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The conception of this INCARNATION has evolved out of necessity.

The fact is there is just so many AMAZING WOMEN that have been SUPER HEROINES

to all us Girls growing into Women, to all you Boys who grew into Men.

We all have a love for 1 or 2 of these lovelies.

This site is dedicated to sharing LUV LUV LUV about each and every 1

Tina Turner biography

Over the years, much has changed in the world of popular music, but two facts remain unassailably secure: (a) at it's best, music captures the raw energy and passion of human emotion; and (b) when it comes to injecting energy and passion into a song, nobody does it like Tina Turner.

To legions of fans around the globe, Tina represents the very embodiment of dynamism and enthusiasm, and for good reason: her charismatic presence is matched only by the courageous fortitude of her remarkable life story, a story brought to the big screen in the acclaimed 1993 film "What's Love Got To Do With It," based on Tina's best-selling autobiography.

Ranging from giddy heights to harrowing depths and back again, Tina's personal saga testifies to her artistic passion and strength of character -- and those very attributes continue to fuel her international superstardom today.

Tina's creative energy roars into high gear on "Wildest Dreams," her second Virgin Records album. With inimitable confidence and power, she shines on such standouts as "Whatever You Want," "Missing You," and "Something Beautiful Remains." Of particular note are the Sheryl Crow-penned "All Kinds Of People" and Tina's galvanizing new version of "Unfinished Sympathy," the trip-hop gem originally recorded by Britain's Massive Attack.

Tina's initial rise to stardom with former husband Ike Turner was followed by a dispiriting descent that would have overwhelmed a lesser woman, but only made this one more determined to rescue herself. "I don't have time for bitterness," she says now. "One shouldn't have time for bitterness when you're trying to be successful. Work towards what you want, that's my attitude."

For all of her recent triumphs, the earliest chapters of Tina's life story are filled with abandonment and rejection. She was born inBrownsville, Tennessee in 1939 and raised nearby in the small town of Nutbush. Anna Mae Bullock and her older sister Allinerelocated to St. Louis in 1956, after being deserted by their mother and later their father. When Anna first asked the leader of local club favorites the Kings Of Rhythm if she could sing with them, the answer from Ike Turner was a firm "no."

Her persistence eventually paid off: she began working with Turner in 1958, and the two married in 1960. In autumn 1960, when a session singer booked to record Ike's "A Fool In Love" didn't show, Tina stepped in. The song became an R&B smash and a Top 30 crossover pop hit in America, and soon the band was going by a new name: The Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

The duo proceeded to record a string of classics, ranging from '60s anthems "River Deep, Mountain High" (produced by PhilSpector) and "I Can't Believe What You Say" to early '70s smashes such as "I Want To Take You Higher," "Proud Mary," "Come Together," and Tina's self-penned "Nutbush City Limits." During this time, Tina developed a romping, free-wheeling stage persona, belying the agony of her private life as her marriage to Ike violently disintegrated.

By 1976, Ike's emotional and physical abuses became too much. Emboldened by her new-found Buddhist faith and her film success as the Acid Queen in The Who's "Tommy," Tina struck out on her own. Broke, with four kids to support, Tina found herself at the bottom of what seemed an impossible mountain of debts and disinterest from the industry.

Then in 1979, she met Roger Davies, a young Australian manager who had recently relocated to Los Angeles; Davies took the challenge of helping Tina redefine and revamp her career. With Davies' help, Tina rediscovered the rock 'n' roll raunch of her best records, infused it with the intuitive soulfulness she had never lost, and started over again.

A 1981 support slot on the Rolling Stones' U.S. tour led to an invitation from Heaven 17's Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware for Tina to take part in their multi-artist Music Of Quality And Distinction Volume 1. By the end of 1982, Tina had inked a new record deal. British fans led the way for Tina's comeback by making her cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" a Top 5 UK smash at the end of 1983.

And as 1984 dawned, Tina prepared for the release of a new album: "Private Dancer." Propelled by the single "What's Love Got To Do With It," "Private Dancer" went on to attain worldwide sales in excess of 11 million copies, and ushered in an extraordinarycatalog of achievements for Tina over the next decade -- achievements made all the sweeter by the rough times which preceded them.

Highlights include a starring role alongside Mel Gibson in "Mad Max: Beyond The Thunderdome"; an incandescent duet with MickJagger at Live Aid; a best-selling autobiography, "I Tina," which led to the hit film "What's Love Got To Do With It;" record-breaking concert tours; and recordings and performances with avowed Tina Turner fans such as David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, and Mark Knopfler.

The broad-ranging accomplishments underscore Tina's status as one of the consummate performers of our time, whose power and range are still growing even as her career approaches its 40th year. Although she is deeply private person, in her professional life she is one of the world's most widely recognized entertainers: on record and on stage Tina Turner continues to touch millions of fans with the same energy and urgency she has displayed since her teens.

Billie Holiday= Lady Day

Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Holiday was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. While there were other jazz singers with equal talent, Billie Holiday had a voice that captured the attention of her audience.[2]

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs around Harlem. After being heard by producer John Hammond, who commended her voice, Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which would later become a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday booked mainstream success with labels such as Columbia Records and Decca Records. By the late 1940s, however, Holiday was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, Holiday performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. However, due to her drug and alcohol problems, her reputation deteriorated.

Though she was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall, Holiday's bad health, coupled with a string of abusive relationships and ongoing drug and alcohol abuse, caused her voice to wither. Her final recordings were met with mixed reaction to her damaged voice, but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. A posthumous album, Last Recording, was released following her death.

Much of Holiday's material has been rereleased since her death, and she is considered a legendary performer with an ongoing influence on American music. Holiday is the recipient of four Grammy awards, all of them posthumous awards for Best Historical Album. Furthermore, Holiday herself was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973. Lady Sings the Blues, a film centered on Holiday's life, starring Diana Ross, was released in 1972.

Madonna

Madonna is the most media-savvy American pop star since Bob Dylan and, until she toned down her press-baiting behavior in the Nineties, she was the most consistently controversial one since Elvis Presley. Her pleasure-celebrating dance music and outr é videos gave feminism a much-needed makeover throughout the Eighties, smashing sexual boundaries, making eroticism a crucial pop-song element, and challenging social and religious mores. Madonna later positioned herself as a doting mother and charitable international citizen, but to her detractors, she merely reinforced the notion of "woman as plaything," turning the clock back on conventional feminism two decades. One thing, however, is rarely disputed: At nearly every turn, she has maintained firm control over her career and image.

Born in Bay City, Michigan, Madonna Ciccone was one of six children. Her mother died when Madonna was six, leaving her father, a Chrysler/General Dynamics engineer, to raise the family. She began studying dance at 14 and, after graduating from high school in 1976, continued her dance studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She moved to New York in 1978, where she studied briefly with the Alvin Ailey dance troupe.

Her first crack at pop music came when a boyfriend let her sing and play drums in his band, the Breakfast Club. While in the band, she landed a brief job as backup singer and dancer with disco star Patrick ("Born to Be Alive") Hernandez.

In 1981 she quit the Breakfast Club and started writing songs with a former boyfriend from her college years, Steven Bray. The two gained attention in the trendy New York club Danceteria, where the DJ, Mark Kamins, played her tapes; it was Kamins who took Madonna's demo to Sire Records and produced her first club hit, 1982's "Everybody."

After a 12-inch single, "Burning Up"/"Physical Attraction," hit Number Three on the dance chart in early 1983, she began recording her first album with the high-profile DJ John "Jellybean" Benitez, with whom she became romantically involved. A few months later Sire released her self-titled debut, which peaked at Number Eight. It spawned "Holiday," a single that crossed over from nightclubs to radio, eventually topping out at Number 16 on the pop charts by the following year.

Madonna enlisted manager Freddie DeMann, who had guided Michael Jackson from the Jacksons' late-1970s slump through Thriller. DeMann soon had Madonna making history with a couple of titillating videos. In March 1984 "Borderline" (Number 10), with its video celebrating interracial love, was released; it was followed by "Lucky Star" (Number Four), whose video offered provocative glimpses of the star's navel. Public opinion was — and would remain — split. Most critics initially dismissed Madonna as a prefab disco prima donna offering style over substance; a few, however, saw something different and hailed her as a strong new female voice, BOY TOY belt and all.Madonna (Number Eight, 1983) sold more than 5 million copies.
In 2006, Madonna returned to the club for the future-disco album Confessions on a Dance Floor, which was largely coproduced by Stuart Price. The album opened at Number One on the strength of lead track "Hung Up," which reworked an Abba sample, though none of its singles ("Sorry," "Get Together" and "Jump") topped the Hot 100 in the U.S. However Madonna's Confessions Tour supporting the disc became the highest-grossing tour in history by a female artist (Madonna later beat her previous best with the record-breaking Sticky & Sweet Tour in 2009).

As the accolades for Madonna's Confessions tour piled up, she signed a 360-degree deal with concert giant Live Nation worth a reported $120 million for future albums, tours, merchandise and film projects.

Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Justin Timberlake in March 2008; fellow Michigan-natives and punk forefathers the Stooges performed "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light" in her honor. Just a month later, Madonna unveiled an album that paired her with Timberlake, Timbaland and the Neptunes: Hard Candy. The disc debuted at Number One; its most successful single was "4 Minutes" (Number Three, 2008), which featured Timberlake. Some of the album's lyrics seemed to describe a relationship in distress, and Madonna and Ritchie announced their split in October 2008 while she was still on the road for her Sticky & Sweet Tour. Madonna returned to the tabloids over rumored romances with New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez and Brazilian model Jesus Luz.

For her final album on her Warner Bros. contract, Madonna looked back at her career once again in the 2009 retrospective Celebration, which boasted two brand-new songs: the title track, produced by dance-floor guru Paul Oakenfold, and "Revolver," which features Lil Wayne. In September 2009, she opened the MTV Video Music Awards with a lengthy speech examining the Michael Jackson's legacy and the parallels between their lives and careers.

Madonna started off 2010 by reportedly beginning work on her follow up to Hard Candy and performing "Like a Prayer" during the international telethon Hope for Haiti Now. The song appeared on the download-only Haiti charity album, which debuted at Number One.

Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Caryn Ganz contributed to this story.

Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin was perhaps the premier blues-influenced rock singer of the late Sixties, and certainly one of the biggest female rock stars of her time. Even before her death, her tough blues-mama image only barely covered her vulnerability. The publicity concerning Joplin's sex life and problems with alcohol and drugs made her something of a legend. In recent years, periodic attempts to recast her life and work within the context of feminism have met with mixed results. Sadly, Joplin was one of three major Sixties rock stars (the others being Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison) to die at the beginning of the 1970s.

Born into a comfortable middle-class family, Joplin was a loner by her early teens, developing a taste for blues and folk music; soon she retreated into poetry and painting. She ran away from home at age 17 and began singing in clubs in Houston and Austin, Texas, to earn money to finance a trip to California. By 1965, she was singing folk and blues in bars in San Francisco and Venice, California; had dropped out of several colleges; and was drawing unemployment checks. She returned to Austin in 1966 to sing in a country & western band, but within a few months a friend of San Francisco impresario Chet Helms told her about a new band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, which needed a singer in San Francisco. She returned to California and joined the band.

Joplin and Big Brother mesmerized the audience at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival; Bob Dylan manager Albert Grossman agreed to work with the group, and Joplin was on her way to becoming a superstar. After a fairly successful first album in 1967 with Big Brother, Columbia Records signed the unit, and Cheap Thrills, with the hit single "Piece of My Heart" (Number 12, 1968), became a gold Number One album. Within a year Joplin had overshadowed her backing band, and she left Big Brother (though she appears, uncredited, on a few tracks on the group's 1971 Be a Brother), taking only guitarist Sam Andrew with her to form the Kozmic Blues Band.

Joplin toured constantly and made television appearances as a guest with Dick Cavett, Tom Jones, and Ed Sullivan. After I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! appeared, with gutsy R&B-flavored rock tracks like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)," Joplin became increasingly involved with alcohol and drugs, eventually succumbing to heroin addiction. Yet her life seemed to be taking a turn for the better with the recording of Pearl with the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She was engaged to be married and was pleased with her new album Pearl (her nickname). On October 4, 1970, her body was found in her room at Hollywood's Landmark Hotel, face down with fresh puncture marks in her arm. The death was ruled an accidental heroin overdose.

The posthumous Pearl (Number One, 1971) yielded her Number One hit version of former lover Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" and was released with one track, "Buried Alive in the Blues," missing the vocals Joplin didn't live to complete. Several more posthumous collections were released including the live compilation In Concert (Number Four, 1972), as well as the 1974 documentary Janis, whose soundtrack the following year reached Number 54. The 1979 film The Rose, starring Bette Midler, was a thinly veiled account of Joplin's career.

She has since been the subject of several biographies, including Love, Janis, penned in 1992 by her therapist sister, Laura, and Alice Echols' 1999 work, Scars of Sweet Paradise. Joplin's former residence in San Francisco's Haight district was converted into a drug rehab center in 1999. In 2001, the musical play Love, Janis, inspired by Laura Joplin's work, opened to packed houses and critical acclaim, eventually going national.

A film based on her life, Gospel According to Janis, starring Zooey Deschanel, is scheduled for release in 2010. Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995; she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Mark Kemp contributed to this article.

Blondie

Blondie started as an ironic update of trashy 1960s pop. But by the end of the 1970s, they were far and away the most commercially successful and adventurous survivors of the New York punk scene, having released three platinum albums (Parallel Lines, Eat to the Beat, and Autoamerican). In bleached-blond lead singer Deborah Harry, new wave's answer to Marilyn Monroe, the group had an international icon. The group's repertoire, written by Harry and boyfriend Chris Stein, inhabited the melodic side of punk and grew increasingly eclectic while Harry's deadpan delivery remained consistent.

Born in Miami, Harry was adopted at age three months by Richard and Catherine Harry. She grew up in Hawthorne, New Jersey, and, after graduating from high school, moved to Manhattan. Harry joined a folk-rock band, the Wind in the Willows, which released one album for Capitol in 1968; she worked as a beautician, a Playboy bunny, and a barmaid at Max's Kansas City. In the mid-1970s she became the third lead singer of a glitter-rock band, the Stilettoes, which also included future Television bassist Fred Smith. Stein, a graduate of New York's School of Visual Arts, joined the band in October 1973, and he and Harry reshaped it, first as Angel and the Snakes, then as Blondie.

By 1975 the band was appearing regularly at CBGB, home of the burgeoning punk underground. Its first single, "X Offender," was independently produced by Richard Gottehrer and Marty Thau, who sold it to Private Stock. The label released Blondie's debut, also produced by Gottehrer, in December 1976. The group expanded its cult following to the West Coast with shows at L.A.'s Whisky-a-Go-Go in February 1977 and opened for Iggy Pop on a national tour. A few months later, they made their British concert debut. In July, Gary Valentine (who wrote "[I'm Always Touched by Your] Presence Dear," a 1978 U.K. Top 10 hit) left the band to form his own trio, Gary Valentine and the Know, which broke up in spring 1980. In early 1978 Blondie's "Denis" hit Number Two in the U.K.

Blondie signed with Chrysalis in October 1977. Mike Chapman, a veteran of glitter pop, produced Parallel Lines, which slowly made its way into the Top Ten, breaking first in markets outside the U.S. The disco-style "Heart of Glass" hit Number One in April 1979 and gave the group a platinum album. Blondie maintained its popularity and dabbled in black-originated styles, collaborating with Eurodisco producer Giorgio Moroder for "Call Me" (Number One, 1980) for the American Gigolo Soundtrack, covering the reggae tune "The Tide Is High" (Number One, 1980), and recording a song including an extended Debbie Harry rap, "Rapture" (Number One, 1981), for Autoamerican(Number Seven, 1980). Harry also did the rounds as a celebrity, including an endorsement of Gloria Vanderbilt designer jeans in 1980.

As the group's success continued, there were reports that Stein and Harry were asserting more control. By 1981 some Blondie backing tracks were played by session musicians under Stein's direction. Burke produced the New York band Colors, and Destri released a solo album, Heart on a Wall, in 1982. In 1981 Harry released her solo KooKoo(Number 25). Produced under the direction of Chic's Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, KooKoo went gold.

Harry also began acting, appearing off-Broadway in Teaneck Tanzi: The Venus Flytrap (1983), in the films Union City (1979), Videodrome (1982), and John Waters' Hairspray (1988), in the television series Wiseguy, and in Showtime's Body Bags.

Early in 1982 Infante brought suit against the group, claiming they were out to destroy his career by excluding him from group meetings, rehearsals, and recording sessions. The suit was settled out of court and Infante remained in the band. However, by late 1982, following a disastrous tour (Blondie was never known as a great live act), the group quietly disbanded.

Harry and Stein's planned vacation from the music business stretched to a couple of years after he was felled by a rare genetic illness called pemphigus. By 1987, their romantic relationship had ended. Harry's solo comeback was stalled in the mid-1980s by legal problems with Blondie's label, Chrysalis. Rockbird (Number 97, 1986) drew critical raves, but neither it nor her subsequent releases have approached Blondie's in sales or acclaim, although she has had major hits in the U.K. ("French Kissin' in the U.S.A.," Number Eight, 1986, and "I Want That Man," Number 13, 1989). She sang a duet with Iggy Pop, "Well, Did You Evah!," on the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Blue. Harry collaborated with New York underground group the Jazz Passengers and appeared on their 1996 album Individually Twisted (32 Records).

Harrison and Burke joined a group called Checquered Past, which included ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones. Later, Harrison supervised the music for several feature films, including Repo Man, before becoming an A&R man for Capitol and Interscope. In the early 1990s, Burke joined the Romantics and worked as a session musician with the Plimsouls, Dramarama, and Mark Owen. Stein continued producing acts for his Animal Records label, and Destri began producing.

In 1998, Blondie had something of a resurgence as Harry, Burke, Stein, and Destri reunited for No Exit (Number 18, 1999), Blondie's seventh studio album. No Exit, which contains an appearance by rapper Coolio on the title cut and yielded the poppy "Maria" (Number 82) helped engender a new generation of Blondie fans. In early 1999 the band launched a U.S. tour — its first in over 15 years — and recorded a live album. Meanwhile, ex-members Infante and Harrison filed a lawsuit in the summer of 1998 over the use of the Blondie name and royalties. In a separate legal case, Blondie sued former-label EMI for breach of contract, claiming EMI refused to pay the group proper royalties for albums recorded from 1977 to 1982 — a payment plan was agreed upon in 1996.

The group's catalog was reissued in 2001; each disc was expanded with demos, live tracks and covers. In 2003, the group released The Curse of Blondie (Number 160), its eighth studio album, and continued to tour, but relations between past and present Blondie remain tense: When Infante and Harrison appeared at the band's 2006 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—and made motions to try and join the band onstage—Harry dismissed them, saying "Can't you see my real band is up there?" Harry released another solo album, Necessary Evil, and appeared in a number of independent films. She also traveled with the True Colors tour in 2007.

In July, 2008, Blondie launched a sold-out world tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Parallel Lines. In the summer of 2009, Blondie toured again, this time with Pat Benetar and the Donnas. In December, 2009, the band released a Christmas single, "We Three Kings," and announced plans to released a new album—the band's first since 2003—in 2010.

Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Evan Serpick contributed to this article.

Cyndi Lauper

With her distinctive little-girl voice, thrift-store style, and art-school training, Cyndi Lauper was one of the earliest female icons to harness MTV's influence and become a pop star. Her debut album was the first in history by a woman to have four Top Five singles; led by "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," it also won her the unlikely title of "Woman of the Year" from Ms. Magazine.

Lauper was raised in Brooklyn and Queens by her waitress mother, a life she paid homage to when her mother starred in the video for "Girls." After dropping out of high school and spending a few years "finding herself," Lauper sang for cover bands on Long Island. She almost ruined her voice and sought training from Katherine Agresta, an opera singer and rock & roll vocal coach. She then spent four years singing and writing songs for Blue Angel, a rootsy rock band whose strong New York following never translated into sales for their eponymous 1980 Polydor album.

Lauper filed for bankruptcy after Blue Angel split, and for a while sang in a Japanese restaurant dressed like a geisha until her manager and boyfriend David Wolff landed her a deal with the CBS imprint Portrait. She's So Unusual (Number Four, 1983) became an international hit, eventually selling more than 5 million records in the U.S. alone, led by "Girls" (Number Two, 1983), "All Through the Night" (Number Five, 1984), "She Bop" (Number Three, 1984), and "Time After Time" (Number One, 1984). The album, produced by Rick Chertoff and featuring Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian of the Philadelphia band the Hooters [see entry], won Lauper a Grammy and put the singer on the brink of superstardom. On The Tonight Show, the rainbow-haired singer with the Betty Boop voice claimed that professional wrestler Captain Lou Albano was her mentor and had taught her the keys to fame: politeness, etiquette, and grooming.

Lauper was never able to match the success of her debut, although 1986's True Colors' title track went to Number One and featured "Change of Heart" (Number Three, 1986) and a cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" (Number 12, 1987). In 1985 she had a Number Ten hit with "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough," from the film The Goonies. (Lauper's own ventures into acting have proved ill-fated: One movie never made it out of the studio, and 1988's Vibes and 1993's Life With Mikey flopped.)

A Night to Remember was trashed by critics and stalled at Number 37 on the pop chart; it contained one hit, "I Drove All Night" (Number Six, 1989). In 1990 she ended her personal and professional relationship with Wolff; the following year she married actor David Thornton, with Little Richard presiding.

She returned in 1993 with Hat Full of Stars (Number 112), reasserting control over her career (coproducing and cowriting all tracks) and proving to critics that she had grown with the times. The album deals with such issues as racism, backstreet abortions, and incest; collaborators include Mary Chapin Carpenter, Junior Vasquez, and her old friends the Hooters. The album faltered commercially, however, yielding no hit singles.

In 1994 Lauper made a comeback of sorts in the U.K. with the release of the anthology 12 Deadly Cyns and Then Some, which reached Number Two, and "Hey Now (Girls Just Want to Have Fun)," a remix of her first hit, which topped the singles chart. Despite the remix's appearance in the movie To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, the album fared less well when later issued in the U.S. (Number 81 pop, 1995). Its followup, Sisters of Avalon (Number 188 pop, 1997), Lauper's first album of new material in four years, also went nowhere.

Shine, was recorded in 2001, but due to label problems, was distributed only in Japan — and not until 2003. That same year saw the release of At Last (Number 38), a covers album featuring versions of Dionne Warwick's "Walk On By" and Édith Piaf's "La Vie En Rose"

The Body Acoustic (Number 12, 2005) was another album of re-interpretations, but this time it was Lauper recording new versions of older songs with such guests as Ani DiFranco and Shaggy. In 2007, she produced and headlined the True Colors Tour, a 15-city summer jaunt aimed at raising money for gay, lesbian an transgender rights; performers included Debbie Harry, Erasure and the Gossip.

In the spring of 2008 Lauper released Bring You To The Brink her first full-on dance album teaming up with the likes of Max Martin (Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson) and the electronic dance music duo Basement Jaxx.

Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).