Friday, October 8, 2010

Cyndi Lauper does e town ! ! !


Here's one for the record books. Cyndi Lauper has come back with a marvelous blues record Memphis Blues which came out in June without much publicity. Her Denver appearance with eTown along with Charlie Musselwhite, however, gave her a chance to really show what she's made of and with her usual dramatic flair that is the real Cyndi Lauper. The last time I had seen her in concert was back in 2003 when she had come out with an album of old torch-y standards like Unchained Melody, On the Sunny Side of the Street and Hymn to Love. The album was titled At Last and it was a stupendous breakout album even though her voice was showing a little wear by then. In concert she amazed me with her voice, however, and put to rest any fears that she might be tiring or had done damage. Her vocal range is almost inhuman and the emotion she conveys in her singing is overpowering. I think I danced more through that concert than any I've ever been to and I felt like I was at a disco ! ! Talk about fun.

She got a chance to show this Memphis side we hadn't seen yet and it was absolutely what I expected and more. She was a great compliment to Charley Musselwhite who I admit was unknown to me until this stint. On September 23rd at 9 p.m. at the Paramount Theater in Denver, Cyndi gave a blowout performance which was to be expected since her forte' has always been live performance. Some people who have not kept up with her career past her 80s pop singer days will be amazed at her range and power. Furthermore, when she was asked recently about this seeming about face she said, "The last record I did was a dance record and I want them to know what this is and I figure Memphis Blues can't get any more straightforward. The blues are the root of everything that we do on radio today so it's not a stretch if you're a singer singing pop music to hear the 1-4-5 chord and understand exactly what that is. It's part of our heritage and tradition."

When interviewed in the summer she said, "This is the music I listened to to learn how to sing. The great blues artists were the rockers, the jazzers, the hip-hoppers of their day. I wanted to be authentic so I went to Memphis. I said, "It has to be dirty. It can't be clean and pristine, 'cause that ain't what it's about for me."

"...I had a dream that Oscar Peterson told me that I should take old songs and make them modern. When I made this CD it was the closest I came to fulfilling what I was kind of told to do in the dream."

Cyndi is a 13 Grammy award winner who originally hailed from the Bronx in New York. She broke into musical stardom with her debut album titled She's So Unusual after many years of singing in musical circuits which required lots of musical covers. She became popular because she could mimic any female singer in the business. This 57 year old dynamo has had fortitude unmatched when she sang one year of her 80s stint singing nearly every single day of that year with one day off. I don't know of anybody in the world with that kind of energy, personally and I imagine my readers don't either.

She has also won 2 Emmys for work as an actress (!), 2 American Music Awards, 7 American Video Awards and no less than 18 MTV Awards ! She's better at reinventing herself than any entertainer you can name and her causes range from gay rights to Hurricane Katrina benefits and animal protection and she still looks like she's thirty-something which is not an easy achievement in and of itself with her schedule.

World- look out- Cyndi's back in town and she means business ! !


eTown that is....Evelyn's Town ! ! !

The Castle Lady


Saturday, September 18, 2010

Stryper's Heaven and Hell on iTunes ! ! !






The news was just released to me yesterday that Stryper's new album can be downloaded on iTunes along with a lot of their older albums one of which is one of my favorites- To Hell with the Devil. Check it out and tell me how you are liking it. I got a new iPod last Spring and haven't had a chance to use it yet. I'm just too busy, busy, busy...


Check it out ! !




from The Castle Lady

with many iPod hugs coming your way !

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Apples In Stereo Update




The Apples' upcoming release and seventh studio effort, Travellers in Space and Time follows their critically acclaimed hit album New Magnetic Wonder [more info] and is their second release in association with Elijah Wood's Simian Records. The official release date will be April 20th ! Robert Schneider, the mastermind behind both The Apples in stereo and Elephant 6 is quoted as saying, "I wanted to make a futuristic pop record, to reach out to the kids of the future. It is what I imagine their more highly-evolved pop might sound like: shiny soul music with robots and humans singing together. We are sending a pop music message through time."



They are keeping with their pop mastery with several potential hits similar to Energy which has been performed numerous times by American Idol contestants, but they are branching out with futuristic sounds adding dance vibes similar to ELO, Barry Gibb and the Beach Boys during their Wild Honey era and even Michael Jackson's Off the Wall.



For one week only (ends 3/9), you can listen to a full-album stream of Travellers in Space and Time for FREE. Click HERE to listen now. You can also see them on tour starting in April. Here are some of the tour dates and towns :



4/16 Lexington, KY @ Cosmic Charlie's

4/17 Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant Street

4/18 Washington DC @ Rock and Roll Hotel

4/20 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's

4/21 NYC @ Bowery Ballroom

4/23 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Underground

4/24 Ithaca, NY @ Castaways

4/25 Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar

4/27 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop

4/28 Pontiac, Michigan @ Pike Room

4/30 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall

5/1 St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club

5/3 Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall

5/4 St. Louis, MO @ Billiken Club




Check out their web site for more tour dates and info @ http://www.applesinstereo.com/





Tell them The Castle Lady sent you !


Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Jeff ~ The other Beck ~ is Back !

If you had the fortitude to watch the Grammys recently, you may have noticed that Jeff Beck performed with Imelda May and how great he sounded. His presence may be missed by those who are mainly pop enthusiasts. The sad part of this is that Jeff Beck has always been contemporary and if you paid attention you would know.
He also received the Best Rock Instrumental Performance and this happens to be his fifth Grammy award. If you haven't checked out his latest recording A Day in the Life I urge you to do so as you will be rewarded with the best guitar sounds you'll ever hear on this planet. Someday he's going to be God's right hand man during praise and worship so make sure you check this out. You won't be disappointed.

his latest cause....
The Castle Lady

Monday, January 25, 2010

Yep Roc Face Competition


As a kick-off celebration of a new decade the artists of Yep Roc have apparently agreed to let the company use their faces on a T-shirt in limited quantities and will sell from their Webshop until February 12th ! Along with the shirt you'll also get an exclusive 24 track sampler, featuring a song from all the artists pictured on the shirt. That's not all of it either ! You can enter the "Faces of Yep Roc contest for a chance to win 10 Yep Roc CD titles of YOUR CHOICE if you correctly guess all the names (first and last) of all the faces on the shirt !The first person to guess all 24 faces of the artists correctly- or whoever comes closest to getting them all right- wins the contest. Take a look at this and then send your answers in to:

yeproccontests@gmail.com

If you have never seen these guys before but you want to win all their great music then look around this web site and you're sure to figure out who all these eggheads a..- I mean Yep Roc artists are and maybe you'll learn something new tonight besides the fact that your cat seems to be gay!


Happy hunting !

The Castle Lady