Send "Cyndi Lauper " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Boston |
 Cyndi Lauper’s new album reminds me of an old “Far Side’’ cartoon in which Gary Larson portrayed a well-to-do couple sitting in the parlor of their ornate mansion. Under a chandelier, a woman draped in pearls looks up from her book and calls out to a man at the piano: “Why don’t you play some blues, Andrew?’’The punch line, of course, is that they don’t have a right to sing the blues. I’m not suggesting that Lauper, the ’80s icon who has been an indelible force in pop music ever since, shouldn’t have recorded “Memphis Blues,’’ her new album out on Tuesday. I will say it’s the kind of record that never transcends the good intentions that inspired her to make it. Lauper has some heavy hitters on board — B.B. King, Allen Toussaint, Charlie Musselwhite, and Ann Peebles — but their blues credibility only undermines hers. It doesn’t help that the songs, which Lauper claims were mostly recorded live and left intact to retain the spirit of the sessions, bring out the more grating aspects of her voice. As the name of her debut trumpeted, Lauper’s so unusual here, but for once that’s not a compliment. For better or worse, Lauper’s creative restlessness has been one of the real pleasures of her career over the past decade. In addition to her work promoting gay rights with the True Colors Tour, Lauper has followed her muse down all sorts of rabbit holes. She reinvented herself as a supper-club singer on 2003’s “At Last,’’ and two years later she revisited her hits with stripped-down renditions and special guests on “The Body Acoustic.’’ The next U-turn was 2008’s “Bring Ya to the Brink,’’ a collection of glossy dance pop that went largely unnoticed despite some catchy club anthems. Of all her detours, “Memphis Blues’’ feels the most misguided. It’s a pet project, and might actually sound terrific if rendered live in a cozy jazz joint. (Sadly, the House of Blues, where Lauper will perform on Saturday, is not that.) Lauper obviously loves this music, but that admiration teeters on timidity in so many of her performances....full text |
| Allmusic |
| There is no doubt that Cyndi Lauper can sing almost anything and make it not only compelling, but her own (and she has, many times, whether her albums sold or not). Arguing her gift as a vocalist is pointless. That said, her sense of direction is always a question. Thanks to her appearance on the television program Celebrity Apprentice, her public profile is once more part of mainstream pop culture. So of all the albums to make -- Memphis Blues is her eleventh -- why a blues record now? True, she gets help from some big names: Charlie Musselwhite, Allen Toussaint, B.B. King, Ann Peebles, and Jonny Lang, but in the end, she has to carry these performances herself. The set begins with Little Walter Jacobs' "Just Your Fool" featuring Musselwhite's muscular harmonica, but Lauper's vocal is thin, reedy, and doesn't carry authority in the lyric -- particularly not when juxtaposed against that harmonica. Far better is Louis Jordan's "Early in the Morning" with King and Toussaint. The interplay between the latter's rumbling, New Orleans R&B piano and the former's sparse but mean lead guitar works well with Lauper's vocal, especially with the tune's humorous lyrics. "Romance in the Dark" is one of three cuts Lauper and her band cut without any cameos, and it works wonderfully. Its slow, nocturnal, languidly sexy feel underscores her strengths as a singer. The uptempo, soul-drenched "Don't Cry No More" works equally well, thanks to her having to get atop a rollicking Stax-style horn section and testify. "Rollin' and Tumblin'," with Peebles, is strong and authoritative; it's a unique version even if their voices don't always meld. Her two selections with Lang are as cliched and nondescript as electric blues gets these days: a waste. There is real beauty in "Mother Earth," however, with Toussaint playing his most sympathetic, in-the-cut blues piano as a horn section matches Lauper's unique, off-kilter phrasing and winds it into the blues. In the end, while Memphis Blues does have some fine moments, the uneven ones makes it feel like a squandered opportunity at a popular comeback....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| Buy at:Amazon | iTunes Share Cyndi Lauper Memphis Blues ** by Jonathan Keefe on June 20, 2010 Jump to Comments (2) or Add Your Own While spending the better part of two decades off the mainstream radar, pop icon Cyndi Lauper has followed her creative muse across some diverse terrain, resulting in a catalogue that is far richer than those who think of her as just an '80s relic might expect. With her public profile significantly elevated by a recent stint on The Celebrity Apprentice, on which she often butted heads with the likes of Holly Robinson-Peete and Summer Sanders, it's a shame that her latest album, Memphis Blues, is one of her weakest efforts. Lauper's voice is one the most powerful and distinctive in pop music, and that has served her well on albums like the progressive Sisters of Avalon and 2008's Bring Ya to the Brink, a years-overdue collection of contemporary dance tracks. But Memphis Blues proves that Lauper's is not a voice that is well suited to singing in any style. It isn't simply a matter of her tar-thick Bronx accent making it impossible for anyone to associate her with the city of the album's title: Her performances here too often come across as stagey and lack the authority of both the best blues vocalists and of Lauper's most memorable pop hits. To make up for the fact that blues music isn't a natural fit for her, Lauper surrounds herself with some of the genre's biggest names. Allen Toussaint, Ann Peebles, B.B. King, and Jonny Lang all contribute to the record, and that collaborative approach generally elevates the record. There's simply no faulting Toussait's tremendous blues piano licks on "Early in the Mornin'" and "Mother Earth," easily the two strongest cuts on the record. Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica playing on "Down Don't Bother Me" and opener "Just Your Fool" also gives the record a real punch. Of the proper vocal duets, the fierce "Rollin' and Tumblin'" with Peebles is the most effective, as the timbre of Peebles's throaty alto is the best complement to Lauper's trademark warble. The duets with Lang, however, come across as strident and ineffective. Lauper's clipped phrasing on a cover of "How Blue Can You Get" is at odds with Lang's slow-handed guitar riffs and ragged vocal turn, and "Crossroads" is as clichéd as the material on Lang's last few underwhelming efforts. The tracks on which Lauper flies solo are no less a mixed bag. "Romance in the Dark" is languid and soulful, but it would be a stretch to call Lauper's performance bluesy in any conventional sense. The boogie-woogie groove on "Don't Cry No More" is the arrangement that best suits Lauper's gifts, and it's easily the song to which she brings the most conviction. Memphis Blues is a disappointment because it doesn't play to Lauper's considerable strengths. She remains a vocalist of phenomenal depth and power, but she sounds lost in this material and in these arrangements. Her out-of-control, sloppy performance of "Just Your Fool" on the finale of Celebrity Apprentice was an unfortunate harbinger. Lauper has deserved a mainstream comeback for some time now, but Memphis Blues is unlikely to be the album to make that happen....full text |
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