By Ken Knox

Gearing up for a New Years weekend gig in San Diego, '80s pop mistress Sheena Easton reflects on why life outside the spotlight is a dream come true.

"Whatever happened to Sheena Easton?" It's a question that many who came of age in the '80s have asked over the years. Once lodged firmly in the upper echelons of the pop music charts with hits like "Modern Girl," "Morning Train," "For Your Eyes Only," "Strut" and "Sugar Walls," Scottish import Sheena Easton eventually disappeared from the public eye following a stunted attempt to cross over into R&B. She popped up here and there on stage (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), movies (voicing a Scottish terrier in All Dogs Go to Heaven 2) and television (this year's PAX-TV series Young Blades), but has predominantly been flying well under the radar. Which, as Easton reveals, is just the way she prefers it.

"I don't miss it at all," Easton says of the attention her chart-topping career brought her. "I love the privacy of being able to step into the background and have a normal life. I would not want to go back. In a heartbeat, I would take my life at 46 over my life at 26."

Easton's life at 46 includes being a single mother to two (she adopted son Jake in 1994, daughter Skylar in 1996), cleaning out the cat box, feeding her dogs, and doing the occasional soundtrack contribution or show on the Strip in Vegas, where she has lived for the past few years. "I used to come in and do weekends and go, 'God, how could anybody live here?'" she says of Sin City, her lovely Scottish accent untainted by American phonetics. "But it's changed drastically. It's just this huge suburban sprawling area of new homes, all these gated communities, and brand new schools. As a parent, it's actually a great place to raise kids."

Easton's children are, in fact, the reason she said goodbye to life in the spotlight. "I made a point of changing my life and my lifestyle so that I could be a good parent. Lucky for me, I'd had my solo career during my 20s, so I had the luxury of time and experience on my side to know what I wanted and what I didn't want, and to know what had lasting happiness. I know it sounds corny, but the ego gratification of having big hits starts to get old when you realize you don't have piece of mind and soul gratification."

Not that Easton is hurting for work. In addition to her regular Vegas gigs (she was inducted into the Casino Hall of Fame in 2004), she says she hopes to return to the stage and do more acting ("I would love to do Wicked," she professes) -- that is, if it suits her priorities. "I gotta tell you, I'm really selfish," she confesses. "I'm only going to do stuff it if means I'm going to be a good mom. I haven't stopped being busy. The only difference is that now I do things that interest me and make me happy, as opposed to things that are going to enhance my career."

She has no immediate plans to record another album anytime soon ("That means going back to the machine and all the stuff that I don't like," she says), but adds that she is open to the right project (like, perhaps, an album of lullabies). In the meantime, she looks forward to gigs like her upcoming show at Outside Under the Stars during New Year's weekend in San Diego, where Easton says she will perform a mixture of her hits and a few surprises. "At this point in my life, I perform mostly because I want to and it's on a schedule that is manageable for me," she states. "In the old days, I'd be on tour month after month crying myself to sleep going, 'I just wanna go home.' Now when I perform, I get really excited about it, because now it's enjoyable. So, anybody that's coming to see me performing now is actually getting their money's worth a lot more than back in the '80s when sometimes it was a chore. Now it's just a joy."

Sheena Easton will appear at Resolution's Outside Under the Stars on Fifth Avenue on Dec. 30 at 7 p.m. For tickets, call (619) 501-7094, or visit www.stephergroup.com.