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Originally posted by Jools
k.d. Lang To Headline Count Basie Theatre's Spring Gala
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By Eileen Moon
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SHE'S A CAMPY cowgirl from the 49th Parallel who sings like she means every word.
k.d. Lang, who won a 2004 Grammy award (her fourth) for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her collaborative recording with Tony Bennett, A Wonderful World, will appear at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank May 8 as the star attraction for the theatre's Spring Gala.
Lang will be accompanied by a symphony orchestra during a performance that will feature many of the songs Lang has recorded during a career that spans some 20 years. But about half of her set list will be songs from her new CD, Hymns of the 49th Parallel, to be released in July.
While many artists tour following the release of their latest work, Lang's touring in advance. "I'm doing things backwards as usual," she joked during a telephone interview with The Two River Times last week.
Her appearance at the Basie is part of a three-month, 40-date concert tour in the U.S. that will be followed by a tour of Australia.
On the new CD, the girl from Consort, Alberta, Canada, pays tribute to her countrymen Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn and other north-of-the-border artists whose talents know no boundaries.
"It's a very specific thing," Lang said. "It's my exploration into Canadian songwriters. They're my heritage; they're my blood."
Kathryn Dawn Lang grew up listening to Patsy Cline in a town just 90 miles from the one where Joni Mitchell spent her youth. One of four kids in a musically precocious family, Lang's journey from the Canadian prairies to the concert stages of the world started with her realization early on that she couldn't match her siblings' talent for the piano. "They were all piano prodigies and I kinda plunked away," she said. "I switched instruments and started singing."
She doesn't recall having a specific career destination in mind in those years - not Carnegie Hall, not Hollywood, not even Nashville.
"I didn't really think about a place. I thought about a lifestyle, and a focus," she said. "I never really questioned that I would become a singer. There never was a diversion of my goal of being a singer."
Had she had to choose another path, Lang said, she might have been a chef, or a painter.
But music never let her down.
Lang was cast as Patsy Cline in a college theatrical production. After graduation, she performed with her band, The Re-Clines (named in tribute to Patsy Cline), singing from table to table in local juke joints.
Lang honed her talents and her confidence in gay clubs, cow palaces and concert halls throughout Canada and the U.S. She issued her first release, A Truly Western Experience, in 1984. That recording was followed in 1987 by Angel With A Lariat, and in 1988 by Shadowland.
In 1989, she released Absolute Torch and Twang, which won her a grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female. That same year, she shared a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, which she won for a duet with Roy Orbison on his song, Crying.
In 1993, Lang won an American Music Award as Favorite New Adult Contemporary Artist and another Grammy for her single, Constant Craving and was nominated for Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
That song was included on her album Ingenue, which has been viewed as a crossroads for Lang, moving her from the country category into mainstream popular music.
A lesbian, Lang received a special achievement award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in 1998. The award is presented to "an openly lesbian or gay individual who has achieved excellence in a specific area of media and has furthered the visibility and understanding of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community through his/her work.." But Lang's fan base has always been and remains diverse.
"I want to be some weird anomaly where even Republicans and Democrats can listen to me," she says.
Her favorite song among those she recorded with Tony Bennett is La Vie En Rose, Lang said.
"I thought it was funny how differently the two of us came to that song," Lang said, noting that Bennett had likely heard it sung by many revered female singers over many decades. "I really learned it from the gay clubs, from Grace Jones." Another song she remembers warmly from their recording sessions is If We Never Meet Again, "I didn't like that song when I first sang it," she said. "But something magic happened (when we recorded it). It kind of speaks for itself. It was an interesting combination between me and Tony."
The work of singing a song rightly occurs before the performance, Lang says, not during it. "The work happens in the learning. When the singing begins, my body is the vessel and my brain has to get out of the way."
For Lang, the proper focus is the song, not the singer.
"It's really been my mission to eliminate extraneous affectation and focus on truth and vulnerability," she says. Her aim is to sing "not really ever in an effortful way, but with a realness and awakeness, and just deliver the song."
Tickets for Lang's appearance at the Basie are $125, $105, $75 and $55 and may be ordered by calling the Count Basie ticket office at (732) 842-9000.
The Gala is an important source of financial support for the Basie, which is a nonprofit organization. Ticket prices are higher than normal for other performances, but all proceeds benefit the theatre's annual operations.