.Except for one thing: She doesn't belong with that group.
Not that her contributions to 1960s music weren't as significant as the others'. It's just that unlike many of the Graybeards of Rock 'n' Roll, Diana Ross has never strayed far from the national spotlight.
Her music survived the trauma of her separation from the Supremes. It survived personal tragedy and controversy. It even survived disco. She's been a major star in the recording industry, on television and in the movies through three decades - and heading into a fourth.
But through it all her first love remained the concert stage.
"There is no place as exciting for me as up on a stage performing for an audience," Ross said during a break in her current concert tour. "It's the most amazing sensation in the world to feel the waves of energy from an audience move through you. It lets me know that what I'm performing is truly affecting them. And that is the greatest return I could ask for."
And that's what you'll see this week in HBO's World Stage concert presentation, Diana's World Tour (Saturday at 11 p.m., HBO). Filmed at London's Wembley Arena in early June, is a musical scrapbook of the star's career. There are hits from her early days with the Supremes ("Baby Love," "You Can't Hurry Love"), songs from her years as a solo act ("Upside Down," "Endless Love") and even a tune or two from her days as a movie star ("Lady Sings the Blues," "Mahogany").
But the highlight of the concert comes when she sings, with great feeling, the song that has become something of a personal anthem to this woman who rose from Detroit's ghetto to a permanent place in pop music history: "Reach Out and Touch."
"Music has always been the reflection of a community," she says of her craft. "It mirrors the feelings of kids who are growing up in a tough and lean world. But it isn't only about pain or struggle - it's about getting through it all. It's about finding joy where we can - in music, dancing and explosions of sounds."
You'll see and hear all three in "Diana's World Tour" - good music, energetic dancing and plenty of sound explosion. But mostly you'll see and hear Ross where she loves most to be - performing for an appreciative audience.
Right where she's been for most of the past 30 years.