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Cyndi Lauper: Memphis Blues

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Downtown Records
Released: 2010.06.22
Time:
 45:39
Category: Memphis Blues, Blues Rock, Soul Blues
Producer(s): Cyndi Lauper, Scott Bomar
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.cyndilauper.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Just Your Fool [feat. Charlie Musselwhite] (M.W.Jacobs) - 3:35
[2] Shattered Dreams [feat. Allen Toussaint] (L.Fulson/W.Ferdinand) - 3:52
[3] Early in the Mornin' [feat. Allen Toussaint and B.B. King] (L.Hickman/L.Jordan/D.Bartley) - 3:51
[4] Romance in the Dark (R.Seeman/Ph.Steinke) - 5:42
[5] How Blue Can You Get? [feat. Jonny Lang] (J.Feather) - 5:21
[6] Down Don't Bother Me [feat. Charlie Musselwhite] (A.King) - 3:01
[7] Don't Cry No More (D.Robey) - 2:43
[8] Rollin' and Tumblin' [feat. Ann Peebles] (Traditional/M.Waters) - 3:26
[9] Down So Low (T.Nelson) - 3:53
[10] Mother Earth [feat. Allen Toussaint] (M.Slim/P.Chatman) - 5:18
[11] Crossroads [feat. Jonny Lang] (R.Johnson) - 4:42

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Cyndi Lauper - Vocals, Art Direction, Producer

B.B. King - Vocals on [3]
Jonny Lang - Vocals on [5,11]
Charlie Musselwhite - Harmonica on [1,6]
Ann Peebles - Vocals on [8]
Allen Toussaint - Keyboards on [2,3,10]

"Skip" Charles Pitts - Guitars
Lester Snell - Organ, Piano
William Wittman - Bass, Engineer
Howard Grimes - Drums, Percussion
Leroy Hodges - Bass
Marc Franklin - Trumpet, Horn Arrangements
Derrick Williams - Tenor Sax
Kirk Smothers - Tenor & Baritone Sax
Kenny Brown - Slide Guitar
Amy LaVere - Bass

Scott Bomar - Engineer, Producer
William Wittman - Engineer, Mixing
George Marino - Mastering
Sheri Lee - Art Direction, Design
Michael Alago - A&R
Christina Rodriguez - Design
Kristen Vallow - Set Design
Ellen Von Unwerth - Photography
Nicole Fontanella - Photo Stylist
Christoph Lange - Photo Assistance
Jochem Sanders - Photo Assistance
Lisa Barbaris - Management
James Kaliardos - Make-Up
Jutta Weiss - Hair Stylist

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2010 CD Downtown Music DWT70208

Recorded in March 2010 in Electraphonic Studios, Memphis.

This album is dedicated to Ma Rainey, mother of the blues, thanks for her work and style, and to all the early blues artists who traveled through the cross roads, suitcase in hand, to Memphis.
Their music and spirit can still be felt today... much respect.

Released in a gatefold cardboard sleeve.



Lately, Cyndi Lauper is many things: American Idol guest, Lady Gaga sidekick, relevant again. So it's the perfect time for her to make ... classic blues covers? Memphis Blues is a curveball, but that's its charm. It's fun to hear Lauper go all badass Betty Boop on "Don't Cry No More" and "Rollin' and Tumblin'," squeaking and hollering with help from Ann Peebles, Allen Toussaint and B.B. King. The world might not need another version of "Crossroads." But Lauper's got great sass on "Early in the Mornin'," teasing her band, "What you dooo-in'?" No doubt what they're doin' is listening to her with amusement.

Melissa Maerz - June 21, 2010
RollingStone.com



"I get full of good liquor, walk the streets all night/ Go home and put my man out if he don't act right," sings Cyndi Lauper, sounding perfectly enchanted by the prospect, on this album's last track, Wild Women Don't Get the Blues. It's a satisfying conclusion to a record that answers a question nobody was actually asking – Can Lauper carry off an LP of blues cover version? – with a definitive "yes". Though her voice is thin and lacking in bluesy grit and sinew – this is especially evident as she alternates lines with feline, growling guest Ann Peebles on Rollin' and Tumblin' – she gets inside the songs, and that makes the album work. Holding her own alongside players of the first magnitude (Allen Toussaint, BB King), she's cheeky on Louis Jordan's bawdy Early in the Morning and slinky as she does a deal with the devil on Crossroads. Worth hearing.

Caroline Sullivan, 30 September 2010
© 2015 Guardian News and Media



2010 album from the Pop diva, a traditional Memphis Blues album featuring guest appearances from Jonny Lang, B.B. King and others. After more than 20 sterling years and global record sales in excess of 25 million, Cyndi Lauper has proven that she has the heart and soul to keep her legion of fans compelled by her every creative move. With her first album She's So Unusual, Cyndi won a Grammy award for Best New Artist and became the first female artist in history to have five Top 10 singles from a debut album. Along the way, she has continually won accolades as a singer, musician, actress, and writer.

Amazon.com



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.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



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.

Jonathan Keefe - June 20, 2010
© 2015 Slant Magazine.



"What makes the album work, though, are Lauper’s vocals. She always had a terrific voice, but she’s spent her life learning what she could do with it. With unerring pitch and faultless rhythm, she weaves in and out of a lyric, teasing lines, putting her little foot down right on the beat and then winging into the next phrase with such gravity-defying grace that it almost sounds easy...It takes guts for a singer to walk onto territory once owned by Memphis Minnie, but Lauper pulls it off like a woman who knows everything there is to know about having fun with the blues."

NewsWeek.com



"From the Bobby "Blue" Bland hit "Don’t Cry No More" to the Louis Jordan classic "Early In the Morning", the authentic smoky funk and Lauper's singing, alternately a hurt tender caress or scorching wail, make this collection a revealing and appealing rave-up. Recommended."

directcurrentmusic.com



After spending a couple decades in the hinterlands, it seems as if blues music has suddenly become "chic" once more among mainstream musicians and self-promoting celebrities. Actor Hugh Laurie, star of the TV show House, has announced his intentions to record a blues album. Tom Petty's 2010 album Mojo is said to be a return to his blues roots, ditto for Steve Miller's latest, Bingo. A popular cable TV show features a hard-boiled Memphis cop who polices the streets during the day and sings the blues at night (I like the show, but I've never heard him sing anything but Elvis songs....).

Then there's the problem of Cyndi Lauper. Best-known as the 1980s singer of such hits as "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" and "True Colours," Lauper is a talented vocalist too often typecast as a clownish one-trick pony. Still, when it became known that she was traveling to Memphis to record the blues album she "wanted to make for years," longtime blues fans rightfully scoffed. Still, here it is, Memphis Blues demanding our attention, Lauper admitting "all of these beautiful songs, and all of the great players on the album, were carefully chosen because I've admired them my entire life." The question remains, though, is Memphis Blues any good?

Give Lauper credit for knowing her subject matter...Memphis Blues include such classic blues tunes as Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'," Lowell Fulsom's "Shattered Dreams," Little Walter's "Just Your Fool," and Bobby Bland's "Don't Cry No More," as well as songs from Memphis Slim, Louis Jordan, Albert King, and others. Let's give her an 'A' for effort in choosing an impressive selection of songs.

Kudos, too, to Lauper for putting together a talented studio band schooled in the blues and R&B, including Stax label veterans Lester Snell and Skip Pitts (who performed with Isaac Hayes), and Hi Rhythm Section alumni Leroy Hodges and Howard Grimes (who backed Al Green). Guest stars like Blues Hall of Fame inductee Charlie Musselwhite, New Orleans music legend Allen Toussaint, soul vocalist Ann Peebles, and guitarists Jonny Lang and B.B. King lend an aspect of further credibility to the project.

So we'll admit that Lauper enlisted the right musical talents to back her vision; another 'A' awarded for foresight. That just leaves her vocal performances...which, honestly, mostly OK. At her worst, Lauper is merely mediocre, as on the fractured cover of the notable B.B. King song "How Blue Can You Get?" Lauper's vocals here are overshadowed by Jonny Lang's bluesy fretwork and Snell's juke-joint piano riffs, and her voice doesn't meld well with Lang's here. The same goes for the album's first single, "Early In The Mornin'," on which Lauper's kittenish purr is less swinging than silly, but nonetheless meshes well with B.B. King's playful shouts and stellar guitar pickin'.

Lauper is at her best when she's not trying to adopt the role of blues vamp. The best track on Memphis Blues may be her down-n-dirty cover of the Waters' gem "Rollin' and Tumblin'." Pursuing a lower vocal register in order to match up with the great R&B vocalist Ann Peebles, Lauper's vocals here are raw, gritty and more heartfelt than anything else on the album. With Kenny Brown cranking out some nasty slide-guitar, and Snell pounding the keys as Lauper and Peebles swap vocals, this is the album's transcendent moment. A cover of Tracy Nelson's "Down So Low" follows a similar tack, Lauper belting out soulful vocals, while a duet with Lang on Robert Johnson's Delta blues classic "Crossroads" is provided a soaring vocal performance that is complimented by Lang's fiery guitar and passionate voice.

It is readily apparent that, regardless of her immense vocal talents, Cyndi Lauper is not a natural blues singer. She shows flashes of true brilliance on tracks like "Crossroads," "Rollin' and Tumblin'," and Albert King's Chicago-blues romp, "Down Don't Bother Me" as she puts aside her blues diva personality and just lets the music move her. Whenever she ramps up the cuteness, however, as on the album-opening "Just Your Fool" (which nevertheless offers up some smokin' Charlie Musselwhite harp riffs), Lauper comes across as a sort of second-rate Cathy Jean without the smoldering sensuality.

In the end, though, Memphis Blues is entertaining as a sort of pop-blues exercise...not bluesy enough, really, for the hardcore fan that cut their eye teeth on Koko Taylor, or Marcia Ball, but maybe just smooth and sweet enough to appeal to the blues newcomer looking for a bit of honesty and sincerity and soul in their music. It wouldn't be a bad thing for Lauper to continue working in the blues vein and, truthfully, if Memphis Blues ends up bringing a few converts to blues music, then it has definitely been a worthwhile endeavor.

Keith A. Gordon - blues.abot.com
© 2015 About.com



Memphis Blues is the tenth studio album by American singer Cyndi Lauper. Regarded as a continuation of her 2008 comeback the album was a nominee for the Grammy Awards 2010 and was released on June 22, 2010. According to the Brazilian daily newspaper O Globo, the album had sold 600,000 copies worldwide by November 2010. Memphis Blues was voted the 7th best album of 2010 by the New York Post. It went on to become Bilboard's biggest selling blues album of 2010. To support the album, Cyndi made her biggest tour ever. Memphis Blues Tour had more than 140 shows, covering every continent of the world.

Lauper announced via her official Twitter account in December 2009 that she would be recording a blues album. Sessions were held in March 2010 at Electrophonic Studios in Memphis, Tennessee with producer Scott Bomar, her frequent collaborator Bill Wittman and special guests B. B. King, Charlie Musselwhite, Ann Peebles and Allen Toussaint.

Lauper performed songs from the album on the Late Show with David Letterman on June 14, on The Joy Behar Show on June 21, The Howard Stern Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show on June 22, Good Morning America on June 23 and Live with Regis and Kelly on June 24., on The Early Show on July 20. and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on August 30. Lauper has supported the album with the Memphis Blues Tour. Lauper was honored at the 2010 NARM Awards and performed several songs from the Memphis Blues album at the event.

Memphis Blues debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard Top Blues chart and at number 26 on the official Billboard 200, with moderately successful first week sales of more than 16,000 copies.[15] The album is Lauper's third-highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 of her career, trailing only her first two releases, She's So Unusual and True Colors. The album remained at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues chart for thirteen weeks, totaling 40 weeks in the chart. In addition, seven songs from the album ranked in the Top 25 on Billboard's Blues Digital Songs chart, including "Crossroads" at number one.

Wikipedia.org



In den Electraphonic Studios in Memphis hat Pop Ikone Cyndi Lauper ein waschechtes Blues- und R&B-Album eingespielt. Dabei wurde sie von Soul und R&B-Größen wie BB King, der Harp Legende Charly Musselwhite, Sänger Johnny Lang sowie dem einflussreichen Komponisten und Produzenten Allen Toussaint unterstützt. Zwölf starke Nummern, die tief im Memphis Blues und ursprünglichen New Orleans-Sound verwurzelt sind.

Amazon.de



"Was für eine Wandlung! Zu Beginn ihrer Karriere in den 8o's verbreitete Cyndi Lauper voller Lebenslust die frohe Botschaft, dass Mädels einfach Spaß haben wollen, inzwischen hat sie allerdings den Blues, in stilistischer Hinsicht jedenfalls. Diese Entwicklung von der überkandidelten Girlpop-Göre zur ernsthaften Künstlerin mag verwundern, kommt auf ,,Memphis Blues" jedoch glaubhaft rüber."

stereo, 11/2010
 

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