There is no doubt that Cyndi Lauper can sing almost anything and make it not only compelling, but her own (and she has, many times, whether her albums sold or not). Arguing her gift as a vocalist is pointless. That said, her sense of direction is always a question. Thanks to her appearance on the television program Celebrity Apprentice, her public profile is once more part of mainstream pop culture. So of all the albums to make -- Memphis Blues is her eleventh -- why a blues record now? True, she gets help from some big names: Charlie Musselwhite, Allen Toussaint, B.B. King, Ann Peebles, and Jonny Lang, but in the end, she has to carry these performances herself. The set begins with Little Walter Jacobs' "Just Your Fool" featuring Musselwhite's muscular harmonica, but Lauper's vocal is thin, reedy, and doesn't carry authority in the lyric -- particularly not when juxtaposed against that harmonica. Far better is Louis Jordan's "Early in the Mor...