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In 1977 disco is hot everywhere you go, and everytime you step out on the dance floor, one song rings as the anthem, “Disco Inferno” by the Tramps.

Twenty-two years later, progressive house or techno is the hottest craze.

Dance remixes of radio edits are where the money is at and artist?s flock to find a chart climbing oldie to get their hands on. Most remixes of classics lack the original energy or even style that made it so popular. But occasionally a gem comes along that relives the very reason it was created so many years ago.

Cyndi Lauper just released a dance remix of The Tramps classic “Disco Inferno.” She has come a long way since “True Colors” and proves it with this Billboard Dance Single listing tracking at number 9, beating Donna Summer’s dance track.

This certainly by no means is Cyndi’s first dance remix chart topper but it certainly could be the one that springs her back into popularity. This year Cyndi tours as a special guest with Cher and energizes the audience with her new dance hit. It savors all the original style from the Tramps but adds Cyndi’s spice that she is so well known for. The soundtrack remix is done by Soul Solution again and can be found on Jellybean Records (yes Madonna’s ex-boytoy Jellybean Benitez.) This version keeps all the same lyrics but Cyndi notarizes it with her well-known shrill yell that only she can do. At first listen, one will realize that it is tastefully redone but again not a dance floor anthem.

Hopefully the DJ’s will be smart enough to go beyond the surface and listen to the other remixes such as the Boris & Beck Roxy Edit Dub. This version lacks all but two sentences from the lyrics and has a bass driven beat that will have any club goes dancing on tables. No one artist has been able to be throned as the king or queen of dance releases but the remixes of Disco Inferno sure gives Cyndi Lauper more than her fair share of votes.

American kooks burned our flag to protest same-sex couples, so we might as well give equal time to a pair of visiting American performers who have different views on the subject.

One of them is Cyndi Lauper. Like Cher – who she’s opening for in Skyreach Centre tonight – the singer of Girls Just Want to Have Fun has attracted a large gay following. Lauper was grand marshal of the 1996 Gay Pride parade in New York, her signature tune has enjoyed a revival in gay circles and one of the key tracks from her last studio album was an ode to lesbian love.

While Lauper is heterosexual, married (to actor David Thornton in 1992; Little Richard performed the ceremony) and a new mom, she has gay friends and relatives. She’s obviously broached this topic during interviews before.

“I love the community”, she says. “I embrace it. I don’t know what (Cher’s) thing is, but then again, friends and family, you know? You got to stick by your friends and family and stand up for them, because in a world that’s run by fear of anybody who’s different, you got to be there and have their backs covered. Because if you don’t, all the fearful people take over and everything is run by fear, just because people are a little different. That community is made up of friends and family of mine. I am there for them. I enjoy it. It’s more fun. And I’m having a blast,” she pauses. “Does that answer your question or is that too strong? I never know what to say.”

A question was never actually asked. It’s hardly necessary when it comes to this particular entertainer. With refreshing candour (and a charming Brooklyn accent), Lauper conducts a stream-of-consciousness interview on the phone from a tour stop in Denver. The 46-year-old singer talks about everything from production techniques on her dance recordings (she used loops in 1993, long before it became the norm in pop music) and meeting her idol Joni Mitchell (whose chain-smoking gave her a headache) to details on giving birth (a 15-hour labour done the “natural” way, if you really want to know) – practically all in the same breath.

Since she and Epic Records “parted ways” shortly after her 1997 album Sisters of Avalon, Lauper is enjoying a comeback as an independent recording artist with a new version of Disco Inferno. A new full-length album is in the works.

“It’s a great summer song and it seems to be really taking off,” she says. “I don’t know where it is now, but it was No. 19 with a bullet last week.” (Another unusual trait – an artist talking about chart positions.)

Does Lauper feel any qualms about jumping on the cover song remake bandwagon? Everyone’s doing it.

“Listen. It was a fluke. Last year, my husband did a movie called The Last Days of Disco, and he played this guy Bernie in the movie and he would bring home these CDs of Studio 54 stuff so he could listen and get into character. The song goes, ‘Burn, baby burn,’ and his name was Bernie, so anyway ….”

So anyway – long story short – she did the song, and while The Last Days of Disco soundtrack producers passed, A Night at the Roxbury picked it up.

“And all of a sudden it was nominated for a Grammy!” she exclaims. “It’s extraordinary what’s happening. Honest to God, it’s a fluke. Who knew?”

Few could’ve predicted it. Tarred with the bubblegum label after her 1984 debut and the follow-up, 1986’s True Colors, Lauper’s career seemed to flounder. Many casual fans perhaps failed to realize the true depth of her talent, as a songwriter, as a producer, especially as a soul singer (if you caught her smokin’ performance on David Letterman’s 10th anniversary special, you’d know). She says she doesn’t dwell on what people might think of her any more, but she’s used to being misunderstood by now.

She recalls: “I used to chase a priest around when I was a little kid in Catholic school. And I’d always run up to him and say, ‘Fatha, fatha,’ just to walk with him as he was reading his book back and forth and he’d say, ‘And what’s your name?’ And I would say Cynthia (her given name). And he’d say, ‘Oh, that’s nice, Sylvia,’ because he was a little Irish and I’d say, ‘No, no: Cynthia.’ And he’d say, ‘Nice, Sylvia.’ And after a while, he said it so many times, I said OK, I’ll go with this: Sylvia. Good. Whatever.”

That seems to have been Lauper’s attitude for most of the ’90s – from experimenting in the studio, to landing a role on Mad About You, to being invited to tour with Cher, it all happened by happy accident. That’s what you get when you’re a girl who still just wants to have fun

TURN THE BEAT AROUND: For Cyndi Lauper, recording a cover version of the Trammp’s 1978 dance classic “Disco Inferno” was a lot like giving birth. In fact, with some ironic twists of fate in play, that’s exactly what the groundbreaking ’80’s singer/songwriter did: She used the original track to exercise with while pregnant in 1998 and then played it during the delivery of her son Declyn.

The whimsical tale begins when her husband since 1991, actor David Thornton, was cast in the 1998 motion picture “The Last Days of Disco.” “He kept bringing home all of this studio 54 music,” Lauper explains, “and during the last part of my pregnancy, I found myself dancing to the song, over and over.”

Thornton then said,”Wouldn’t it be great to record that song for the movie I’m in?” That didn’t work out, but Lauper was so inspired that she ended up recording the raucous, freewheeling track anyway and found a home for it on the soundtrack to last year’s “A Night At The Roxbury” on Dreamworks. Curiously, the track was not chosen as a single, but then it was awarded an unexpected and influential endorsement: “Disco Inferno” was nominated last year for a grammy award as best dance single.

“That’s when everybody got excited and said, ‘Let’s put it out,'”Lauper says. Talk about the miracle of birth. Without a major-label deal to deliver the song to radio, Lauper eventually hooked up through producer/remixer Soul Solution with old friend and 80’s remixer Jellybean Benitez, now the head of his own label, Jellybean Recordings.

“I did remixes back in 1983 of ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun,’ so I’ve known Cyndi for a good number of years, and we’ve kept in touch”, Benitez says. “When this came up, it was an easy decision. I just thought it would be fun to do, and with this whole retro thing going on in dance music, the timing seemed to work really well.”

The track is now a certifiable hit, climbing this issue to No.32 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart and spinning at a handful of dance-leaning top 40 stations, including WKTU New York. A commercial CD-5 with remixes due Aug.3; a CD single and cassette single will follow Aug. 24. “Being that it’s a remake of ‘Disco Inferno’, it naturally fits into that weekend-party frame of mind,” says John McDaniel, PD of noncommercial dance outlet KNHC Seattle. “Our early response has been pretty positive. I think that people are happy she’s back with anything at all. It’s a good move, and people recognize her instantly. It just couldn’t be anybody else singing it.”

“This song has two major things going for it,” adds Victor “The Latino ,” assistant PD/music director for dance station WXXP (Party 105) Long Island, New York. “Number one, it’s a classic dance song that people recognize, and two, Cyndi Lauper did it. This is a great opportunity for us to play something new from her.

“People are calling and saying, ‘My God, she’s back.’ There’s an element of surprise that a superstar of the ’80’s is returning, which makes the success story easier to build,” he says. And the timing couldn’t be better for Party 105, given its July 25 megadance concert, featuring 25 dance oriented artists. Lauper served as a cohost for the event.

For the artist, the track marks another notch in a nearly 20-year career marked by eight top 40 hits, five hit albums, and a grammy for best new artist in 1984. Lauper also won an Emmy in 1995 for an appearance as the character Marianne Lagasso on NBC’s Mad About You.” which led to a reprise of the nadcap role in the show’s final episode, which aired in May 1999. In addition, she was just selected one of VH1’s 100 greatest women of rock’n’roll, landing at No.58. “Really? I didn’t even know that,” Lauper says with amusement. “You see? I’m right there in the middle. Some people will like you and half the people won’t, so all you can do is just keep going.”

Part of that mission icludes a major role in the upcoming independent film, “The Opportunists,” alongside Christopher Walken. In the movie which was shot last fall and is due out later this summer, Lauper will play Walken’s love interest, Sally, who runs the local watering hole he frequents.

But foremost, the music remains front and center: Lauper is on the rode throughtout the summer as the opener act for Cher’s high-profile North American tour, with a 50 minute set. “I must say, having people stand up and scream and sing along to the songs that weren’t hits is kind of nice. There’s a lot of energy and I’m having a hoot,” she says.

“Seeing Cyndi live, you get the sense that she’s an artist that needs to perform,” Benitez says. “Her interaction with the audience is amazing. She has a true core fan base out there, which I didn’t fully understand until we moved the release date for ‘Disco Inferno.’ You better believe I heard from all of them calling here nonstop.”

And yes, Lauper says, she still performs her 1983 debut hit, Girls Just Want To Have Fun. “It’s an anthem, and it meant a lot to people,” she attests. “And now, there’s a new generation of young women and girls who listen to that song, which is pretty remarkable. It’s not like, ‘Oh, that’s a song that used to be famous’. It was a song that freed people, so I do it because of what it meant. I have tried throughout my career to do songs that were worthy and not just disposable art, things that meant something to me, because then they would mean things to other people,” Lauper says. “I try not to sing words that aren’t grounded in some form of reality.”

She hopes to continue that approach with an upcoming album, perhaps in the fall, though Lauper admits that securing a label deal must come first. “I need to have fun at a label; they’ve all become so corporate,” she says. “I’ve taken some meetings, and it all just felt the same. So for now, this is perfect, with the tour to keep me busy.”

Still, she’s been actively writing and has already completed a song with dance producer Junior Vasquez and another with bandmate/producer Jan Pulsford, so it’s likely she will visit dance-land again.

“I love dance music,” she says. “It’s a subculture where there are no boundaries, where music is music and you’re not separated by color or age, gender, or sexuality. I enjoy that as a really great place.”

“I’d love to see her make a comeback all the way, like in the old days,” says McDaniel at KNHC, who fully supports her entree into the dance arena. “We’ve been a dance station since Cyndi had her first album out, so she’s always been a dance artist, for us anyway. Even when she crossed to top 40, we felt like she was our artist. As far as we’re concerned, she’s a superstar act, and we always have to at least take a second listen to whatever she’s doing.”

If Lauper has any say, programmers will be hooked the first time through, thanks to her dedication to grow with her music. “I feel compelled to always dig deeper and do the best I can,” she says. “To me, the joy of music is the birth of it, the creation, discovery, and the danger. Without that, it has no life in it, and music with no life falls dead on the ears.

“I think I live to sing. Music makes me feel more alive then anything else.”

It isn’t just the surplus of sequins, feathers, and rainbow wigs that lured Cyndi Lauper to her current gig — working all summer as Cher’s “special guest” on tour. Lauper views this road show much as she did a similar assignment two summers ago when she was tapped as opener for Tina Turner.

“When you think about how many times these women have been written off,” Lauper says. “Then they come back — and how they just keep putting their work out there and succeeding in an industry where people can’t wait to get rid of you — it’s pretty inspiring.”

In her own version of coming back from the dead, Cyndi Lauper has also had to reinvent herself more than once, while contending with radio stations, retailers, and record label executives who told her she was past her prime.

“I’ve learned not to wait for other people, or allow them to define who I am,” says Lauper, who told a generation of girls that they just wanna have fun. “You have to create your own opportunities.”

Today, 20 years after launching her music career, Lauper, 46, remains an unapologetic collision of blue hair and glittery excess.

“Yes, I walk around New York this way,” she says, fussing with a patch of her sky-blue tresses. “Do people notice? I’m not sure anymore. They’re used to me.”

What people have noticed over the years, is that there has always been much more to this singer-songwriter than her punk-meets-Oz look. She earned much praise for her wide-ranging ’90s albums Hat Full of Stars and Sisters of Avalon, which incorporated equal parts rock, folk, and pop. She’s also done well as an actress, appearing in several movies, including the soon-to-be-released independent film The Opportunists, starring Christopher Walken. And she was an Emmy-winner in 1995, for her recurring guest role on NBC’s Mad About You.

But it was her stint as opener for Turner in ’97 that got heads turning again. As if her powerful 50-minute sets weren’t enough, Lauper performed these energetic shows while in the advanced stages of her first pregnancy, leaving admirers all the more in awe.

“Working was probably the healthiest thing I could have done,” she says. “You’re carrying a baby. You’re not an invalid.” Her son, Declyn, now 18 months old, is traveling with her for most of the summer.

“It’s a lot,” she says of her schedule, which also includes late-night club shows in some cities — after she leaves the arena stage. “I guess I got busy. But I like that.”

The after-hours shows pump her remake of the old Trammps hit Disco Inferno, which was first heard on the A Night at the Roxbury soundtrack. It was later nominated for a Grammy and is now in stores in single format.

Though music remains her chief priority, she hopes to return to television soon. As part of a now-concluded deal with NBC, she created a sitcom for herself, which she is now shopping elsewhere. “My job is very clear to me,” she says. “My responsibility is to create and keep creating. The other stuff, whether people think you’re great or you suck, isn’t part of it. It’s not my job to judge.”

After what has already been a remarkably accomplished career spanning two decades of pop music, music videos, and television/film acting, the forty-something Grammy Award winning diva and new mother isn’t quitting or resting on her laurels. Instead, she’s turning up the heat with a club-savvy revamp of the ’70’s classic “Disco Inferno” and guest starring all summer on Cher’s much-hyped “Do You Believe?” stadium tour.

“It was actually my birthing song,” Lauper recalled in a recent phone interview from her Manhattan home, before leaving for three and a half months of non-stop touring. “David [Thornton, her husband] was in the film Last Days of Disco, and he brought home all the Studio 54 music, and I was attracted to that song. Then after Declyn [her baby was born], I knew why they say “Burn, Baby, Burn!”

Though the song appeared last year on the soundtrack for the film A Night At The Roxbury, nabbing Lauper a Grammy nomination for “Best Dance Recording,” it was never properly released as a single until just last month by indie dance label Jellybean Recordings. Re-tweaked by superstar production team Soul Solution (Bobby Guy and Ernie Lake), “Disco Inferno ’99” will also appear on the Jellybean compilation Cool Cuts II, due out in mid-July.

“I did the original version [for A Night at the Roxbury] in two days,” Lauper laughed, “and it was nominated for a Grammy, go figure! Then everybody started saying, ‘You’ve got to release this [as a single].’ But I wanted to redo the vocals, because I didn’t think it sounded that good. So I brought in a new microphone, and I redid the vocals. I was looking for a new character, because I didn’t want to sound like other people who’ve done the song.” The result is an energetic East-Coast vocal house track with all the markings of a commercial hit.

As for the future, aside from developing a new TV sitcom pilot based loosely on her Marianne Lagasso character from NBC’s Mad About You and starring in the upcoming independent film The Opportunists, opposite Christopher Walken, Lauper’s already begun writing material for a new album with her longtime collaborator Jan Pulsford, as well as other notable names like famed club DJ/producer Junior Vasquez. But she doesn’t want to rush into anything, especially with the current merger-frenzied atmosphere in the record industry.

“I want a minute to write, and formulate my thoughts,” she explained. “Eventually I’m going to go back [to recording], I have to, but I thought the tour was a nice little break.” The girl is just having fun.

His arms waving wildly the man sitting at the bar finished the story with which he had been flirtatiously haranguing the tolerant bartender for several minutes “and she just grabbed her shirt and lifted it up to show her big round tummy right there on stage and she said am i showing ?” He laughed but that’s cyndi lauper for you.

The obvious question is since when do guys talk about Cyndi Lauper when they are getting plastered at carson street watering holes? But in this case it is somewhat understandable. Cyndi is opening for Cher this week at Star Lake so naturally she is on some people minds. The more subtle question is “what did the man at the bar mean when he said “Thats cyndi lauper for you” ? He might have just meant that she’s crazy even when she is mondo pregnant. By the time she finished that last tour of hers touting her 1996 album Sisters Of Avalon, she was ready to pop at any moment but that didn’t stop her from hopping around onstage as if it were still 1983.

It’s more likely though that he meant something a little broader namely that Cyndi is at her best when she is surprising people. When She’s So Unusual hit the charts 16 years ago it wasn’t just the albums infectious reggae grooves unforgettable melodies and quirky instrumentals provide by fellow 80’s pop stars. The Hooters moonlighting as Lauper’s backup band as they later would for Joan Osbourne that propelled Cyndi into the cultural spotlight. It was her style that clinched it her irrepressible feminist exuberance that came in the form of multi colored tresses songs about masturbation and lots of eyerolling at the tired old male power structure personified by Captain Lou Albano.

Ultimately Madonna proved a lot more sucessful in seizing upon 80’s America’s need for a post Blondie pop diva with punk attitude. But Cyndi did it first not to mention that she’s always been the better singer of the two.

“That album influenced me in a big way” says Chris Carnevali whose band the fuzzy comets has lately been at the vanguard of Pittsburgh fem pop. “I warped the cassette from over use.”

Through the late 80’s and early 90’s uneven material weighed Cyndi down. True Colors was a hit as was her Goonies soundtrack appearance but her failure to follow her She’s So Unusual with an equally outstanding collection of songs was a misstep that cost her superstardom. 1993’s Hat Full Of Stars had a half dozen great tunes but was marred by a half dozen more that were clunkers as well as by misplaced dancehall style production by Junior Vasquez.

Lately though Cyndi seems to have regained her ability to startle people into paying attention. The aforementioned sight of her swollen belly bouncing to and from onstage throughout 1997 ended up in magazine and newspaper pages across the country from Rolling Stone to the New York Post. Her unexpected cover of Disco Inferno for last year’s A Night At The Roxbury soundtrack has finally garnered her what she has been seeking for years, recognition from the dance club world.

The biggest surprise Cyndi hit us with recently seemed to come from out of left field, she can sing the blues like nothing you’ve ever seen. Appropriately enough this was revealed through a new collaberation with her old partners from She’s So Unusual. Cyndi rejoined the Hooters’ Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian and their producer Rick Chertoff for the 1998 roots rock epic Largo, an all star album featuring vocal performances by everyone from Joan Osbourne to Taj Mahal. Cyndi’s solo the torchy blues ballad White Man’s Melody is positioned as the centerpiece of the album and when she performed it live at the CD release party in New York, she made damn sure everyone knew why it was the centerpiece.

We already knew she could do betty boop. What we didn’t know was that she could cross betty boop with Ella Fitzgerald drop down to a whisper and send chills washing over us, making us imagine her musical past had been dressed in long white gloves rather than a ton of jangly bracelets.

If she’s smart she’ll be that well, that so unusual more often. It’s hard to ignore someone who gets a standing ovation in the middle of a concert.

Two years ago, while on tour with Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper was a pregnant diva. Now, a mom (to son Declyn), she’s back on the road again, this time with Cher. Hew new dance single “Disco Inferno ’99” (Jellybean Records) has the potential to be the dance anthem of what has started out to be a long hot summer.

GREG SHAPIRO: YOU HAVE HAD A FEW DIFFERENT PHASES IN YOUR CAREER. YOU STARTED OUT WITH ROCKABILY, MOVED TO NEW WAVE, THEN TO POP MUSIC AND NOW DANCE. CAN YOU TELL ME A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT THAT PROGRESSION?

CYNDI LAUPER: I always had dance music incorporated in my work, because I always thought that dance was more innovative. I was never, when I first came out like Madonna, she was an all-dance artist. I wasn’t like that. I was more like pop, and then they did remixes in the clubs. But, I got most of the sounds from the dance songs, like the drums, the gated snare, that was all from the dance music. And I always tried to mix the rockabily in with that.

GS: WHEN DO YOU THINK IT WAS THAT THERE WAS THE MOST NOTABLE CHANGE IN YOUR MUSICAL STYLE?

CL: It was really only in ’90 that my work took a shift, when I started to try and use loops with the pop music. I remember calling Shep Pettibone and asking Shep, because I had slowed down a house (music) beat to like 104 beats per minute, and he said, “Well, that’s a good pop song, but that’s not a dance song. It has to be 142 (beats per minute).” Then I just continued working on mixing stuff and taking the stuff I did with the Hooters and was doing with Allee Willis and added loops. I started doing loops with Allee. I was very excited about it. I loved the beat of rap. I’m a big fan of Queen Latifah. I started to mix all that stuff together.

GS: IN ADDITION TO WORKING WITH SHEP PETTIBONE, YOU’VE ALSO WORKED WITH OTHER REMIXERS.

CL: In 1992, I met Junior (Vasquez) and I also met Eric, the guy who was producing Run DMC. Junior understood exactly what I was trying to do…he told me without my telling him…so I figured we’d make a good match. I’ve been working on that kind of stuff since “Hat Full Of Stars.” It wasn’t that popular then, it was something new. Everybody thought I was a little insane. They said, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that Lauper girl.” And then, in 1995, when Garbage and Alanis Morissette came out, it (using loops in pop music) became a popular thing to do. It was a natural outcome of the new beat that hip-hop created. When hip-hop started, it was like the beginning of rock and roll again, for me. It was like new wave when it first happened or the punk scene. It was new, it was fabulous. Things are still mutating and that’s the fun and beauty of music. I always incorporated dance in that, because Junior Vasquez was from the dance community.

GS: YOU CAN REALLY FEEL THAT ON THE “SISTERS OF AVALON” ALBUM.

CL: When I did “Sisters of Avalon,” I incorporated the dance beat with “The Ballad of Cleo and Joe.” The aim was to write a dance song. I wrote it because I had these wonderful (drag) performers that traveled all around the world with me when I did the “Twelve Deadly Cyns” and they performed with me on “(he Now) Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” the remake. I worked with all these different drag queens in every country, it was the most amazing thing. It inspired (the writing of “Cleo and Joe”). I wanted to write something in honor of them. So, I thought, “Cleopatra and Joe Blow,” it really could be a regular guy who transforms himself into this fabulous creature. Very Fellini. I, myself, am a bit of a drag queen from time to time.

GS: HOW DID YOUR CURRENT DANCE SINGLE COME ABOUT?

CL: “Disco Inferno” happened because it was one of my birthing songs. My husband (David Thornton), was in this movie called “The Last Days of Disco” and he played this guy Bernie. So, he brought all this music home from (the time of) Studio 54 to do his research. “Disco Inferno” was one of the songs (and it has the line), “Burn baby burn,” because his name was Bernie in the film and I started singing it all the time, and then the opportunity came up (for me) to do it in the movie. We did it and then all of a sudden it was nominated for a Grammy, and everybody was saying, “You’ve got to put this out.” So, Jellybean acquired it and now it’s on Jellybean’s label, which is a dance label. I’m going to have a good time with it. I enjoy dance music. The thing about dance music is that there’s a lot of room to sing. I don’t have to worry about someone saying, “Oh, she sings too high” or “Oh, it’s this or that.” It doesn’t matter. The dance community is one place where there’s no racial barrier, no sex barrier, no barrier whether you’re straight or not. There’s none of that prejudice shit. White, black, green, Martian, who gives a shit? Is it good? Can you dance to it? Is it alive? It’s happening.

GS: IT’S A MUCH FREER COMMUNITY.

CL: And you know what, I’m so much more relaxed there (laughs). I don’t do well with “suits.” I really don’t. I don’t know what it is. I guess I have to back into therapy.

GS: OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS, YOU’VE BEEN ON SOME PRETTY SPECTACULAR TOURS. YOU’VE GONE FROM TOURING WITH TINA TURNER TO CHER. HOW DOES THAT FEEL?

CL: When I went on tour with Tina, I thought it was a great opportunity to promote the “Sisters Of Avalon” CD. It was a fabulous tour for me, except that her audience was much older. So, when I was talking about house music and deep house and I would look out in the audience, and these people, they don’t go to the clubs. So it became more like a stand-up (routine). It was a spectacular thing, because just touring with Tina alone was one of the most inspiring things. She’s got a great voice and every night when she would sing, she’d hit every freakin’ note. It’s pretty amazing. And I was sort of the big pregnant lady on tour (laughs). I used to wear the Iris Chacon outfits, because I figured I’m not going to wear a sack. I wore skin-tight latex. I figured, “Show the kid.” So me and the kid, on the inside, we’d go out there in foo-foo shoes and sing. Now, he’s on the outside, so it’s kind of peculiar.

GS: WHAT ABOUT THE CURRENT TOUR?

CL: This thing with Cher, the most remarkable thing is that I didn’t really want to go on a tour because I don’t have a full-fledged album. I just have this single coming out. I went on a few meetings and I felt like, well, “Do I really want to run right back into a corporate situation again?” Maybe I should just take a little bread. And then, when it came up a second time, and they said, “Come on, come on, this could be the biggest tour. You can do it, this is great, blah blah blah.” And I said, “Well, I’ve got the kid…but things started to become do-able. I decided to do the tour, and now, thinking about it, what I’m really knocked out about is two women (Turner and Cher) who people discounted, and who proved that it doesn’t matter how people see you, it’s how you see yourself. They came back with their strength and their longevity and they chose me to be with them because they feel that I have longevity, I guess. These are women who are remarkable, honestly, when you think about what they’ve done. And I know Cher, she’s a bit of a drag queen and I’m a bit of a drag queen. I’m right there with her. She’s an actress, she’s a singer. And I’m a singer’s singer, so I know she’s got a good voice, that one.

GS: ABSOLUTELY. WHAT DID YOU THINK THE PHIL COLLINS’ COVER OR “TRUE COLORS?”

CL: It was interesting. They made it work. I don’t know how intimate it was, but they made it work. They took a lot of stuff from our arrangement that we originally did and they added more music. That song can’t take a lot of music. You start putting a lot of music on there and it turns corny real quick. With that kind of sentiment (in the song), I always feel I go against it. I tried to do it in a really intimate way, to come from a very pure and emotion place, kind of naked. For me, I had a friend who had just passed away, and it was about healing. It was a healing song. It wasn’t just for the world, although it was, it was also for me. It was personal thing that I did. The Phil Collins version, I don’t know if he got that deep, but it was a good and beautiful song. Certainly, Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly wrote a beautiful song. However you use those songs to tell your story is your business.

GS: WHEN WE SPOKE A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, I ASKED YOU ABOUT WHAT BROADWAY MUSICAL YOU WOULD WANT TO DO IF YOU COULD DO ONE. YOU ANSWERED “ANNIE GET YOUR GUN.” GERNADETTE PETERS IS NOW DOING IT ON BROADWAY. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT YOU WILL GET TO PLAY ANNIE IN A NATIONAL TOUR?

CL: God bless Bernadette Peters. She just got a Tony (award) for it. I don’t think I’d do a national tour. I either do it on Broadway or I wouldn’t do it.

GS: ARE THERE ANY OTHER SHOWS YOU MIGHT CONSIDER DOING ON BROADWAY?

CL: Yes. I’ve been approached to do some stuff. I’ve got to think about it. Somebody came to me when the heard the “Sisters Of Avalon” CD and they were inspired and they have backing. It’s pretty amazing. But, I’m just trying to get this tour mounted and make sure that the music and how we look is right. It’s an amazing little group–four women and three guys–and the women play just as well as the men. I’m very excited. You don’t just want cute girls (in your band). They’re cute, but they also play.

LOS ANGELES – Cyndi Lauper’s latest hair color is blue.

More than 15 years since this spunky songbird from Queens, N.Y., burst onto the music scene with wild orange hair, punk/retro-wear outfits, and the revolutionary idea that Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Lauper’s style is still uncompromising.

Sitting in her Manhattan apartment, the singer/actress is taking care of business. Her latest single, a remake of the Trammps’ Disco Inferno, is set for a summer release; she’s working on a new studio album; development has begun on a TV pilot in which she’ll star; and she’s the special guest performer on Cher’s Believe tour kicking off Wednesday.

Her chirpy voice and Queens accent sound familiar over the phone. Lauper, 45, who speaks about her life with blunt honestly and cutting humor, says she truly began to focus on singing after she bombed out big time at everything else she tried: the list includes painting, art school and fashion design. Some people come to the planet to do something, she says, I guess (singing’s) what I could do.

Born into a family of Italian immigrants, Lauper was raised in Brooklyn and Queens by her hard-working waitress mother, whom Lauper describes as a high stepping dame. She recalls her neighborhood as rather bizarre: It was kind of like purgatory, but there were moments of real beauty.

Catholic boarding school took its toll on her, with its emphasis on conformity and regulations. But, as with most of Lauper’s early life, what didn’t kill her only made her stronger. I will never be like a sheep, she says. It’s just not my nature.

In the early ’70s, Lauper dropped out of art school and started singing with cover bands in small Long Island clubs while supporting herself with odd jobs. After a few years of this, her untrained voice gave out from the strain. I didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning, so I lost my voice, admits Lauper, who now has a four-octave range. It made me very suicidal.

After a year of intense vocal training, and with the aid of what she calls a fight, fight, fight attitude, Lauper formed Blue Angel, a ’50s-style rock band, in 1978, later filing for bankruptcy when the band split. By the early ’80s, with the aid of her then manager and boyfriend David Wolff, she landed a record deal as a solo artist on CBS’ Portrait label.

Her debut release, 1983’s She’s So Unusual, went to No. 4 and won her a Grammy for best new artist, eventually selling over 5 million copies. The album’s success made her the first female artist to have four top five singles: Girls Just Want to Have Fun, She Bop, Time After Time and All Through the Night. When the Girls video went into heavy rotation on the fledgling MTV cable channel, there wasn’t a teenage girl in America who didn’t want to emulate the freewheeling Lauper.

That freaked me out, says Lauper. It wasn’t just being famous, it was the fact that everybody wore my clothes, they imitated me and looked like me and sounded like me. I literally couldn’t get away from myself. Lauper recalls getting to the point where hearing her songs on the radio made her retreat into a corner and shake.

Her counterculture image and musical style made her a poster child of the early ’80s. Though she was praised for her ingenious image marketing – unlike Madonna who also emerged at that time – Lauper says, it wasn’t made up, it was really kind of where I lived.

From the party anthem Girls Just Want to Have Fun to the pro-masturbation rocker She Bop, Lauper became a feminist pop icon. In 1985, she was named Ms. Magazine’s woman of the year. Lauper, who says she happily burned her training bra during a protest in New York City, gets excited when talking about Ms. Magazine founder Gloria Steinem. I was so into her because she changed the history of women, Lauper says. Right out of the gate, my life was different and better, and I knew the difference because my mother’s life and my grandmother’s wasn’t.

Her second album, 1986’s True Colors, did not match the success of her debut, even though the title track went to No. 1 and earned her a Grammy nomination. A Night To Remember (1989) was not well received by critics and only yielded one hit, I Drove All Night.

I was in conflict because I was involved with my manager (Wolff) and it was our life, says Lauper sadly. For him to be successful, I had to be successful. And, of course, because he loved me he wanted me to be successful, but I would always say, `successful at what price?’

Lauper found herself becoming more and more creatively unsatisfied. I can’t just stand there and sing a song that I don’t like, she says. I couldn’t, because to me, music was always real, it wasn’t fabricated.

After Wolff and Lauper split up in 1990, she was devastated. We had nothing together and we achieved something that was not in the realm of a normal reality, she explains. It was like hitting the lottery together: we starved together, we stuck together, we made it together.

She returned with Hat Full of Stars (1993) and Sisters of Avalon (1996), acting as co-writer and co-producer on both albums. Though neither was a commercial success, critics applauded her musical risk-taking. What keeps her going, Lauper says, is that Italian thing – as long as you can stand and you can endure, you can continue – you’ll win.

After so many years of riding the ups and downs of the business, Lauper is coming out on top as an entertainer. She won an Emmy award in 1995 for her appearance as Marianne Lagasso on Mad About You (a role she recently reprised for the show’s season finale), and she stars opposite Christopher Walken in the upcoming independent film The Opportunists.

As ambitious as ever, Lauper admits she sometimes feels like she’s trying to be superwoman. In addition to her numerous projects, she and her husband, actor David Thortnon, whom she married in 1991, are the parents of a baby boy. I want to be with my little baby, I want to sing, I want to do so much, she says. It’s very difficult, the art of happiness.

Though Lauper will miss her 18-month-old while on her three-month concert tour, she says getting on the road will be good for her. She’s especially pleased that the tour’s lineup is all female, with Wild Orchid as the opening act.

It’s women, she says, that’s what’s making me happy. I’ve always said women can work together and do well.

Cyndi Lauper is back with another Grammy-nominated song, but this time she’s singing a different tune.

BACK IN 1984, WHEN CYNDI LAUPER was named the Best New Artist of the Year, she was a girl who just wanted to have fun. Today she wants more. The 45 year old is happily married and has a beautiful son, Declyn. She’s a frequent guest star on Mad About You, She’s acted in several films, including an upcoming indie with Christopher Walken. And she’s left the pop charts to make dance hits-her cover of “Disco Inferno” from A Night at The Roxbury soundtrack was a Grammy nominee for Best Dance Recording. On the day of the awards, we talked to Cyndi Lauper about her life in the ’90s.

You seem to have completely changed yourself. What spurred the evolution?

In 1990, my life came together. Right before New Year’s Eve, I decided to change my life. I dyed my hair black, took a break from music and did a movie. I became a different person. Once I started on my journey, things began to happen to me. A few months later, though, Yoko Ono asked me to go to Liverpool, England, to do a memorial concert for John Lennon. I got to arrange the music-I was like a kid let loose in a giant toy store and I couldn’t believe that it was happening. It was only then that I realized how much I had missed music, even though I was only away for six months, I started regrouping that summer, and as I got more into music I did things I had always dreamed of doing. I stopped asking if I could do something. I just did it.

How do you feel about your Grammy nomination this year?

I think it’s great to be recognized and be nominated, especially since “Disco Inferno” was one of my birthing songs.

You mean you actually listened to disco hits while you gave birth?

Well, when I was in labor, yeah. And before my son was born. My husband [David Thornton] is an actor, and he was in The Last Days of Disco. To prepare for the part he had bought all these disco compilations. I found myself listening to “I Will Survive” and all this disco stuff. It was perfect. The night after my son was born, friends came to visit in the hospital and we had our own disco party in the room while the baby slept!

It doesn’t sound like motherhood has changed you much.

No, but it’s different -you have to be very responsible when you become a parent. But I have a lot of fun with Declyn. He likes music, so we dance around, bang on pots, play on my drum set. He likes house and disco music, and Cher’s song “Believe” is one of his favorites, He actually really likes “Disco Inferno!” I haven’t tried my old ’80s hits on him yet, but he would probably like those-they have the beat he likes. We go to a music class together, and he’ll go stand at the front of the class and shake his head like a headbanger-it’s pretty funny. The main difference he has made in my life is that when I travel now it’s like, “Oh my god!” I miss Declyn so much.

You acted like a real party girl in your Bus videos. Were you a real wild child then?

No, I never thought of myself as wild; I never went yahooing it up or drinking it up, I might seem wild because I have a wild style-I love wild clothes. It’s not that I felt that I wasn’t free, but I didn’t feel like I was a demon child, either. Those videos in the ’80s were great, and I had a great time on stage. But other girls were grossed out by me because I would get all sweaty and I wasn’t lady like. I’m still wild like that, but now it’s accepted since I have a kid. I get to run around and scream with him. We run over to the stereo, turn it up and sing at the top of our lungs, Declyn is great.

What will you do if Declyn wants to die his hair a crazy color when he’s a teenager?

Well, I’ll help him, I would actually probably do it for him, because the stuff I use is very safe. But it probably won’t be the hair that will get me. It will probably be that he wants to wear Brooks Brothers.

Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper Thorton was raised in Ozone Park, Queens. Lauper burst onto the music scene in 1984 with her album She’s So Unusual, the first debut record by a solo artist to spin off four top five singles, including Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Time after Time. Now a mother, Lauper has worked hard to shed her image as the red-haired, squeaky-voiced gal in the glad-rag getup.

Some folks have clung so tightly to Lauper’s first incarnation that they missed an entire decade of her career, including such albums as 1993’s Hatful of Stars the excellent Sisters of Avalon and her Emmy-winning appearance as a contessa on the sitcom Mad About You.

Now Lauper, along with her co-producers Bobby Guy and Ernie Lake, who make up the powerful creative partnship known as Soul Solution, have received a Grammy nomination for Disco Inferno from The Night at the Roxbury soundtrack. Recently I spoke with Lauper about babies, women in music and her perfect day.

IN Step: Last time I saw you perform, you were here in Milwaukee and you were wearing a blueberry-colored jumpsuit; you were very pregnant.
CL: (Laugh) Yeah. It was actually purple, but yes.

IN Step: Were you performing pretty much throughout your pregnancy?
CL: Pretty much, Yeah, since the very beginning. Then I was trying to hide it because you’re worried about what the record company’s gonna do or not do ’cause you’re pregnant.

IN Step: Could you tell me how you feel about being nominated for another Grammy?
CL: I think it’s wonderful. I think that… I’ve done a lot of other work, but any … the fact that they like that is great. I think the dance music is a whole world which is a wonderful place because it’s a lot less confining than the other, you know. It doesn’t seem to me that in the dance market they don’t really care who is singing it.

When you go to a club, and there’s a lot of room to sing, you can stand on your head and sing if you want to. That’s what makes it fun. It’s also innovative, it’s still an innovative place. So, I think it’s really great to be nominated in the dance category. Dance music is to me very viable and will eventually even come up even bigger in this country. Although all over the world it is huge, huge, huge.

IN Step: How did you get involved with this project?
CL: It just came up out of the blue, and it was one of my birthing songs. It turned out to be really fun to do. So, I did it, I did it really quick. I didn’t think much about it after I did it. I always thought it had great energy and it was fun. I think it’s great. And, it’s great for Bobby and Ernie. I think Bobby and Ernie are really talented.

IN Step: How did you enjoy collaborating with them?
CL: Well, I have before and I thought it was a lotta fun. It’s easy. I like when things are .. when the atmosphere is easy and very collaborative, I tend to try more and do more and work very hard. I think that’s a human nature kind o’ thing. If people around you are easy to be with; these guys have fun together; then the music comes out fun, you know. ’Cause you can always hear what goes on behind the music and in the music. For me, anyway, I can.

IN Step: Are you going to the Grammy’s?
CL: That’s a possibility, yes.

IN Step: If you’re going what are you going to be wearing?
CL: I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m going on the 16th to shoot an episode of Mad About You. I’m also going on the week of the 8th to talk to my partner… I’m developing a pilot for NBC. By the 16th I will know what the hell is goin’ on and what was picked up and what wasn’t and all that stuff. At least that’s what they say, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

IN Step: How has motherhood changed your life?
CL: Well, I don’t know. It certainly makes you busier. I love the kid more than anybody I’ve ever loved before. It’s interesting to have somebody love you like that. Nobody will ever love ya like a kid. It’s a real heart-opener. For me I just go day by day. I read pamphlets, booklets, and books to figure out what to do and how to do it, how to feed them and what to eat. My diet is so bad, so I don’t want him to have a bad diet.

IN Step: Is he crying in pitch?
CL: I did say that. I wanted to see if he’d cry on pitch. You know, he sings and he loves music. He sings and goes to music class. He really likes music, and right now, actually, he likes the beat of the new Cher songs. He stands in front of the beat box and starts to dance. It’s funny.

IN Step: How has the music industry changed over the years?
CL: I saw the corporate world take over and that was a little bit of a heartbreak because … I’m talkin’ about all over the world; they take over creative venues and outlets. In a way that kinda like threw me. Then I went through different changes in myself. I had to learn and deal with no matter what goes on on the outside, the insides gotta be okay. I gotta just keep working and keep writing and keep growing. You should never waste [talent] because each one of us of has a very unique voice.

If you don’t use your voice, or keep the channel open, that viewpoint will always lost. Actually it’s not even my own thought; it’s from a letter that Martha Graham was writing to Cecil B. DeMille. I always go back to that letter when I feel discouraged or I’m really crazy. Now I’m a better singer than I ever was. I’m better producer than I ever was and; I hope; a better writer. I still feel like Vinny van Gough tryin’ to paint his paintin’s. But it’s always worth it and you have small victories and that’s what’s really important. My life is very full and I’m very grateful for that.

IN Step: You mentioned that the music industry has become more corporate. Has it become a better place for women to work?
CL: I don’t know, hon’… I don’t think so. But who knows? I really don’t know. I’m glad to see other women doing well. But has this become a nicer place? No! They’re racist, ageist, sexist and I think I hit ’em all. Have I hit ’em all?

IN Step: I think you have.
CL: Narrow minded and fearful. Other than that it’s pretty cool. You have to fit, whether you’re round or square, into that mold. Along with that, I guess my problem was that I was a personality and I could sing really well. So they could never figure out what the hell it was supposed to be. I never conform.

A lotta times they have people in the companies who don’t know anything about music, so your communication about music is not about music. You ask someone, “Well, I’m havin’ trouble with this track, it’s not quite fitting right. Could you listen to it; what do you think?” Instead of being articulate, they can’t be articulate because they don’t understand music. I found myself for years and years, tryin’ to decipher what they heard from what they said. Maybe there was a clue in there that I could . . . what was bothering me, mighta been bothering them, ya know what I mean. Music is very collaborative and it’s also … what’d they used to say before CDs? “It ain’t vinyl till it’s final.” Now vinyl’s comin’ back and it’s really great.

IN Step: How much control do you have in your projects as far as musically and even packaging? Do you have . . .
CL: Well in my projects, I get involved with because I enjoy the process.

IN Step: For example, “Sisters of Avalon.” Was that everything you wanted it to be from the start that you had that idea?
CL: I try. I had a partner that I found that I was on tour with that I could write.

IN Step: Did they think you were crazy because it was something totally out of what they expected Cyndi Lauper to come out with?
CL: Basically I was told, “Why do I have to dress the way I’m dressing? Why can’t I be like everybody else, why do I have to be so different?” When I did “Hat Full of Stars” I was just looking for who I was.

I found myself at adult contemporary stations sitting there with pink hair and wearing clothes that maybe weren’t the right clothes to wear for that particular venue. You know, like a duck outa water. That’s why dance is such a home to me.

The people who go to the clubs are more like people I know. It’s a place where there’s still innovative things. I know all my hits went underground like, You Don’t Know, which kept comin’ back and comin’ back. Cleo and Joe, which had promise was burnin’ up in Miami. But then we never even surfaced to radio, so … it was like oil and vinegar.

IN Step: Who inspires you?
CL: My kid inspires me. Joni Mitchell was always a big inspiration because she painted, because she wrote; she played her own guitar. At one point she made her clothes. To me, who was going to art high school and a fashion high school and playing guitar and writing, who else would you look up to but somebody who did it all.

IN Step: Out the many new talents that are out there, are there any females in particular that just blow your socks off?
CL: Yeah! I really like the Dixie Chicks. I think Alannis Morriset, but then I always will have a bit of a sore spot because when her CD first came out it kind of validated me a little. She took the loop and the pop thing and some of the formulas were the same things that I worked on and have worked hard on. I felt very validated like, “Okay, I was definitely right! I’m not crazy!”

IN Step: Some new female singers borrow, or they have taken what was already there from, let’s say Carly Simon and yourself…
CL: If you listen to Kate Bush you’ll hear a lotta people. If you listen to Joni Mitchell you’ll hear a lot of people, but I know a lot of these women … Cheryl Crow always talks about her different influences. I must say I kinda like her stuff, too. I get inspired by everyone. I saw Jewel once doing a hard rock thing and she was playing guitar and singing. She played and sang really, really well. I have a good rhythm hand but I’m not really great with my left hand.

IN Step: What would be a perfect day for you?
CL: Funny you should mention that. A perfect day would be to live in the present and be aware of just right now. Then you wouldn’t miss anything.