Interview: Cyndi Lauper

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Last week, I interviewed Cyndi Lauper for the Wall Street Journal on the writing and recording of her #1 hit, Time After Time, which was released in 1983 on her debut album, She's So Unusual (go here). Miles Davis loved Time After Time and recorded it on his You're Under Arrest album in 1984. Cyndi told me that Miles first heard the song after his then wife Cicely Tyson put on the album and insisted he listen to it. [Photo  above of Cyndi Lauper by Elizabeth Lippman for The Wall Street Journal] 

Cyndi co-wrote the song with Rob Hyman (above) of the Hooters. It was the last song written for the album and the composing was done in a bit of a rush, since the album was finished but producer Rick Chertoff wanted one more. So Rob and Cyndi went into a studio at New York's Record Plant, and as Rob played chords, Cyndi told me she danced around to catch a vibe and came up with the lyrics. The song's title came from a 1979 movie she spotted in TV Guide. As she told me, in that inimitable Betty Boop voice of hers, "I never meant for it to be the song’s real title. It was just supposed to get me thinking."

JazzWax note: I last interviewed Cyndi in 2014 on what it was like growing up in Ozone Park, Queens (go here).

JazzWax clips: Here's the official video of Time After Time from 1984...

Here's one of Cyndi's favorite versions of Miles Davis playing the song in concert...

And here's the Miles Davis studio version...

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Interview: Cyndi Lauper

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

For my "House Call" column in today's Mansion section of The Wall Street Journal [go here or please buy the paper], I interview singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper on her childhood home in the Ozone Park section of Queens, N.Y. My first question to her was about that community's name. "Ozone Park, yeah—a spaced-out name, I know," she said. "Figures, right?"

That's Cyndi, but she's anything but spaced out. Many people assume that her quirky, Betty Boop personality is a character—a persona that she started in the MTV era and continued over the decades as her brand. Not even close. In speaking with Cyndi at length, I found her to be a fascinating person and artist. That's actually her voice, and she speaks in sheets of sentences that roll on like a John Coltrane solo. You have to jump in and change the subject. But Cyndi isn't a rambler. What you find as you listen closely is that she's weaving large tapestries of varying textures and images. As an interviewer, you have decide how large you want that tapestry to be.

What I also noticed is that Cyndi thinks in colorful comic-book images. As she shapes her thoughts out loud, it's as if she's drawing panels to an illustrated story, and all sorts of interesting characters enter the storyline. Many of these characters are from her childhood, viewed through the eyes of a girl who found the world a strange and often synthetic place.

Cyndi also is naturally funny, and this side of her can catch you off guard. What I mean is she's incredibly funny but isn't intending to be. In other words, how she thinks just happens to be interpreted by others as funny. But to Cyndi, that's how she sees it. So when you laugh or point out how funny something is, she's baffled and doesn't quite understand what you mean. Which is a strange reaction until you realize this is who she is—the Queens accent, the out-there look and the child-like and illustrative way of thinking.

And insisting on thinking this way has had amazing outcomes. Cyndi recently won a Tony and Grammy for Broadway's Kinky Boots, and her 1983 debut album She’s So Unusual (Sony) will be released April 1 as an expanded edition [go here]. She's also joining Cher’s Dressed to Kill tour on April 23.

At the end of our chat, I couldn't help but fall in love with Cyndi—the mind, the determination, the cultural interpreter and the honest, free spirit.

Here's her 1983 video of Girls Just Want to Have Fun...

- See more at: http://www.jazzwax.com/2014/03/interview-cyndi-lauper.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Jazzwax+%28JazzWax%29#sthash.XR1PIMjf.dpuf

Used with permission by Marc Myers