photo courtesy of Fly-Life, Inc.
"Cyndi Lauper: To Memphis, With Love" DVD cover
...........................................................................................

Cyndi Lauper will release her live concert film “To Memphis, With Love,” as a Megaforce Records DVD on October 25. As the introduction starts we see Lauper with her band, telling its members that she grew up with the Blues and once was the leader singer of a Janis Joplin cover band. The film opens with “Shattered Dreams,” an impressive-sounding tune with great vocals, doing anything but shattering her dreams. “I’m Just Your Fool” and “Early In The Mornin’” are songs in which she shows that she can belt out the blues with the best of them. She puts her heart and soul into the song “Romance In The Dark,” sung with vocal ease. She has two lovely duets with Jonny Lang, “How Blue Can You Get,” a song with great lyrics, sung with intensity and much sincerity, and “Crossroads,” full of heartfelt emotion. The two singers may have the Blues, but they’re a joy to listen to when they’re singing together.
In “Down Don’t Bother Me,” Lauper flawlessly belts this Blues song, effortlessly and without missing a beat. In “Down So Low,” a duet with Tracy Nelson—known for her work with Marcia Ball and Irma Thomas, singing as well as playing piano—Lauper and Nelson sing with great ease together, making the audience feel their pain and suffering from love. “Down So Low,” a superb blues song with terrific lyrics, was written by Nelson. Lauper’s other special guests in “To Memphis” are Allen Toussaint on piano, and Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica.
In “I Will Follow,” Lauper does not follow, but instead leads us onto a new path in her career: singing the blues with incomparable vocalism. She puts her all into “Don’t Cry No More,” and we won’t be crying, but will luxuriate in our delight about her gifted touch with the Blues. Lauper transitions very well from her classic ’80s tune “She Bop,” showing us, in a wonderful rendition, done in a skillful bluesy way, that she still does own this song, to “Mother Earth,” which shows her transformed from ’80s diva into accomplished R&B diva.
Lauper’s ‘true colors’ shine through in a jazzy rendition of “Change of Heart.” Doing her feel-good song, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” Lauper shows that she definitely still knows how to have fun, that she still has the energy and charisma which makes everyone want to dance. As she falls in love with Memphis, you will fall in love with her again, in a wonderfully different way. Brava Cyndi! Brava! Her achievement deserves credit and acclaim. If you love Cyndi Lauper, you are surely going to love “To Memphis, With Love,” so do yourself a favor: buy it and have some fun with it.