Pictured Heather Headley, Morcheeba, Cyndi Lauper, Savage Garden, Double Fortune and Bonnie Raitt.
Tony Award-winner Heather Headley returns with her second pop album, In My Mind. Out now on RCA, Headley wanted to take the necessary time with her sophomore effort, citing that this collection is about having the right songs. While this outing is filled with soulful R&B gems, dance floor-ready remixes of the title track come courtesy of the Freemasons and Dave Hernandez. Headley finds herself in good company working with Babyface, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Clive Davis on ‘Mind.’ Born in Trinidad and now calling Chicago home, the talented and beautiful Broadway veteran starred in The Lion King and won a Tony Award for her performance in Aida.
While Headley started off on Broadway, Cyndi Lauper is about to make her debut on the Great White Way. Along with Alan Cumming, Jim Dale, Ana Gasteyer and Nellie McKay, Lauper is set to play Jenny in Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. The Wallace Shawn adaptation is scheduled to open April 20 at Studio 54. With fashions by Isaac Mizrahi, this should be quite an affair, albeit tentatively as a limited engagement. After seeing Lauper belt out ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ during Bravo’s Broadway’s Best quite animatedly, a transition to stage seems like a logical step. In conjunction with her latest album, The Body Acoustic, Cyndi was joined by guests including Ani DiFranco, Shaggy and Velvet Revolver’s Scott Weiland during VH-1 Classic’s Decades Rock Live. Never fading with compassion toward the GLBT community, the ‘True Colors’ singer has joined the Matthew Shepard Foundation’s honorary board.
When describing 2005’s album The Antidote on Logo’s New Now Next program, Ross Godfrey of Morcheeba threw an insult at Coldplay. Godfrey said, ‘We change a lot just through boredom really. Whatever we’ve done last, we just do something different the next time. If you made the same record over and over again, it would be pretty dull like Coldplay.’ Chris Martin’s band has been receiving flack since many see plenty of similarities between Coldplay and U2. Not only does the Antidote boast a more psychedelic sound than the band’s familiar downtempo grooves, but it features Daisy Martey as the new lead singer. Morcheeba’s former chanteuse, Sky Edwards, is now pursuing solo projects.
Chicago’s trio Double Fortune will be performing live at Jackhammer on Friday February 17th. The openly gay lead singer Angie Maloney enjoys performing the band’s own material and covering songs like the White Stripes’ ‘Pretty Good Looking for a Girl’ and David Bowie’s ‘Queen Bitch.’ Through her lyrics, Maloney testifies the politics and issues of being a young lesbian. Emo and sad songs are quite trendy now, yet Double Fortune deliberately makes fun, upbeat music with depth and substance. Rounding out the band are drummer Jonathan Gray and bassist Tom Hollinden. Double Fortune’s EP is available through the band’s official Web site, www.double-fortune.com, and a full-length album is currently in the works.
Having her career receive a jump start 18 years into it, Bonnie Raitt achieved massive chart success with 1989’s Nick of Time and 1991’s Luck of the Draw; even George Michael did a flawless rendition of her ballad ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me.’ Not only does she play a mean slide guitar, but Raitt was the first woman to have a guitar named after her. The Ladies of the Canyon Presents series is saluting Raitt on Feb. 21 at Martyrs, 3855 N. Lincoln, by showcasing local female talents singing Raitt’s material spanning the Grammy winner’s career. Getting tickets to a Raitt show is quite a feat, so this serves as the next best thing. Since its inception, the Ladies of the Canyon Presents outfit has done tributes to Tori Amos, Heart and Annie Lennox.
Get ready to add some sugar and cherry cola to your musical intake—Sony just issued Truly Madly Completely: The Best of Savage Garden. Here, the songs sound like a blend of Roxette and a more mature boy band. Gaydar does not work on this cute male duo, and it might be because they are from Australia. Singer Darren Hayes was wearing eyeliner long before the metrosexual rock invasion lead by Brandon Flowers of the Killers. During her daytime talk show, Rosie O’Donnell helped plug Savage Garden’s breakthrough song ‘I Want You’; she loved the mention of cherry cola in the lyrics. ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ was not only the pair’s first No. 1 hit in the U.S., but it was also a fixture on the WB network for teen primetime programming. Although they split four years ago, Darren Hayes is having success with a solo career. Despite only having two albums, this 17-track set includes five B-sides and two new songs Hayes recorded just for the retrospective. As a plus, the CD booklet includes a photo of the duo waving to the audience at a live show, revealing a slight glimpse of Darren’s armpit hair.