Grammy Winning Singer k.d. Lang Heats Up A Sizzling Summer Night At The McCallum Tonight, 6/26

If the California desert wasn't hot enough this time of year, Grammy Award winning singer k.d. lang & the Siss Boom Bang promise to "heat up the summer night" when they bring their eclectic, signature musical style to The McCallum Theatre tonight, June 26 at 8:00 pm as part of the Fitz's Jazz Cafe Series. Lang launched her career 25 years ago with a blend of country-rock and a playfully punk-like attitude. With her 1992 Platinum-selling Ingenue, she had fashioned a unique sound and an elegant and impassioned adult contemporary approach that yielded her a Grammy Award, her second, and her biggest career hit, "Constant Craving."  

After independently releasing A Truly Western Experience on a Canadian label in 1984, which generated serious major-label interest in the States, k.d. joined Sire/Warner Bros for her 1987 U.S. debut, Angel With A Lariat. 1988’s follow-up Shadowland brought k.d. to the heart of Nashville for a country-politan-themed collaboration.

Though the Nashville establishment may have remained skeptical about k.d., Shadowland reached #8 on the Billboard Country album chart. Her 1989 Grammy Award-winning Absolute Torch and Twang combined her love of country with increasingly sophisticated, emotive torch singing typified by "Pullin' Back the Reins." 

On subsequent releases, k.d. continued to fine-tune and expand the parameters of her songwriting and her repertoire. All You Can Eat (1995) was the most experimental, as challenging as it was fun. Drag (1997) underscored her gifts as an interpreter, utilizing material by composers ranging from Steve Miller and Air Supply to Jane Siberry and Andre and Dory Previn. Invincible Summer (2000) was perhaps her most sultry, a collection featuring bossa nova inflections and dreamy electronics. With Hymns of the 49th Parallel, k.d. presented her most compelling set of material by other songwriters — all of them, in this case, fellow Canadians — as well as a gorgeous version of her own "Simple." k.d.’s interpretation of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is understatedly stunning, and with good reason; it has become, along with her breathtaking cover of Roy Orbison's "Crying," a concert showstopper.

David Green is the Executive Director of The Carol Channing-Harry Kullijian Foundation for the Arts -- working to restore the Arts to our nation���s public schools and provide an arts education to every child in America. He is the founder and President of the nationally acclaimed Conservatory Musical Theatre University, a training ground for talented young people with aspirations for careers in theatre, most specifically musical theatre. Mr. Green's Broadway alumni include Tony -nominee Matthew Morrison, Stephanie Block, Lindsay Mendez, Scott Barnhardt, Anneliese VanDerPol and Krysta Rodriguez, to name a few. As a producer and director, he has staged over 150 theatrical productions for both educational and professional theatre and with such stars as Carol Channing, Cathy Rigby, Jonelle Allen, Eric Kunze, Davis Gaines, Stephanie Zimbalist, John Raitt, Betty Garrett and more. Mr. Green is honored to serve the Inland Empire of Southern California as a contributor to BroadwayWorld.