Taylor Dayne can't wait to see her Long Island fans at The Suffolk

Taylor Dayne long ago moved to California, but she brought her East Coast work ethic with her.

"My daughter just invited me to go to the beach today with her boyfriend," Dayne said. "And I'm like, 'OK, well, I am working. I have some press, I'm talking to Newsday — you know, I have things to do!' ”

On a recent Zoom call with her hometown newspaper, the Long Island pop diva — born Leslie Wunderman in Manhattan, then raised in Baldwin and Freeport — rattled off her to-do list, not the least of which is her show at The Suffolk in Riverhead on Thursday. There are also auditions to be held for musicians and dancers for her eight-show residency at Harrah’s in Las Vegas, which begins Nov. 24 and ends Jan. 2.

Then there’s her ongoing involvement with Saylor Beach House, the dockside eatery in Greenport she launched in May, which is slated to be featured in an episode of "The Golden Life," an upcoming reality show featuring former "The Real Housewives of New York City" cast members, Dayne said. (She founded the restaurant with Celeste Fierro, a longtime friend and fellow Long Islander who co-created the upscale steakhouse STK.) Most pressing, though, is her show at The Suffolk, part of a tour that continues through early November.

"I can’t wait to see my Long Islanders," Dayne, 64, said, noting that she now splits her time between Santa Barbara, California; Florida; and the neighborhoods of her youth. "My brother’s out there, my niece, my nephews, some of my best friends." Dayne added that she visited Southampton in August to perform at a benefit concert for the Playing for Change Foundation. (She and Wyclef Jean sang the Roberta Flack and Fugees crossover classic "Killing Me Softly with His Song.")

"That is my stamping grounds for the summer," Dayne said of the Hamptons.

Meanwhile, Dayne’s Las Vegas residency sounds like one of her biggest undertakings in some time. She describes it as something between a concert and a jukebox musical biopic. "I'm on calls daily with my creative director and also my musical director, because we're creating a complete new storyboard," Dayne said.

"Act One, Act Two, Act Three." She added: "I get to have my Bette Midler moment, my Babs moment. This is the time for me where I really get to own it, you know?"

That storyboard could look something like this: A teenage Dayne begins singing with local rock bands after graduating from Baldwin High School. While performing in a Brooklyn nightclub she meets Ric Wake, who produces her 1987 breakthrough, "Tell It to My Heart," recorded at Cove City Sound in Glen Cove. That upbeat dance-pop track becomes the first of Dayne’s impressive run of seven Top 10 singles over the next three years, including "I’ll Always Love You," "Don’t Rush Me" and the 1990 chart-topper "Love Will Lead You Back." A couple more hits come in the 1990s, including Dayne’s cover of "Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe," which reached No. 20 in 1993.

Even after those action-packed years, Dayne has kept busy and toured regularly. She did some acting, as in Showtime’s 2000 sitcom "Rude Awakening." She appeared last year on the reality show "Pawn Stars," in which she haggled over such items as a black skirt from her "Tell It to My Heart" music video. Dayne has also continued to record, if sporadically; her last studio album was 2008’s "Satisfied." She raised twins, now 24, as a single mom and in 2022 successfully battled colon cancer.

"The passion of what you do is what you get out of it, so I love what I do," Dayne said. "I mean, 37 years later, here I am, still talking about my career, and still loving being onstage."

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com