Cyndi Lauper

Overview

Cyndi Lauper was in Japan during the recent earthquake and spent her time there touring and donating royalties to the disaster relief fund. Lauper also campaigns for gay rights, having been a part of the gay community since she came out as straight to her queer friends during high school. Until the earthquake though, her latest cause had been reintroducing the blues to audiences with her new album Memphis Blues. She's bringing it straight here from Japan, hitting Sydney for two nights at the soon-to-be annexed State Theatre.

Cyndi Lauper doesn't have a reputation as a blues singer, but she claims the influence drove her early career and lies at the root of all her other influences — jazz, rock and pop. And she gets out some pretty classic blues songs, like Crossroads by the now-familiar singer Robert Johnson.  So if all you know about the blues comes from the Simpsons, and all you know about Cyndi Lauper is that she's the Sex and the City to the Eurythmics' Battlestar Galactica, this woman is coming to educate you.