MISSING IN ACTION: Singer Neneh Cherry pulled...

MISSING IN ACTION: Singer Neneh Cherry pulled a disappearing act after making a big splash in 1989. You remember: She broke out with two distinctive Top 10 singles, “Buffalo Stance” and “Kisses on the Wind”--both from her hit debut album “Raw Like Sushi.” She also received a 1990 best new artist Grammy nomination.

The consensus was that in Cherry, the stepdaughter of noted jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, we finally had a dance-pop star who might make some dance records with grit and substance.

But in the fall of 1989, just as she was beginning to tour the United States, she suddenly dropped out of sight. The official word blamed a bout with Lyme disease, but the underground gossip was that her stage show was a disaster and that the tour had simply been scrapped.

Save for a song on the 1990 “Red Hot + Blue” Cole Porter tribute album and another atmospheric piece on the recent “Until the End of the World” film soundtrack, Cherry hasn’t been heard from.

But now her label, Virgin Records, reports that she’s alive and well and working on her second album with the same team that produced the debut. It should be out sometime this year. The word is that Cherry, 27, has devoted the last two years to getting healthy and spending time with her two young daughters.