Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir (40 page)

I got excited to shoot the picture on the back of the album, too. I had a fake snake, and there was smoke. I wanted a masculine/feminine version of Robert Johnson, but with a tight leather suit. I thought it would add a new edge to the look (plus any fabric that has a slight sheen to it makes a better photograph). The suit wasn’t a new idea, but the leather part was. And my stylist Nikki put it together. Then Nikki had the idea to make the collar asymmetrical, too. And Jutta Weiss made wild red wigs for me, and I was able to get James Kardones to do my makeup, and all of a sudden, I became an art piece.

When it came time to mix I was still in Turks and Caicos. I knew that was going to happen so I asked for a suite with a separate living room—someplace I could set up speakers. Bill and Scott were in Long Island mixing at PIE Studios. I had a little studio packed with me—talk about your luggage—with speakers, a little interface board that I could plug my speakers into, and a computer. The idea was to go online when they were ready and have them send it over iChat. Then I’d listen and give my comments; they’d make the adjustments; I’d listen and approve it; and they’d move on to the next mix. Sounds reasonable, right? In the meantime I thought that if I could contact Keith Richards to play on one of the tracks, maybe “Rollin and Tumblin,” that would be great. I knew the person who cut his manager’s hair so I figured, “What the heck? I’ll give it a shot.”

So when we arrived in Turks and Caicos, the room was not really the suite I had hoped for. Instead of a living room, there was an extra kids’ room, and it was a really bad-sounding room with wood
everywhere, and it was long and narrow, so it wasn’t a good fit for the speakers. The master bedroom was my only option. It was bigger and wider, with fewer hard surfaces in it.

There were only two times of the day when Bill and Scott could work—around eleven
A.M
. and six or seven
P.M
. So I put a speaker on a chair on either side of the bed. Then I stood in the middle at the foot of the bed to hear what they mixed. But within a day after we arrived my son developed a virus that was going around, or food poisoning, or something. He was up all night so sick that in the morning my husband took him to the hospital, where they had to give the poor kid intravenous fluid because he was so dehydrated.

Well, within two days, my husband got the same thing. Cut to: Bill and Scott calling from Long Island with the mixes. They needed an answer. So because I couldn’t put Bill and Scott off, I had to stand at the foot of the bed with David and Declyn lying in it, sick, and listen to those mixes. Now the thing about listening to a mix is that you should listen loud—not so loud you can’t hear, but loud enough that you can. So there were my two guys lying in the middle of those big-ass JBL speakers, just looking at me. And it wasn’t just one day like this, either. I felt so bad. I tried not to look at them. I tried to listen intently and give my instructions clearly while I just wanted to cry for them. I figured, “Yeah, this is the blues all right.”

Ya know, the thing about food on an island is that everything is brought in, so it isn’t always fresh. Thank God for that Diet Center pudding I brought with me. That and a probiotic, and I didn’t get sick. Declyn was better in three days, and David was better three days later. Then we went home. How’s that for restful?

At least we were together. And then, on the plane home before we took off, I get a call from Keith Richards. It was kind of surreal. The announcements were coming on, but I didn’t want to get off the phone
with Keith Richards. So I quickly said, “Hey-I’m-making-a-blues-album-you-want-to-play-on-it?” His answer, in a relaxed English drawl, was, “If you’re singing blues, baby, I’m in.” And I said, “I-think-you’d-be-great-on-‘Rollin-and-Tumblin’.” And he said, “Sure, I think I know that one—ha ha.” But in the end, when I told him the deadline, he said he didn’t think he’d be back in the US in time. Because guess where he was? On vacation in Turks and Caicos. (Guess he wasn’t staying at the same resort we were in.)

I decided to dedicate the album to Ma Rainey, who is the Mother of the Blues. And she was a feminist. She wore gold chains; she had gold teeth. She was gangsta before gangsta. And she was gay! Although I didn’t do a Ma Rainey song (next time), her spirit was in the fashion of the clothing I wore—in the suit, in the chains.

At the end of the project Howard the drummer said to me, “All those people who heard ‘Girls’ have been waiting to hear what you have to say now. And when they hear this, it’s going to go straight to the top. You ever think about that?” And I said, “Yeah, with every recording.”
Memphis Blues
came out on my birthday in 2010, and it was the largest-selling blues CD that year. It was number one for thirteen weeks on the blues chart. And then it was nominated, alongside blues greats and legends including Charlie Musselwhite, for a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album—my fourteenth nomination.

I took my son with me to the ceremony which I had wanted to do for a long time. Well, the Grammy went to Pinetop Perkins, who was nominated for a blues album he did with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith. He was ninety-seven years old. He made a great record. He died just five weeks later.

I had so much fun with Dec at the Grammys. He was so happy because he sat right behind Akon, who turned around and said hello to us. And Dec loves Lil Wayne, so when he was nearby, Dec said, “Just
call out ‘Weezy,’” so I did. And Lil Wayne looked at me, and I waved and asked for his autograph. He was all excited and I said to him, “Weezy, you make great music, now be good.” And he put his hand over his heart and said, “I promise.” Then I walked past L.L. Cool J and he jumped up and said hello, and then I was saying hello to everybody—Kanye West, Bieber, whatever the heck that kid’s name is. Then Gaga jumped up and said she missed me, and I gave her a hug. Dec got to see everybody up close.

People would ask me, “What do you think is the highlight tonight?” It really was having Dec and David out there with me. But also I got to sing with the legendary soul singers Mavis Staples and Betty Wright, and with blues singer Maria Muldaur. I can’t even explain how it felt to look into their faces and sing to them. I don’t know if they ever understood what they gave to me over the years through their work. And there was also the wonderful band that backed us up. The great blues guitarist Buddy Guy was in that band too. He couldn’t make rehearsal, because he was traveling from a gig. So during the performance when he answered my voice with his guitar as I sang my part, I choked. I couldn’t believe that it was actually him answering my voice. I am grateful to be a singer who gets to sing with so many wonderful musicians and other singers.

But with all the good that was happening, in the back of my head I had some serious concerns, specifically my upcoming tour to South America. My last South American tour, two years before was for a dance CD, which went over really well. I kept wondering how these countries would receive the blues. South American people love to dance. Their musical culture is celebratory. I thought, “Okay, what is it in their music that lights them up?” Of course, it’s the rhythm. Then I starting thinking about all the different rhythms I could find in blues music. I thought about how I could present the blues to a
continent in a way that they could feel connected to it and take ownership of it. Then I remembered Martin Scorsese’s seven-part series
The Blues
on PBS and the fife and drum band he had in it. I remembered how I thought it sounded an awful lot like Carnival drums. The wild thing was that we were going down to play Brazil a week before Carnival. So I thought that if I could find a Carnival drummer who might understand the concept, I could connect the two different feels of this music.

I thought I might be able to place the Carnival rhythm in the middle of a shuffle blues song like “Just Your Fool” or “Down Don’t Bother Me” or in “Crossroads.” Anyway, the record guy in Brazil found a woman named Lan Lan who played Carnival drums. I sent her an mp3 of Otha Turner and his Rising Star Fife and Drum Corps and said, “Doesn’t this sound like Carnival rhythm to you?” And she said it was because Bahia, Brazil, isnt that far from Africa. And that’s why it sounds like they’re connected. The enslaved people from Africa were brought to Brazil first and then sent through the Americas. And I thought, “Yeah, and with them came this wonderful rhythm that, ironically, would later free so many of us.” I thought that if this approach to the music worked, it would be magical.

I met Lan Lan at sound check the day of the first show. I was traveling with this wonderful band; three guys from Memphis and two guys from NYC. (A lot of the time I also traveled with Charlie Musselwhite, but he couldn’t make it to South America this time.) One of the Memphis guys is the legendary drummer, Steve Potts. He holds down a rhythm like he’s driving a Corvette. But I love him even more because he is open to trying out an idea that could be great or could be crazy. When I played the Otha Turner stuff to Steve, he heard what I wanted to do and thought it could work too. And when we actually tried it, and Lan Lan played along in the center of the shuffle
with that Otha Turner/Carnival drum rhythm, it not only worked, it was otherworldly. When these two distinctly separate rhythms were played together it felt like they created a vortex, one I could sing in the middle of. After that first night of the South American, “Memphis Blues” tour, the blues became profoundly deeper for me and I think for all of us in the band.

One night while I was onstage singing in São Paulo, Brazil, listening to Lan Lan and Steve Potts, I saw a native king in my mind’s eye. It’s funny how this vision was in Black and White. His beautiful coffee and cream skin and white feathers that surrounded his entire head and back were dazzling. As I danced and sang, I felt him say to me, “The conquerors came and conquered, but they could never conquer the rhythm. And in the rhythm is freedom.”

When we toured in Europe for
Memphis Blues
, I worked to make sure the shows kicked ass. As Charlie Musselwhite says, “The donkey must fall,” and I believed it did. I wanted to leave the promoters in Europe feeling like they were watching something special. And we were. We had no lighting man or staging, but we made some powerful music. I used the floor of the stage, the sides of the monitor speakers, and the audience chairs for staging, so that each song looked a little different.

ANOTHER SURREAL
moment in my life was trying to put together the
Memphis Blues Live
DVD. I was getting ready for a European tour after being in Australia, and I had a one-week window to edit it. The director of photography that I hired was a fellow named Ben. He was someone I had worked with some twenty years before. He made me look beautiful, and he was also attached to a friend of mine and great producer named John, so I thought this would work fine. John would be my liaison and act as a middle man.

Okay, it didn’t happen that way. Because John (an extraordinary fellow who was once in a famous plane crash in Taipei and worked himself back onto his feet without the use of a wheelchair) decided to refill a pain prescription in Juarez, Mexico, instead of near his home in Los Angeles, because it was cheaper. His mom lived in Mexico. (I guess the plan was to see her, too.) Well, when he was in Mexico, his cab driver had a fender bender, and when the police showed up and saw his American passport and an American prescription for meds, they took him in. They held him in jail for money, and when important people came to his aid, they upped the fee.

So all this was going on when I filmed and—cut to the chase—my middle man and liaison to the DP was gone. So when Ben cut the footage together, it was very static. Even though he had an elevated dolly, it was the same shot over and over. And without a middle guy, most folks revert back to what they are used to doing. To the guy’s credit, there were some beautiful shots, but when I told him, “Please don’t shoot me from my right side,” there was a reason—I didn’t look so good.

He wanted to be the editor, and everything I told him not to do, he did anyway, and I had to fix it—with more expense and I was already over budget because when you’re the record company, it’s your money! So I thought about the footage we had from filming our recording in Memphis, and the footage I combed through for my web site and didn’t use. And of the street shot I did. I even had some stuff on my phone. So I started to put together a story with everything I had. Thank God for Arcade Films and the executive producer I’d worked with over the years, Chris. We actually put this sweet little piece together about Memphis. But I didn’t finish all of it before leaving, so I worked with Ben online when I could access the internet in Europe, and Bill mixed the concert from the notes I gave him when we were home. I also worked with Sheri Lee, a brilliant art director, so the
package was beautiful. All my fuss about using the Edward Hopper palette in the lighting onstage paid off. Two weeks into the European tour I actually finished and handed in the project.

THERE’S ALWAYS
something happening in my life (again, God bless my manager, Lisa). Like I said, I wrote the music for
Kinky Boots,
the musical, with Harvey Fierstein. It’s based on a 2005 film (in turn based on a true story) about a guy who inherits an ailing shoe factory, and he hits on the idea to make shoes for drag queens in order to save the business. The story has real heart. And it’s been freeing for me as a writer, because I can write in the style that’s right for the character. To get inspiration I listen to songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein, which I sang to when I was five. And writing the songs with a few collaborators, like Sammy James Jr., Stephen Oremus, Rich Morel, and Steve Gaboury, has been such fun. I feel like I’m five again sometimes. I guess Harvey must have known all along that I’d love it.

And then I’ve got this reality series, which is being done with Mark Burnett Productions. He’s the guy that produced
The Celebrity Apprentice,
and he thought my crazy life would make a good show. It’s never boring, that’s for sure. We just started taping it and it’s been really fun. It’s focused on my work and how that affects me and my family. Nobody would believe what happens in my life.
I
don’t even believe it. Here’s an example: I was in the Buenos Aires airport not long ago, and all the flights were delayed. More and more people kept coming into this little airport, and everyone was sitting around wondering what was happening. I looked around me and saw people shrugging their shoulders and laughing, taking it in stride. One of my favorite things about Argentinians is their sense of humor.