Kristine W comes full circle with "The Power of Music"

From beginnings to endings, creative conception to a completed work, Kristine W brings things full circle on her new album, The Power of Music.

"It's been a crazy, nutty day. The UPS guy just dropped off the first two thousand copies of the album, and they're sitting in the back of my truck," says Kristine W, speaking by phone from her home in Las Vegas. "I'm going to take a picture of all my two thousand babies!"

It's been a long pregnancy for Power. In February 2007, an interview with Kristine W about her then-upcoming album was this writer's very first contribution to Bay Windows. More than two years later, the album is finally released on my final week as arts editor with the paper; she is my first interview, and my last. It's a circle completed, but not the only one: the disc is also the dance music artist's long awaited return to a full-length studio album (her last was Fly Again in 2003), and the first on her own record label, a self-starting enterprise that harkens back to her early days, when she first pounded the pavement of the Vegas casino circuit with her saxophone, guitar and blue-eyed soul vocals.

The Power of Music's promotion is also buoyed by a recent performance at April's controversial 2009 Miss USA pageant, the same contest where Kristine herself competed as Miss Washington back in 1982. She won the talent competition, and though she didn't take home the crown, she earned the hefty scholarship that helped launch a career that has taken her from those early casino gigs to headlining her own show at the Vegas Hilton (she performed more shows than any other in the venue's history, including Elvis Presley), to the dance floors of clubs everywhere and Pride festival stages the world over. She has also consistently loaned her time and talent to LGBT fundraising galas in honor of the community with which she bonded in the earliest days of her career; after all, she got her earliest makeup and costume tips from Vegas drag queens.

When it comes to her recent return to the Miss USA stage, Kristine strikes a sympathetic tone toward the controversial Miss California Carrie Prejean.

"I was with them [the contestants] backstage the whole weekend, and she was definitely the one to win," says Kristine, who describes Prejean as a "nice person, a good person." "It brought me back to when I was there, and they had me all over the papers as the one to win. But I was the youngest girl in the pageant, just 18. I didn't know what I was doing, I was just happy to get there and get a scholarship. The pressure on somebody like her is tremendous, and you know, she was being honest."

Kristine says she can understand faulting Prejean's subsequent behavior as a poster girl for the anti-gay marriage movement. "I think people around her are using the situation to further their own right wing views," she says. But she adds that Miss California's initial response was, agreeable or not, the honest one required of her by the pageant.

"That's the way she was raised," adds Kristine. "And you can't hurt someone for being honest. Now, I was raised completely differently. My mom's best friend was a gay choir director, and she would pretend to date him so that he wouldn't be ostracized by the people in town. I had a completely different upbringing, so my answer would have been completely different - and at that time, my answer would have got me kicked off stage."

With a summer of Pride performances ahead, Kristine is finally taking the stage with plenty of new music from the long-awaited The Power of Music.

"You want to do an album that you're proud of instead of rushing things just to get it out," says Kristine. The delays, she adds, were the result of working with international producers like UK based favorite Love to Infinity, and even some unexpected collaborators like rap pioneer Big Daddy Kane, who lends his rhymes to the title track. "You've got to see, when are they going to be in Los Angeles to cut an album, write tunes, rewrite tunes," she explains of the album's coordination. "When you're working with guys like that, none of us do anything half ass!"

While fans were waiting for the full album to come together, Kristine kept them dancing by releasing four club singles: "Walk Away," "The Boss" (a cover of the Diana Ross classic), "Never," and "Love is the Look." All four went to #1 on the Billboard charts - in fact, only one single released since her debut has failed to reach that pole position - and all four are included on The Power of Music, giving it the enviable reputation of a hit dance record before it was even released. But crammed with 14 other previously unheard tracks - including current single "Be Alright" - The Power of Music was worth the wait. As with her other albums, it mostly eschews the traditional topics of dance diva releases (read: sex, break-ups, and make-ups) and instead focuses beat and lyrics on anthems of self-empowerment, causes of community celebration, and inspirational calls for universal compassion and kindness. In the same way Madonna's hits have often served up thinly veiled metaphors of dancing as sex and/or world domination, Kristine's club smashes present music as a therapeutic form of a group hug. Stand-outs on The Power of Music include the infectious disco-duck track "Groove's Inside," the summertime gem "Happiness," and another Diana Ross cover, Pride favorite "I'm Coming Out." There is one other full circle moment on The Power of Music, a new version of 1994's "Feel What You Want," Kristine's first single. She revisited her signature song after hearing the countless remixes - "some good, some not so good," she laughs - and wanting to create a new interpretation that brings the classic club track up to speed for current live performances.

Kristine says The Power of Music was inspired by letters, e-mails, and live conversations with fans describing how music has impacted their lives and helped them get through tough times (it's worth noting that Kristine's 2003 album Fly Again was named in the wake of her own nearly fatal battle with leukemia).

"It's cool to do personal songs, but I think enough people do that," says Kristine. "I kind of like getting into people's stories. And it's odd, I've noticed this pattern over the last 10 years that people go through a lot of the same emotions at the same time. You're like, 'Look at this guy's letter here ... and this guy's letter here.' They're connected, emotionally."

And right now, Kristine says she can sense a shift in the vibe on the dance floor - one that fits nicely with The Power of Music's theme of universality, of a return to the basics of hope, hard work, and big dreams.

"People are re-evaluating what's important in their life, no doubt about it," says Kristine. "They look around and go, 'Look at this water bill!'"

"We kind of have been living in a bubble of excess for a really long time, and I come from a really poor family so it's always really bothered me the way that I've seen people in general show a lack of appreciation for what they have, always wanting more, more, more," continues the singer, a fourth generation entertainer whose single mom played guitar in smoky bars to support the family. "The media and everything feeds into that consumer mentality that's totally consumed us. We're out of touch with the rest of the world [where people] don't even have the basics. ... I think people are re-evaluating where they're going in life. The party doesn't last forever! We have to try and do good while we're here, and it has to be the collective good of thousands that's going to help us survive."

When it comes to the economy, Kristine understands the dire straits many American are facing. Having left her record company to release The Power of Music on her own label, Fly Again Music, she's returned to the foundation of self-initiative that she relied on when she started in the business.

"It's been really hard for me doing a label on my own, but I can see that the major labels are paralyzed, like most businesses, with fear. They see themselves slowly eroding," she says. Troubled labels have led to more and more artists fleeing to self-release work, and "hustle like they've never hustled before," she adds.

"But this country was built on people who take the initiative and say 'Fuck it! I can't sit here while everyone is scratching their ass,'" continues the performer, who arrived in Vegas after the Miss America competition in a beat-up Cutlass to make her own name and fame. "That's why I found music. My grandpa was a farmer, and he used to say that when everyone is standing around doing nothing, that's the time to spread your message, go out there and make something happen. That's the spirit on which we were built. We have to remember that."

It's a spirit that fits with The Power of Music's main theme.

"Music transforms people," says Kristine. "It can give you the freedom to be anything."

Kristine W's The Power of Music is available now. For more info, visit kristinew.com.