IN CONCERT
k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang
When: Sunday, 8 p.m. (doors at 7)
Where: Royal Theatre
Tickets: Sold out
k.d. lang is one of the few modern performers whose professional life remains largely unaffected by trends, record-label interference or bad press.
She has been her own person for years. Check that: She's been her own person pretty much since she arrived on the music scene in 1983, back when she was the brains - and voice - behind a bar-band tribute feting her earliest hero, Patsy Cline.
Lang, who turns 51 in November, has carved a niche for herself in the years since, corralling audiences and critical acclaim over the course of a Grammy-winning career that continues to twist and shout.
The Alberta native has fashioned for herself yet another musical makeover alongside the Siss Boom Bang, a red-hot group of touring vets and session musicians with whom she collaborated on her most recent recording, 2011's Sing it Loud.
"This is a little bit of my sassier side," lang, who is not currently granting interviews, told TV host Tavis Smiley last year.
"My musical, nomadic self kind of shifts a little bit, but this is kind of touching down on the earlier part of my career, the Torch and Twang period."
Lang and the Siss Boom Bang will appear on Sunday at the Royal Theatre, backed by some of the singer's best reviews in recent memory.
The show, which is sold out, marks the first time in well over a decade that lang has performed in Victoria.
She performed earlier this summer at Courtenay's Vancouver Island Music Festival to enthusiastic reviews.
After getting her start as something of a cow-punk chanteuse - one who played often at Harpo's Cabaret in Victoria during the mid to late '80s - lang moved effortlessly into the adult contemporary category with 1987's Crying, her Grammy-winning duet with Roy Orbison.
The song made her an international star and set off a chain of critically acclaimed albums that reached critical mass with Ing脙漏nue, her 1992 masterwork.
Ing脙漏nue closed with Constant Craving, her biggest hit to date in terms of commercial success and radio play. During her interview with Smiley, lang suggested the thrice Grammy-nominated Constant Craving remains her signature song.
"I'm a one-hit wonder, let's face the fact," she said with a laugh. "But that's OK."
Others would argue against such claims. Following the release of her 2004 recording Hymns of the 49th Parallel, a tribute to the great songwriters in Canadian history, lang won a new round of raves for her version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Lang's moving rendition of the song during the 2005 Juno Awards broadcast, which earned a minute-long standing ovation, is considered an indelible highlight of her career.
Hallelujah remains a show-stopping moment during each of her concerts, present tour included.
Despite her constantly evolving self, the singer has maintained over two decades a flourishing creative relationship with jazz icon Tony Bennett.
The pair has earned a quartet of Grammy Award nominations for their work together (including a pop collaboration win in 2003), the icing on the cake of a relationship that Bennett continues to gush about.
In an interview last month with the sa国际传媒, lang's longtime collaborator compared her voice to those of the all-time greats.
"As far as I am concerned," Bennett said, "she is on the same level as Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald."
