The Beauty of British Song: Kim Wilde

Wilde about Kim? :-)

Kim Wilde, the daughter of British 1950s rock and roller Marty Wilde, first came to people's attention with her single "Kids In America," a song that's regrettably been turned into a commercial jingle of late. It hit number two in the United Kingdom in 1981 and reached number 25 in the United States a year later. With the release of her second album, Select, in the U.S., the pop press predicted a bright future for her with the very kids in America she sang about, but that didn't happen for reasons that boiled down to a single-named Yankee pop tart stealing her thunder.

Major success in America finally came for Wilde in 1987 with a cover of the Supremes classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On," a song she later admitted she wasn't familiar with - generation gap, perhaps - but that lack of familiarity allowed her to put her own spin on it. (Not as good a spin as on Vanilla Fudge's cover, though. ;-)) It hit number one in the U.S.

Although her 1988 album Close gave her four big hits in Europe - "Hey Mr. Heartache," You Came," "Never Trust a Stranger," and "Four Letter Word" - she was unable to repeat her success in the States. She remains active in pop music, though, and her eleventh studio album, Come Out and Play, is being released in August 2010.

And so we leave the little town of London, as this concludes my series on beautiful female British pop singers. :-)

The Beauty of British Song: Bonnie Tyler

I'm not featuring Bonnie Tyler here because of her Jim Steinman-penned 1983 hit "Total Eclipse Of the Heart," which is easily one of the most laughable and embarrassing songs ever written. I'm not here to discuss its merits, because it has none. Got that? No, Bonnie Tyler is on this blog for one reason - her 1978 international hit "It's a Heartache." :-)

Bonnie Tyler - born Gaynor Hopkins in Wales - had been singing for years in her homeland, with different groups, when she signed with RCA in 1976 and recorded her first British hit, "Lost In France." When Tyler underwent surgery to remove nodules from her vocal cords shortly thereafter, she failed to give her voice a rest per doctor's orders and it took on a raspy quality. Ironically, that was what made "It's a Heartache" such a massive success; long a blue-eyed soul singer like Joss Stone would later become, Tyler was now drawing favorable comparisons to Rod Stewart, who was also known to sing raspy blues numbers.

Bonnie Tyler has mostly enjoyed success in continental Europe in the years since "It's a Heartache." And yes, Rod Stewart eventually covered that song.

The Beauty of British Song: Joss Stone

It's Stone love. :-)

Joss Stone (born Joscelyn Stoker) is the most exciting blue-eyed soul sister to come out of Britain since Christine McVie. A child prodigy of sorts who was inspired by Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin, she released her debut album, The Soul Sessions, in 2003 at the age of sixteen and impressed everyone with her mature, soulful R&B vocal style. Her follow-up album, 2004's Mind, Body, and Soul was just as well received.

Along with her successes at home, Joss Stone has had good fortune in the States as well, with her third album, 2007's Introducing Joss Stone (so titled because she thought it marked her true debut as her own woman and her own artist), debuted at number two on the Billboard album charts, the second highest chart entrance for any British female recording artist. She's won three Grammys (including one for a collaboration with John Legend and Van Hunt). and received nominations for four more.

Her songs include "Right To Be Wrong" and "You Had Me," as well as the recontextualizing of the White Stripes's rocker "Fell In Love With a Girl" as the soul tune "Fell In Love With a Boy." She also released a fourth album, Colour Me Free.

The Beauty of British Song: Sade

The one and only.

I can't believe it's been, as of this writing, twenty-five years since Sade's first album, Diamond Life, was released in the United States. She should be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but there's likely only room for one single-named pop singer from the eighties (the talentless American), so the idea of Sade getting in is probably just a pipedream.

Anyway. . . . Sade was born Helen Folasade Adu to a Nigerian father and a British mother in pre-independence Nigeria and raised in Britain, where she went to college and joined a soul band while in school. She had been studying design, but fate intervened and she turned to music instead. She drew favorable comparisons to Roberta Flack (agreement there) with her first big hit single, "Smooth Operator."


Subsequent albums included Promise, Stronger Than Pride, and Love Deluxe, which respectively spawned the hits "The Sweetest Taboo,""Paradise," and "No Ordinary Love."

No ordinary singer, she, Sade has been very reclusive over the years. Her 2010 release Soldier of Love was her first album in ten years and only her second since 1992.

The Beauty of British Song: Mica Paris

From London, a touch of Paris. :-)

Mica Paris (born Michelle Wallen) came out of South London at the age of nineteen at the end of the 1980s and established herself as Britain's hottest new soul singer. Although that sounds like being the most promising concert pianist in Fargo, Mica Paris backed up the boast with her 1989 album So Good, which produced the single "My One Temptation." That song received massive radio play in the U.S.

Subsequent albums have included Contribution and Whisper a Prayer, along with singles such as "South Of The River" and "I Wanna Hold On To You."

Paris records infrequently, having produced six albums in a span of twenty years. Born Again, her sixth LP, was released in June 2009.

The Beauty of British Song: Christine McVie

Although American singer Stevie Nicks got a good deal of attention during Fleetwood Mac's glory days, much of that band's success was due to Christine McVie, its keyboardist, who was an accomplished singer-songwriter in her own right.

Born Christine Perfect, she first achieved fame in the group Chicken Shack, joining Fleetwood Mac in 1970 and first appearing on Kiln House, where her smoky, blue-eyed soul style was a strong foil for Danny Kirwan, then the group's principal frontperson. She later married bassist John McVie, but the marriage didn't last, and the breakup inspired her best-known (and most perversely interpreted) song, "Don't Stop." Her songs would be musical counterpoints to the styles of not just Kirwan and Nicks but also American guitarists/vocalists Bob Welch and Lindsey Buckingham.

Her songs include "Spare Me a Little Of Your Love," "Say You Love Me," "Songbird," and "Everywhere."

Christine McVie no longer participates in Fleetwood Mac reunions and returned to England after being based in California for many years but remained active in music. In 2004, she released her solo album In the Meantime.

The Beauty of British Song: Lulu

Not all of the great female singers of the 1960s British Invasion were English. Lulu, one of the U.K.'s biggest singing stars of that decade, was from Scotland.

Born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie and raised in Glasgow, Lulu began singing at the age of twelve and started her recording career in 1966. The following year, she made her acting debut in the Sidney Poitier movie To Sir, with Love, about an idealistic Guyanese teacher educated in America and teaching at a London school attended by working-class toughs. Lulu recorded the movie's theme song of the same name, an it became the biggest-selling single of the year in the U.S.

Lulu won the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom with her song "Boom Bang-a-Bang," which caused some controversy among those who hated it.

Fun fact: She was briefly married to Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees.

The Beauty of British Song: Leona Lewis

Not every big star that emerged from talent-contest television shows are Americans. In Britain, where the singing-talent show craze started, a young London girl named Leona Lewis won the third edition of the British show "The X Factor" in 2006.

The Islington-raised mezzo-soprano singer has released two albums (2007's Spirit and 2009's Echo), and in 2008 she enjoyed transatlantic success when her single "Bleeding Love" topped the Billboard singles charts in America. She is only the sixth British female solo recording artist to top the American singles charts (the first five were, in chronological order, Petula Clark, Lulu, Sheena Easton, Bonnie Tyler, and Kim Wilde) and she was the first to do so since . . . 1987.

The Beauty of British Song: PJ Harvey

Polly Jean Harvey debuted with the album Dry in 1992, which American rocker Kurt Cobain listed among his twenty favorite albums of all time.

PJ Harvey was actually both the name of a group and the singer, but the trio disbanded after two LPs, and PJ Harvey the singer became a solo artist beginning with the album To Bring You My Love.

Harvey became as controversial and eccentric as her edgy music, performing in costumes more befitting an American disco singer than a British alternative indie rocker.

More recent PJ Harvey albums include Stories From the City, Stories from The Sea, released in 2000. and White Chalk, issued in 2007.

The Beauty of British Song: Julia Fordham

Julia Fordham arrived in the boom of female singer-songwriters in the late eighties who were an alternative to, but not the antidote to, the mindless synth-pop of the time. Her first two albums, her self-titled debut and Porcelain, were records that everyone with an interest in good music had to own. Her best-known songs include "Happy Ever After," "Manhattan Skyline," and "Lock and Key."

Though she's had more chart success in her native Britain than in America, she has a loyal audience in both countries. She's now based in California.

Julia Fordham's more recent albums include Falling Forward (1994), East West (1997) and Concrete Love (2002).

She not only has good taste in music, she has good taste in cars! :-)

The Beauty of British Song: Judy Dyble

Judy Dyble is best known as the original female lead singer of Fairport Convention, a rock and roll band that revolutionized folk rock in Britain as much as the Byrds had done in America.

Dyble only appeared on the group's 1968 self-titled debut record. Among the tracks she sang lead on were two Joni Mitchell covers, "I Don't Know Where I Stand" and "Chelsea Morning." She had a peerless and clear voice comparable to that of Sandy Denny, who replaced her.

After leaving Fairport Convention, Dyble joined Giles, Giles and Fripp (which would later evolve into King Crimson) and, after that, she joined Trader Horn. She retired from music in 1973 but came out of retirement to perform and record three decades later.

Her more recent albums include 2004's Enchanted Garden and 2009's Talking With Strangers. She has occasionally participated in Fairport Convention reunions.

The Beauty of British Song: Corinne Drewery

Corinne Drewery is the stylish, sexy frontwoman of the pop group Swing Out Sister, which comprises herself and Andy Connell. (A third member, Martin Jackson, left years ago.) They were one of the few decent British groups to emerge in the eighties.

Swing Out Sister swung out and broke out in 1986 with their hit song "Breakout" from their LP It's Better To Travel and followed up with 1989's Kaleidoscope World, which featured the hit single "The Waiting Game." Drewery captivated fans with her flapper haircut and sassy vocal style.

In addition to being the group's lead singer, she also writes the lyrics for its songs.

The Beauty of British Song: Petula Clark

Brian Epstein, who managed Cilla Black as well as the Beatles, tried like heck to make her as big a star in America as she was in Britain, but her dislike of touring abroad kept her from achieving such fame. Petula Clark had much better luck in the United States, though.

Two of her big hits included "Downtown," a wonderful pop song, as well as a song that offered sound advice - "Don't Sleep In the Subway."

For such a conventional singer, Petula Clark caused a stir on American television when, during a number on her own TV special with black singer/activist/icon Harry Belafonte, she lightly grasped his arm. A white woman touching a black man? Sounds like no big deal today, but in America in the sixties, it was considered scandalous.

The Beauty of British Song: Cilla Black

Pop singer Cilla Black is as much an institution in Great Britain as Barbra Streisand or Carol Burnett is in the United States. She is, quite frankly, the mother country's most beloved female entertainer.

Black came out of Liverpool in the sixties and knew the Beatles, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote many songs that she recorded exclusively - "It's For You," "Step Inside Love," and one or two others the late Michael Jackson probably didn't realize he owned. She also recorded covers of Righteous Brothers and Burt Bacharach tunes.

She was also the star of her own BBC television series, "Cilla."

New Series: The Beauty of British Song!

This month I'll be focusing on pictures of beautiful British female popular singers, after giving them inexcusably short shrift in my two earlier "The Beauty of Song" editions.

Are we ready, then? Jolly good! Let's go!