Last night, k.d. lang played the final performance of her three-night residency at New York City's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. The New York Times posits that the Canadian singer's inclusion in an American-themed series may stem from the reputation she earned through her collaboration with Tony Bennett as "one of the two or three great under-50 interpreters of American popular standards." lang is "possessed of one of the world's most beautiful and steady pop voices."
Last night, k.d. lang played the final performance of her three-night residency at New York City's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. The New York Times' Stephen Holden, in his review of Wednesday's show, posits that the Canadian singer's inclusion in an American-themed series may stem from the reputation she earned through her collaboration with Tony Bennett as "one of the two or three great under-50 interpreters of American popular standards."
On the current tour, k.d. is focusing primarily on the work of Canadian songwriters, most notably the songs she created for her new album, Watershed. Holden writes that the Wednesday night set "conjured big-sky country where romantic dreamers infused the wide-open spaces with swooning desire" and says of k.d. that she is "possessed of one of the world's most beautiful and steady pop voices."
Holden refers back to the title of k.d.'s 1989 album, Absolute Torch and Twang, for the most apt description of this inimitable performer:
The torch part comes from the dreamy side of Peggy Lee, a North Dakota farm girl whose ’60s ballad style remains the ne plus ultra of a dreamy passivity. The twang comes from another Lang idol, the country singer Patsy Cline, in whom true grit battled heartbreak and won by a hair. In Watershed the two aspects are boldly overlaid.
To read the review, visit nytimes.com.
Up next on the tour are three stops in Florida, beginning with a concert at the Kravis Center for the Arts in West Palm Beach tomorrow night. For more tour information, click here.