Cyndi Lauper's 1st band "Blue Angel".
After being expelled from school at 17, Cindy ran away from home and headed to Canada. There she spent two weeks alone in the woods with her dog Sparkle as she mapped out her future. She changed her name to Cyndi and settled in Vermont where, having attained a GED, she worked odd jobs to support her art classes at Johnson State College. She truly was her own woman from the beginning.
But it was in the next couple years she found her calling, singing front in a number of NYC cover bands.
By 1978, at 24 years old and not satisfied with singing covers, Cyndi hooked up with keyboard and sax player John Turi and formed the New Wave Punk Band, Blue Angel. Along with guitar player Arthur "Rockin A" Neilson, Lee Brovitz on bass, and Johnny Morelli on drums, Lauper and Turi wrote enough songs to cut a demo. That tape found it's way to Steve Massarsky, then manager of The Allman Brothers Band. Saying he liked Lauper's voice he bought Blue Angel's contract for $25,000 and became their manager.
Playing the regional New England circuit, Cyndi received many offers to go solo but refused unless the rest of the band would be included. Blue Angel was eventually signed by Polydor Records and recorded their first and only self titled album. Despite critical acclaim, the album sold poorly ("It went lead", as Lauper later joked) and the band broke up. Their manager later sued the band for $80,000, leaving Lauper in abject bankruptcy.
After Blue Angel broke up, Lauper spent time, due to her financial problems, working in retail stores, waitressing at IHOP (which she quit after being demoted to hostess when the manager sexually harassed her), and singing in local clubs. Her most frequent gigs were at El Sombrero. Music critics who saw Lauper perform with Blue Angel believed she had star potential due to her four-octave singing range, and In 1981, while singing in a local New York bar, Lauper met David Wolff, who took over as her manager and had her sign a solo recording contract with Portrait Records, a subsidiary of Epic Records.
We all know what happened after that.
Personally, I think her vocal star power shines through brightly on this Blue Angel cut, the appropriately titled "I'm Gonna Be Strong"
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