I went to see Lulu last night. Cathy Dupuis has an excellent review elsewhere on the website tonight but she was much kinder than I would've been. For some reason best known to the 1960s pop icon, she sang r&b standards all night long. On her first trip to New York City, Lulu had the audacity to sing "To Sir With Love" as an Al Greenish soul song.
We call this a jazz odyssey moment.
From "This Is Spinal Tap" of course, where the band goes in a new direction to disastrous effect and while I have no real problem with folkies going electric or goth rockers getting into electronica, I really think it should be labelled as such. If Lulu had made a huge sign that read: I AM LULU AND IF YOU WANNA RELIVE YOUR YOUTH YOU'RE FUCKED SUNNY JIM, well you pay your money and you take your chances, but this is like buying a ticket to see "Take The Money And Run" and being shown "Interiors" (to mix my metaphors).
I realize Lulu may well be sick of singing "The Boat That I Row" but that doesn't mean she shouldn't sing it. It was a 90 minute show and she performed "To Sir With Love" and "Shout", and that's it. What the hell was that?
It's like buying a hamburger for lunch and the waiter giving you a Quiche Lorraine. The quiche might be fine, and Lulu was in great voice, but it wasn't what you bought. Lulu sings soul just fine (she recorded with Atlantic back in the day) but she is a great pop song shouter and cute as well. What's she gonna do about it? If they've seen her a million times in the UK, she is new in the US.
People go to shows to hear the music, or types of music, they are famous for, to switch on them is simply wrong. But let's give the last word to rock nyc writer Steve Crawford (and hardly for the first time): "It was probably better than hearing Dee Dee Ramone rap."