Two-time Grammy Award-winning singer Sheena Easton, known for the hits “Morning Train (9 to 5),” “For Your Eyes Only” and “You Could Have Been with Me,” will perform a string of shows, starting Friday at the Egyptian Theatre. Credit: Photo courtesy of Patrick Rivera Two-time Grammy A ward-winning and six-time Grammy Award-nominated singer Sheena Easton looks forward to three-night her residency, which starts Friday at the Egyptian Theatre. “Instead of it being a one-nighter, we’ll be there for a few days,” she said. “So it will be fab.” Easton also promises to perform her string of career-long hits that include “Morning Train (9 to 5)” and “You Could Have Been with Me,” to name a few. “The thing that I’ve learned in all the years that I’ve been doing this is the fans that come to the shows come to hear the songs so they can relive the memories,” she said. “They really want to stroll down memory lane, and that’s the key thing. I can always pick out a person, that couple or a group of people that have been waiting for that one song that means so much to them.” Easton, whose breakthrough hit, “Morning Train,” remained at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for two weeks in 1981, remembers when she wasn’t too keen on performing her older hits. “There was a time when I always wanted to do new stuff and deep cuts and throw in a few token hits,” she confessed. “But I changed my mind on that a few years ago when I saw how the hits affected people.” Still, Easton will throw a few surprises in the mix. “There will be some songs that people won’t expect, and I kind of link up the stories so they will make sense why I’m doing them,” she said. “They just don’t come out of the blue. They make sense in my life and my influences.” Easton’s family introduced her to all kinds of music while she was growing up in Scotland. “I was the youngest of six kids, so I was exposed to so many genres,” she said. “I think that’s one of the things I am grateful for. It gave me a broad understanding of music, and I didn’t feel myself pinned to one particular style.” While people may tell Easton that influences such as Barbara Streisand and Steely Dan don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, she counters and says those artists “had just as much influence on me as others.” “Sure, Streisand more vocally, obviously, but there were the grooves and harmonies from Steely Dan and the Motown stuff and so many different things coming at me that my little tiny brain was absorbing,” she said. Shortly after “Morning Train” Easton struck a chord with action-film lovers with the 1981 hit “For Your Eyes Only,” she recorded for Eon Production’s James Bond film of the same name. The song, written by Bill Conti and Mick Leeson, was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe award in 1982 in the Best Music Original Song category. It also led to Easton winning a Best New Artist Grammy a few months earlier. A bit of trivia: Easton remains, to date, the first singer of a James Bond theme to appear on screen in a James Bond film opening credits, and she’s the first recording artist to have top five records on five major Billboard charts.  “Awards are lovely to get, but that’s not what you focus on,” Easton said of the accolades, which also include a Billboard Music Award for Top Pop New Artist and a string of additional Grammy nominations. “When I look back over the course of my career and people bring them up, I’m reminded that I’m known in different areas.” In addition to pop songs, Easton has hit the charts with R B and even country, namely the Bob Seger-penned “We’ve Got Tonight,” which she recorded as a duet with Kenny Rogers in 1983. “Some people know me for one thing, and some people know me for another,” she said. “A lot of people don’t like my pop stuff, but they love my R B stuff I did with L.A. Reid and Babyface and Prince. And some people who aren’t fans of mine know me for the song I did with Kenny Rogers, because they are country fans.” Easton said the secret of building that kind of resume is being open to opportunities. “When you try something new and you step out and push yourself, it gives you more tools in your toolbox, and that helps keep your career relevant,” she said. “It’s like any other job you do. The more you do it, more doors open, and if you have the guts to step through and allow yourself to fail now and then, there’s a chance you will be around for a while.” Failure, Easton said, is growth. “Yes, it’s horrible, and, yes, it’s a horrendous thing to go through,” she said. “Although it is a gut punch, it teaches you that you survived something and that you can go onto the next thing.” Some of the doors that have opened in Easton’s career include voice-overs, recording songs for video games and performing live theater on Broadway, London’s West End and throughout the states on tour. “I would guess most singers lean toward acting because you’re performing melodies and lyrics and conveying the emotions and stories behind the songs,” she said. Easton was no stranger to acting before she hit it big as a singer. “I went to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) when I was 17, so the next step into pure acting and dialogue isn’t a big step,” she said. Recording two songs — “What You Are” and “Eclipse of Time” — composed by Nobuo Uematsu for the 2007 XBox 360 video game, “Lost Odyssey,” was another great opportunity, especially because Easton is a gamer. “I still, to this day, love to game, and it’s one of the ways I can relax,” she said. “So this was something that I was thrilled came to me. It was a real privilege to do that.”Although Easton doesn’t have plans to record a new record, she’s open to making music for video games. “If any video game came to me and said, ‘Would you sing on it?’ I would say, ‘Yes. 100 percent,’ because there are tons that I would love to do some music for,” she said with a laugh. “So, please, let me do something for ‘Fallout’ or ‘The Witcher.’” Easton said her willingness of stepping through those open doors has kept her career relevant throughout the decades. “I think the reason I could step through that door and do different things is because — and this may sound corny — it was in my musical DNA from the stuff I absorbed growing up,” she said. “I was also very young when I started, so I had not been beaten down by life to get cynical about anything. And when you’re young and have dreams. While you don’t assume that they will come true, you have that feeling like wanting to be an astronaut and you say, ‘Oh, I can do that.’” As her career continued, Easton paid attention to what was going on around her. “The more you mature and live your life, you see some of the problems that can arise,” she said. “You see your contemporaries just kind of drop out and fall by the wayside and wonder if ‘that’s going to be me.’ But I didn’t plan on coming in and playing around for a couple of years and dipping out to do something else. I realized that instead of coming up with some sort of formula to stay in the business, I needed to do what felt right. I had to do the stuff that felt challenging that would help me grow and develop as an artist. And while I don’t have conscious plans to go out and make another record, the door isn’t closed. If something excites me, I would be interested in it because I’m always going to be open to work with talented writers and musicians.” Sheena Easton When: Friday through Sunday Where: Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main St. Tickets: $50-$70 Phone: 855-745-SHOW Web: parkcityshows.com and sheenaeaston.com The post Sheena Easton brings ‘The Morning Train’ to Park City appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less