Cyndi Lauper’s Memphis Blues, her celebration of early blues greats, earns the celebrated singer her 14^th Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album. Memphis Blues debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Top Blues Album chart and remained there for a stunning 14 weeks. The album also entered the Billboard 200 at No. 26, marking Lauper’s highest-charting set since her True Colors in 1986.

Lauper, who just kicked off the second leg of her Memphis Blues tour, has sold out nearly every venue, winning over audiences with her blues-focused live show which includes several of the legendary musicians also featured on the album including Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica, Steve Potts on drums, Archie “Hubbie” Turner on keys, and Charles “Skip” Pitts on guitar.

Artist Katy Perry picked up four nominations including a nod for the coveted Album of the Year, along with Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, and Best Pop Vocal Album.  Perry followed up on the huge success of her 5x platinum debut One of the Boys with the release of her second studio album Teenage Dream earlier this year. Teenage Dream debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts in August and has since spawned two consecutive #1 Billboard Hot 100 singles with the summer smash “California Gurls” feat. Snoop Dogg, and title track “Teenage Dream”. Her current hit “Firework” sits at the #1 slot this week for both biggest selling digital song and music video.

In what has already been a banner year performing on a four month nationwide comedy tour, a stint on America’s #1 show “Dancing With The Stars,” as well as starring in the hit tv series “Drop Dead Diva,” Comedian/Actress/Dancer and now Singer Margaret Cho has earned her second career Grammy nomination for her 2010 CD release Cho Dependent in the Best Comedy Album category.

“I want to create a new genre of music that is hilarious but also seriously good, so I turned to some of my music heroes to help me out,” says Margaret Cho.  The lyrics on Cho Dependent, which tackle issues of sex, drugs, rock & roll – and lice, may be laugh-inducing, but Cho has made no compromises when it comes to the quality of the songwriting and production. After “My Puss,” a hilarious rap parody Cho recorded impromptu-style with friends, became a surprise YouTube hit, Cho began to integrate more comedy music into her live stand-up shows. With Cho Dependent, her first comedy music album, Cho got a chance to hone her craft with some of the top names in the business.

After ten years on the scene, soap-opera actress and British Columbian singing sensation Nelly Furtado has made a diverse impression on the music industry. Busting out hits à la R&B, folk and pop in Spanish, English and/or Portuguese—what’s in store for Furtado’s fifth original album, hitting the shelves early 2011, may be anyone’s guess. There are no teasers on her website, www.nellyfurtado.com, either.

Nevertheless, fans can prep for the newest Nelly by re-familiarizing themselves with the Furtado of old via her latest two-disc release, The Best of Nelly Furtado. Disc one of this greatest-hits album features all of Furtado’s biggest chart-toppers of the last decade,  from the folk-y “I’m Like a Bird” and the finger-snappy “Turn off the Light” to the dance-floor tramp-y “Promiscuous” and “Maneater.” Disco one also features three original, never-before released tracks as well, however the merit of their “best-of” album inclusion remains to be seen.

But wait, there’s more.

Bonus disc two showcases seven-tracks of Furtado’s most popular compilations, such as her duet with Michael Bublé in “Quando, Quando, Quando,” and her “I’m Like a Bird” remix with Asha.

The Best of Nelly Furtado drops Tuesday, November 16, 2010.

The red-headed Queen of Comedic Camp returns to the spoofed spotlight with Smell the Glamour

by Jason P Freeman

After a botched brain transplant found Tina Turner singing “Trapped in the Body of a White Girl” by way of Julie Brown’s vocals (per the single’s music video), the longstanding icon of pop culture parody made Madonna’s “Vogue” “Vague,” had an aging Sharon Stone peeing herself and more recently saw Sara Palin taking aim at her constituents—with a loaded gun: Whether shaving Jim Carrey’s alien body hair in 1988’s Earth Girls are Easy, comparing her cleavage to Elvira’s on her MTV show Just Say Julie, coaching Alicia Silverstone in Clueless or telling the E! television audience 101 Reasons Why the ‘90s Ruled, Brown’s 20-plus-year career continues to credit her as the reigning Queen of Comedic Camp. The crown of which, she clearly intends to keep via her upcoming fourth studio album, Smell the Glamour­.

In Smell, Brown continues to parody the Hit Parade like a contemporary Weird Al Yankovic, only with bigger boobs and better hair. Among the CD’s 12 tracks, fans will find Brown trading Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” for a sexy romp in a pair of “Big Clown Pants” as well as Kesha’s debut “TiK ToK” twisted into “Another Drunk Chick,”

Exclusively with PINK in promotion of the album’s upcoming release, Brown discusses the CD, her thoughts on LGBT equality, working for Disney and what today’s easy earth girls expect of their modern men (or women).

PINK: What kind of responses have you received from the artists you’ve spoofed?

Well,  while I was working on Medusa: Dare to be Truthful, Madonna sent me (through a mutual friend) a half-drunk bottle of warm champagne.  It had a note, actually a post-it attached that said, “Dear Julie, Enjoy this champagne and good luck.  Madonna”.   She’s an amazing writer, huh?  I always wondered if it had Madonna spit in it.  And when the special came out, her agent called my manager and said she really liked it.  But then I heard, through the same mutual friend, that she hated the dog cemetery scene.  The one where I go to a pet cemetery and try to dig up my dead dog Boomer.   In her special she took a camera crew to her mother’s grave and rolled around on it, and I guess she thought I was being disrespectful for making fun of her.  I guess I was. And on “The Edge” I wore a fat suit and played Carnie Wilson and felt bad about it.  But the producer forced me so once I was in the fat suit, I got into it.  But Carnie is actually a very gracious person and said she thought it was funny and invited me to China Phillips Valentine’s Day party.  I used to make fun of Sheena Easton all the time on Just Say Julie and she just called and begged to be on the show.  So I let her play my maid.  She was great!

PINK:   As a comedienne whose shtick often engages politically sensitive and/or sexual subjects, was it hard to humble yourself while working for Disney on the “family-friendly” sets of Wizards of Waverly Place and on Jonas Brothers’ film Camp Rock?

It wasn’t hard to reel myself in on The Wizards of Waverly Place, because I didn’t write the script so I just had to play a character who said the lines that were written for me. But Camp Rock was difficult because my brother and I wrote the original four drafts, and the character I wrote for myself was way more outrageous that the final script. And the original scripts had edgier jokes especially since they told us to make the lead character like me.  So we did, but in the end, they really did want it to be more of a Disney script

PINK:  Launching your stand up career in gay venues, being discovered by Lily Tomlin, living in the Hollywood Hills and celebrating your envy of gay-sexual proclivities in your 2005-released single, “I Want to Be Gay,” it’s probably safe to presume that you love your LGBT fan base as much as they love you. That said, what are you thoughts on the current state of LGBT equality and California’s repeatedly repealed and appealed Prop 8?

I feel like it’s very important for everyone with a brain to keep fighting for gay rights, but I also feel like there’s no way that propositions banning marriage will last.  It’s just so clearly unfair. And even though there are a lot of super crazy people out there who are against the idea, they will eventually die (hopefully) and their children will vote for gay marriage. The younger generation is just not as prejudiced.  I talked to my 16-year-old son about this and he said, “Yeah, my friends really don’t make a big deal about it when someone’s gay.  It’s just the way it is.”  So no matter how long it takes,  it’ll happen.

PINK:  What can fans expect from Smell the Glamour? Does any of it stem from your one-woman show of the same name? If not, how are the two related and/or similar or the same or completely different?

The fans can expect new original songs, some parodies, an updated version of “Vague” (from Medusa) and several of the songs from Medusa that were never released.  Oh, and a re-recorded version of “Cause I’m a Blonde”, cause it’s never been on I-tunes.  And yes, it  has a lot to do with my show “Smell the Glamour” because I first performed some of these songs in my show, and I just like that name!

PINK:  What’s next for Miss Julie Brown, following the release of the CD?

What’s next is I’ve been wanting to do Medusa 2–you know because so much has happened to Madonna since the first Medusa.  (Motherhood, Becoming British, Becoming American again, Plastic surgery, Dating more baseball players) And fans have been asking me to do that for years.  But it’s been hard to figure out how to get financing for it because the cable channels aren’t exactly paying for movies like that.  But I got this great idea to make a website where people can donate through Paypal  to finance the movie!  How great is that?  I’m working on that right now, so look for information about that on my website soon!

PINK:   After having 20 years of additional experience since you wrote and stared in your awesome cult classic, do you still think “Earth Girls are Easy?”

Yes, I think Earth Girls are still easy, but these days I like to get dinner first!

**

Smell the Glamour hits shelves in September; “Another Drunk Chick” and “Big Clown Pants” are now available on iTunes. www.juliebrown.com

The out Pittsburgh boy who once dazzled the hard-to-please Harlem Apollo audience with his opera-like countertenor, and later tore up the dance floor charts with an electronic capriccio under Junior Vasquez’s label, has opted to leave it all behind with his third studio album, Leave it all Behind.

In what’s being touted as “John Mayer and Jon B meets Celine Dion and Patti LaBelle” Walker’s latest CD certainly is a vocally ranged mix of soulful gospel-like R&B and acoustic rock—a powerful hybrid of diva and dude.

“I wanted to give people more than one side of me, as there are many,” Walker explains in Leave’s album sheet. “These past two years have been a time of self discovery … a time where I felt matured and ripened. It’s time to spread my wings.”

Walker’s spreading wings equates, in part, to his latest 10-track, independently released CD that features a few dance-like tracks (the style of which being what originally gave Walker’s music momentum) and some powerful soul singing.

“It all comes down to leaving your eyes on the prize,” the vocally self-trained Walker says of the title track, and notes “I Love You” as one of the CD’s most endearing. Based on his parents’ life Walker says of the song: “I was thinking about my folks and how much I missed them since I left my hometown… I thought about my life and the sacrifices they have made and still make for me and my sister.”

Leave it all Behind was released on iTunes on August 24, 2010.  www.jasonwalkermusic.com

Pictured above: Jason Walker photo by Karl Giant

“I decided to pursue this because I had a passion for music, it made me feel good – it moved me. I haven’t found anything else that has brought me nearly this much joy,” says Alexis Houston. What might have brought her parents more joy was the ability to call her ‘Dr. Houston’as she was studying medicine before her full-time foray into the arts. This great love made it impossible to pursue anything else and made the directive to step out and use her intellect and creativity to bring something special and unique to each and every performance. This young singer/songwriter is putting an interesting spin on today’s popular music.

This New Jersey native has been delighting audiences since she was six-years-old and credits singing in church choirs at New Hope Baptist Church (Newark, NJ) for giving her the desire and commitment to perform. It was here under the watchful eye of Anne Drinkard Moss and her sister, Soul and Gospel Legend, Cissy Houston that she further honed her music skills, singing in the various choirs of the church. It is from this very same church background that the world got the likes of Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, and Whitney Houston; members of a family that have truly made an impact in the world of contemporary entertainment.

While away in school, Alexis continued to develop her love for music by singing and eventually composing. Both skills led her to opportunities to write and record music for numerous advertising firms as well as scoring music for television. Alexis has managed to ‘rack up’ an impressive resume that includes penning and recording jingles for many major advertising campaigns including: AT&T, Diet Coke and McDonald’s. She has been an assistant musical director, and arranger for tours of various artists. Scoring music for theatrical productions for the Negro Ensemble Company’s ‘Ensemble in Black’, Jean Cocteau’s ‘The Human Voice’. She will also be appearing in the film ‘My Guaranteed Student Loan’ with acting legend Celeste Holme and Rain Pryor.

Getting her start as a songwriter and producer, Alexis was convinced to take the foreground by prominent friends. Paul Russell of SONY ATV Publishing was one such champion. “I had something to say,” adds Alexis. Between that, her four and a half vocal octave range and a voice that embodies the soul of Aretha Franklin, the sultry depth of Sarah Vaughan (a fellow New Jersey native) and a dexterity that is unmistakably Houston, Alexis has been a most sought after performer. Comparisons to Vaughan are a delight for Alexis, whose mother once noted the similarity of her voice to that of Vaughan and Anita Baker – another favorite of hers. “You gravitate to voices that are similar to yours, I suppose,” she concludes.

Alexis’solo, debut project ‘Speak Love/Life Lessons’, was created as a ”musical autobiography”. The songs reveal the growth of a young woman through the experiences of different relationships in her life and how ‘love’ in all its various forms plays a key role in this process. “Not only did I want the songs to reflect me, but the production as well,”says Alexis. “I wanted that to reflect my experiences and my tastes just as much. I believe we achieved that on this album.”

On this debut, Alexis pulls from all her musical influences: Pop, Jazz, Gospel, Electronica and Rock and blends them into mix that is uniquely her and undeniably special. To compliment Alexis’ own writing and production, the project benefits from collaborations with Grammy nominated songwriter/producers; Gregg Pagani (Charlie Wilson, Patti LaBelle, Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds,), Ivan & Carvin (Justin Timberlake, Musiq Soulchild) and The Insomniax ( JoJo, Bobby Valentino) and Jake Ridley (Christina Aguilera).

Look for “CHANGE” Houston’s latest single, dropping August 4. The full-length album “Speak Love/Life Lessons” is slated to hit shelves September 28. www.alexishouston.com