Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Singer, songwriter, and activist known for 1983 debut 'She's So Unusual,' hits like 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,' 50 million records, Grammys, Emmy, and Tony-win
On the island
Eight records
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
The first music I remember was the music my mother played us. She loved classical music. She would play this music, and I remember this very clearly. She had bought a new stereo. ... Debussy's prelude to The Afternoon of a Fawn. And I remember hearing it. And the melody was stunning. And I even said to myself, Mom, sometimes when you hear this stuff, is it so beautiful that it just makes you cry? And she said, Yes, that's what music can do. And then she always shared with us like that. And this was one of the first things that I remembered.
Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars
My mother loved to sit and talk and be with us, and she would play different music. So there was this wonderful album, Satch Does Fats, and it was uh Louis Armstrong, of course. And we were girls, we had to do chores, so we'd separate all the clothes. But we were all together, and then she'd play this music, and we'd dance wildly. I remember how wildly we would dance and how much fun this was.
Un bel dì vedremo (One Fine Day)Favourite
They love Puccini. And my mother kept playing this stuff, you know, and it was always like, Mom, you know it doesn't work out for her in the end, right? She dies, or it's not good for her. It's always bad for the woman. She loved this aria from Madam Butterfly one fine day. The greatest voice of the century, female to me, one of them. Is Maria Callas? And I think she's extraordinary because of the way she would be loud and then soft and then full and then almost like talking and the control and the beauty and her story, which was so tragic because her life was like an opera, but her voice was incredible.
This is the song that my grandmother heard so many times. And you know, you always think it's the movie star that's doing it, but it isn't. Marni Nixon. And she was the standin' and Deborah Carr got to lip sync to her. These songs were how I learned to sing. I played this album so much, this getting to know you and the king and the album of The King and I, right? So much that my grandmother, who lived upstairs, she just came downstairs, she took, she lifted the needle off my little red record player, picked up the record, didn't say a word, and just walked back upstairs. And that was the end of that record. I never saw that record again because she just couldn't take it.
When the Beatles came over it was mayhem. My cousin Winter gave us for Christmas Meet the Beatles. So when they came to America one of the times I was eleven by that time, so I was old enough, I guess, for her. And me and my sister and her friend Diane. She drove us to a spot where she knew the cars driving from Kennedy Airport would pass. So she dropped us on this island. She said, Do not move from here. I'm going to be there and I'm going to come back in a little while. Here comes the car. I start screaming. I had my eyes closed, and all of a sudden, I opened my eyes and I saw the back of their heads. And I said, What a jerk! What did I do? I missed them. ... It's a funny thing about the Beatles because also my sister and I, you know, like every kid, we were acting out the Beatles. But what I learned as a musician, I learned harmony. And I harmonized with my sister. Ellen always had to be Paul. I had to be George. She was Paul. And that was fine. But I learned the harmonies. And it just trained my ear differently.
Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra
Now when I decided to take this class at the Lenox Tristano School of Jazz, I studied Billie Holiday, but also an assignment was not just Billie, but Billie singing with Lester Young. And if you listen to them singing together, it is so extraordinary. This woman, Billie Holiday, to me wrote modern phrasing. She was extraordinary. ... Billie was the foundation of me never to be afraid of the snare drum again, and to breathe and to hear interior rhythm. And that is very prominent on this. Just have a listen to how wonderful these two are answering each other.
Yeah, we were all rooting for Blondie. We loved I love her still. And I love them. And I think that this is one of my favorite songs. One way or another. And I even play it now before I go on. ... I love this song. I think it's so great. There's a sound. There's an idea, there's a brain, it all works, it's fantastic. Deborah Harry, I love her, and I love Blondie, and we were rooting for them, and when this came out we all went bonkers.
To me, this is rock and roll, the epitome of it. Rock and roll is blues. Rock and Roll has drums. The thing about this is it's a combination of not just blues, but also the Native American drum beat, which to me is what rock and roll is. Listeners may not know that this is the original version of this track. Yes, it is. This is the original version of Hound Dog. And I think Big Mama Thornton isn't just a blues singer, I think she's a rocker. And to me she was the foundation of a lot of stuff that came after.
In conversation
Presenter asks
8:02Tell me more about your mum. It sounds like she was creative and interested in the arts and music.
music. And she was very patient too, because I was a really, really odd kid. In every way. My idea of play was listening to her records. She had musicals. And because there were so many different voices, it's what I did all day. I would listen and imitate them, and then I would listen again and imitate them. And I had it down, you know, but this was how I spent my time. My father also loved books, and he would always have instruments all over the place.
Presenter asks
9:14Did you have a sense of that as a little girl that you were seeing parents who maybe hadn't fulfilled their ambitions, their dreams?
He loved tinkering and playing this and playing that and his idea was when he retired he wanted a he had an organ and he was gonna play in a bar. What did he do for a living? He was a shipping clerk at Bul of a Watch, which is where he met my mom.
Presenter asks
20:20So I mean obviously glad that it worked out and you became an artist, but at the time, what did it feel like hearing that? [that you were most likely to die or become an artist]
The keepsakes
The luxury
it'll have everything I need. A piano, I could do my vocals, I could do like I could do whatever. I could write melodies, I could cook.
I didn't care. I kinda liked the fact that people thought I was a little craygray.
Presenter asks
21:03Your career was almost over before it began because you also lost your voice for a year after you just started out as a singer. What happened exactly and how did you get it back?
You sing in these bands. You have to learn how to perform and stuff. So I would be singing, and they'd have the 200-watt martial amps right by me, and the cymbal where the guy would be hitting it right by your head. So you're singing like singing in this little fart box that was supposed to be the monitor. So basically. ... And I remember at one point I asked one of the guitar players in the second band to please turn down and he just ignored me 'cause I had to sing over him. So I was playing cow belt, you know, with the broken drumstick. So I jabbed him. And then he got really upset. And he stopped playing. And I said, Thank you.
Presenter asks
25:27But originally, this was a track that you weren't keen to do. You had to adapt it and make it your own, make it fit you. How did you do it?
When I was in Blue Angel I learned a lot from John Torrey, who helped me understand that different keys would make your voice sound completely different. And then you would take on a different personality, different spirit, whatever. I started doing that, and I also realized my grandmother and my mother, they were tailors. So they could take clothing that were hand-me-downs, pull them apart, put them back together on you, and it looked perfect like it was made for you. So I started to feel like that kind of mentality. Is the same for songs, isn't it? And so. You take it apart and put it back together so that it sounded like it's you. But you also, Cindy, changed the lyric. Yeah, absolutely, and edited some things that didn't make sense. They wanted me to make a female anthem. They just didn't realize that they talked to somebody who burnt a training bra at the first demonstration at the Alice in Wonderland statue in the sixties. ... The original track, I think, you know, it's a son singing to his father. Yeah, how lovely. Yeah, the idea, nudge, nudge. We are the fortunate ones 'cause girls they want to have fun with us. Why not? You know, and why not? That makes sense. But it didn't make sense as a woman, to sing that, like, what am I singing about? It needed a new spirit and a new arrangement. We did it and it worked.
Presenter asks
31:04Why did that song [True Colors] resonate so deeply with people?
There are certain songs that are healing songs. And I in my life had the privilege of being part of two songs that have helped communities over the years. And the one thing was at the time. In America they were not talking about AIDS. and AIDS was very prevalent and people were dying. ... And I had a friend who, if people were more educated and they understood about the disease more, they would not have treated these people this way. And I was always worried about my friend. I was worried if I came to see my friend, am I going to kill him with my germs? Is he going to kill me? Am I going somewhere else? What am I doing? Nobody's telling us about this thing. ... I sang True Colors for us who survived him. for him because he was really a good, good kid and a young adult. And he never felt good about himself because you're made to feel horrible about yourself, and that's what makes these youth more vulnerable. ... at one point I was singing True Colors and some guy came up to me from the crowd with a flag, like the new rainbow flag. ... And he said, You know, I designed this because I was inspired by your song. So that was the pride thing. put it on, and after that moment I knew that Gregory got his wish. There was the song that I sang for him.
“Mom, sometimes when you hear this stuff, is it so beautiful that it just makes you cry? And she said, Yes, that's what music can do.”
“I was most likely to die or become an artist. They had no idea what was going to become of me.”
“I didn't care. I kinda liked the fact that people thought I was a little craygray.”
“There are certain songs that are healing songs.”
“I did not make disposable music and I don't do that because the you just do the best you can and don't make disposable music or make music that makes people happy. Find some songs that help people, and you can leave that behind and do some great work.”