HER FAREWELL IS A LITTLE UNUSUAL

SOON-TO-BE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE CYNDI LAUPER TAKES A MOMENT TO LOOK BACK, BUT SHE WON'T STOP MOVING FORWARD.

- MIKAEL WOOD POP MUSIC CRITIC

“LOOK AT THESE GUYS,” Cyndi Lauper whispers discreetly as she nods toward a straitlaced couple strolling through the Sunset Marquis. “I wonder what they think of a rock ’n’ roll hotel.”

The 72-year-old pop icon is hanging out on a September afternoon in a leafy alcove at the clubby musician's spot that’s been her go-to in Los Angeles since the early 1980s. She’s seen a lot in her days here: That room over there is where she dyed the Bangles’ hair before they appeared as a band of pirates in the music video for her song “The Goonies ’R’ Good Enough”; over there by the pool is where she used to spy Roy Scheider “turning to a wilted prune,” she recalls, as he lay in the sun. Back then, Lauper was a disruptive new star raising eyebrows with her chaotic fashion sense and her earthy Noo Yawk accent. Now, nearly half a century later, she’s just wrapped a two-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl to finish off what she's calling her farewell tour. Filled with quirky yet heartfelt classics like “Time After Time,” “She Bop” and the deathless “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” the Bowl shows were filmed for a CBS concert special, which didn’t stop one guy in the front row from falling asleep. “They probably shoved him with beef and red wine,” Lauper says, less aggrieved than sympathetic. “I said, ‘Why don’t you just get a cot?’ " The gigs also came as Lauper is preparing to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony set for next month. In announcing that she'd been voted in, the hall hailed Lauper’s “distinctive four-octave voice and songwriting chops” and noted her influence on younger acts like Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and Chappell Roan, whom she'd “empowered to perform as their unique, authentic selves.”

“She broke all the rules,” says Lauper’s friend Cher, who joined her onstage at the Bowl along with Joni Mitchell and SZA. “She even broke the accent rule.”