Cynthia Crane

Born and raised in Manhattan, chanteuse Cynthia Crane launched her career by singing in nightclubs and cabaret venues along the entire Eastern Seaboard. She appeared regularly with big bands throughout New England, took part in summer-stock productions, performed in several off-Broadway shows, and entertained American troops overseas through USO tours. Together with Ted Story, George Ferencz, and Pam Mitchell she established and produced The Impossible Ragtime Theatre, an off-off-Broadway company that mounted more than one hundred plays. A self-described “black-sheep W.A.S.P.,” Crane traces her lineage to a three-generation New York family whose Crane Oxygen and Ambulance Service once supplied oxygen to The Ziegfeld Follies performers backstage. As a teenager she absorbed countless recordings of singers, big bands, Broadway musicals, and Hollywood films from the 1930s and 1940s; those sources later shaped her distinctive approach. In addition to the album The Secret Life of a W.A.S.P., she has released four further recordings, each arranged and accompanied by pianist Mike Renzi. Viewing herself equally as a cabaret and saloon singer, she chooses material that suits both personas and moves comfortably through standards from the Great American Popular Songbook, frequently giving even familiar songs an irreverent, impertinent twist with her husky delivery. The album Smoky Bar Songs for the No-Smoking Section showcases her at her most stirring, presenting a sequence of numbers calculated to raise or submerge the listener’s spirits according to individual mood. Beyond performing, she devotes energy to New York civic causes, particularly campaigns that protect historic city landmarks from demolition. Her work has earned Back Stage’s Bistro Award for Outstanding Vocalist, and she continues to appear at such Manhattan venues as Tavern on the Green and Don’t Tell Mama.