Cyndi Lauper: The blues are one of her true colors

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Cyndi Lauper: The blues are one of her true colors
October 26, 2011
By TIMOTHY FINN
The Kansas City Star


Cyndi Lauper wants to have fun, but she also sometimes gets the blues.

To those unfamiliar with her childhood and early music career, Cyndi Lauper’s foray into the blues might seem like another attempt by a veteran singer to rejuvenate a career by poaching other genres and eras.

Among others, the exercise worked for Rod Stewart, who has launched another career ransacking the Great American Songbook.

But Lauper’s latest album, “Memphis Blues,” released in June 2010, pays homage to music that takes her back to her childhood, she will tell you.

It comes, too, from her first live-music project: as the lead singer in a Janis Joplin cover band. “Blues” is also the latest in a series of projects that have put Lauper in the studio — as a singer, songwriter and producer — with well-known artists from other genres.

“My earliest introduction to the blues was through my mother,” she said recently in a phone interview with The Star. “She played lots of Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. I remember doing laundry and we’d dance wildly around the living room, me and my sister and brother. That’s why, for me, the blues have always been uplifting.”

“Memphis Blues” celebrates more than just Lauper’s affection for the blues. It also celebrates the city that played such a prominent role in the birth and evolution of rock ’n’ roll and other styles of music.

The album was recorded at Electrophonic Studios in Memphis, and it features several well-known blues artists, including reigning legend B.B. King, plus Charlie Musselwhite and Jonny Lang. Memphis soul queen Ann Peebles also makes a guest appearance, as does New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint.

The songs include standards by some of the genre’s giants: “Down Don’t Bother Me” by Albert King; “Crossroads” by Robert Johnson; “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” a standard that Muddy Waters owns. As old as some of those songs are, Lauper said, they still resonate, especially in these down-and-out times.

“The blues thing was exciting to me because a lot of these blues artists could not read and write, but they have this large body of work,” she said. “Take Albert King. He wrote songs like ‘Down Don’t Bother Me’: ‘I been down so long, down don’t bother me.’ I felt like I should capture the atmosphere of the time I’m living, and the blues was what people were feeling. A lot of those old songs don’t sound so old to me.”

Lauper said she had wanted to record a blues album as far back as 2004, but her label wanted something else. Instead, in 2005, she released “The Body Acoustic,” in which she and her co-producers reworked 10 of her best-known songs into acoustic/roots songs: “True Colors,” “Time After Time,” “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

Again, she worked with a large stable of famous (and disparate) guests: Jeff Beck, Sarah McLachlan, Ani DiFranco, Vivian Green. It was, she said, a project more for her record company, which wanted another hits package, than for herself.

“On big labels, the older artists become catalog cows,” she said. “So I made it more tolerable by inviting my friends and making it an acoustic album. I also wrote a couple of new songs, which gave me the chance to work with Jeff Beck.”

She still had that blues album in mind, but before she started it, Lauper went in another direction. In 2008, the year she turned 55, she released “Bring Ya to the Brink,” a dance album she recorded with some of the industry’s most prominent DJs and producers.

“I’d been on the True Colors Tour and I noticed how much energy people were bringing to those shows,” she said. “I love dance music so I traveled around the world, writing and working with different dance artists, people who were more than just producers.”

The experience was enlightening for her and for a lot of the people she worked with.

“A lot of dance guys, they don’t read the album credits,” she said, “so they didn’t know I wasn’t just a singer. They didn’t know I wrote songs and arranged songs and I was involved in production. A lot of them think you’re showing up to learn their craft. They had no idea I’d been singing in clubs since they were cutting their baby teeth.

“Some of them were really exciting to work with. They have such a great spirit and can be experimental in their own nutty ways. The Basement Jaxx are completely out of their mind and so much fun.”

That process of working with artists in other genres and of other generations is imperative, she said, to anyone who wants to experiment and evolve and avoid being pigeonholed as a one- or two-hit wonder or heritage act.

“Older artists and younger artists can inspire each other,” she said. “That’s what makes the art community so exciting and inviting to me. You get to see how others do their work and you can get exposed to processes you might not see. It’s easy to become so isolated that sometimes you wonder, ‘What’s up with me?’ But when you see how others work, it’s easier to relax and go, ‘OK. Everyone has their own way. It’s all good.’ ”

So when it came time to record “Memphis Blues,” it felt natural to invite people like Toussaint, Peebles and Lang. And Charles “Skip” Pitts, who has worked with Al Green and Isaac Hayes. And two members of the Hi Rhythm Section, well-known for its work with Green: bassist Leroy Hodges and drummer Howard Grimes. Even for someone accustomed to being in the studio or on stage with other stars, Lauper said, this project brought her close to some longtime heroes and heroines — people she has admired for a long time.

“It was such a joy to sing while Allen Toussaint was playing piano,” she said. “I got to sing with Tracy Nelson on the DVD. On the Grammy Awards, I got to sing with Mavis Staples. Does it get any better? I’m used to singing along with those people, but alone, in my room.”

The DVD, “To Memphis With Love,” was released on Tuesday. It, too, was part of Lauper’s campaign to honor the city that so heavily influenced American music. The project turned out to be so ambitious she had trouble finding a place to film the show.

“I wanted everyone who played on the record and some who didn’t,” she said. “But I couldn’t find a place with a stage large enough. The one theater that had a stage big enough was closed. So we rented a place called the Warehouse, which is rented out for parties. And that’s what we did. We had a party. And they filmed it. It was kind of awesome.”

Among those who perform on the “Love” DVD who weren’t on the album: Nelson, whose song “Down So Low” is covered on “Memphis Blues.”

At her Midland show on Monday, Lauper is bringing Musselwhite, along with a five-man band that includes another member of the Hi Rhythm Section, keyboardist Archie Turner, plus some of her longtime touring musicians. New Orleans legend Dr. John has been opening for Lauper for most of this tour and joining her for a song. However, he is taking a few shows off, including this one. The Bo-Keys, a nine-man soul/jazz band from Memphis featuring members of the Hi Rhythm Section, will open instead.

That’s some esteemed company for a singer from Brooklyn who is still well-known for the MTV videos that illustrated her lust for outlandish fashion and unbridled energy.

That was more than 25 years ago. But Lauper said that though she has grown profoundly since, she hasn’t changed fundamentally. Having fun is all part of the larger process of learning, experimenting and evolving.

“I want to keep growing and working with as many great artists as I can,” she said. “Music is a lifelong journey.