 |
Jackie Lee | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Jacqueline Norah Flood |
| Also known as | Jacky Emma Rede |
| Born | 29 May 1936 Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland |
| Genres | Pop |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals |
| Years active | 1955–1973 |
| Labels | Decca, Oriole, Parlophone, Philips, Columbia (EMI),Pye |
| Website | jackielee.org |
Jackie Lee (born Jacqueline Norah Flood, 29 May 1936) is an Irish popular music singer, who has recorded under various stage names.
Lee was a musical child prodigy. She won a scholarship and trained as a soprano for four years. Upon finishing her studies she became a vocalist with the top showbands playing prestigious Irish venues.
Lee experienced similar success when she moved to London and joined the popular dance band; The Squadronaires. [1] In 1955 her first solo record was released, followed by a further two the next year. [2] From 1959 to 1964, Lee was a member of The Raindrops, [1] a successful quartet who made countless appearances on British TV and variety shows, had a BBC Radio show and released a string of records, the majority of which had Lee as lead vocalist. The Raindrops also included Les Vandyke and Vince Hill in its line-up. In 1962, she entered the UK heats of the Eurovision Song Contest as a solo act with "There's No-one in the Whole Wide World" and performed it at the British national finals for BBC TV. This number was later covered and performed by The Beatles in concerts during this period.
Lee decided to become a solo artist in 1965 and recorded 'beat' records until 1967. One of these releases, "Just Like a Man", reached the NME chart. The B-side; "I Gotta Be With You", became popular on the Northern soul circuit. Lee recorded this single under the name of 'Emma Rede' for EMI. [1]
Lee also had a parallel career as a respected session singer, through her groups The Jackie Lee Singers and Tears of Joy. She provided the backing vocals for such global number ones as "Green Green Grass of Home" by Tom Jones and "Release Me" by Engelbert Humperdinck. She demonstrated her unique vocal range, ability and versatility on such diverse recordings as "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix; and much of the James Last catalogue at the time. At one point Elton John was employed by Lee, as a member of her session singers. In addition she also sang various songs for film soundtracks. [1] Among them "Born To Lose" from the film Robbery (1967), "Love Is Now" from the Norman J. Warren film Loving Feeling (1969), and the title song to the horror film Goodbye Gemini (1970).
In 1968, as 'Jacky', she had a UK Top Ten hit single with "White Horses", [1] the theme from a children's TV programme. [3] In 2003, her definitive version was voted the best TV theme tune of all time by The Penguin Television Companion. Her jazz-styled album of the same name was also released in 1968, which included contributions from Dudley Moore as pianist. By 1970, 'Jacky' reverted to 'Jackie Lee' and had another hit record; "Rupert" [1] from the TV show based on the famous cartoon character, Rupert Bear (inaccurately referred to as "Rupert the Bear" in the song's lyrics). [4] This recording also had a place in the "Best TV themes of all time" list from The Penguin Television Companion at Number 7, thus consolidating Lee's reputation. A tie-in album, Jackie's Junior Choice, was released on Pye Records (PKL 5503) in 1971, [5] followed by the similar, Rupert and Other Junior Favourites on Pye's budget Golden Guinea label (GSGL 10492) in 1973, which also included Jackie's recording of another children's series, Inigo Pipkin . [6]
It was shortly after this that she retired from singing, despite the short duration of her career, due to vocal complications and throat problems. Nonetheless, her singing continues to be held in high regard. It has been said that her work has "firmly embedded itself in the subconscious of a generation". [7]
A CD entitled End of a Rainbow – A Pye Anthology was released in 2007. [8] It comprising all of Lee's later recordings, made for Pye Records between 1969 and 1973. A second CD, The Town I Live In (2009) collects all of her 1966/1967 recordings for EMI. [9] Lee is now retired and resides in Canada. Her husband, Liam Hopkins, died in 2018. [10]
Brotherhood of Man are a British pop group who achieved success in the 1970s. They won the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest with "Save Your Kisses for Me".
Petula Clark CBE is a British singer, actress, and songwriter. She has had one of the longest careers of any British singer, spanning more than seven decades.
Gloria Richetta Jones is an American singer and songwriter who first found success in the United Kingdom, being recognized there as "The Queen of Northern Soul". She recorded the 1965 hit song "Tainted Love" and has worked in multiple genres as a Motown songwriter and recording artist, backing vocalist, and as a performer in musicals such as Hair. In the 1970s, she was a keyboardist and vocalist in Marc Bolan's glam rock band T. Rex. She and Bolan were also in a committed romantic relationship and had a son, Rolan Bolan, together.
Jackie DeShannon is an American singer-songwriter and radio broadcaster with a string of hit song credits from the 1960s onwards, as both singer and composer. She was one of the first female singer-songwriters of the rock and roll period. She is best known as the singer of "What the World Needs Now Is Love" and "Put a Little Love in Your Heart", and as the writer of "When You Walk in the Room" and "Bette Davis Eyes", which became hits for The Searchers and Kim Carnes, respectively.
Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherhood of Man (1975–1979). The label changed its name to PRT Records in 1980, before being briefly reactivated as Pye Records in 2006.
Anthony Peter Hatch is an English composer for musical theatre and television. He is also a songwriter, pianist, arranger and producer.
Vincent Hill was an English traditional pop music singer, best known for his cover version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune "Edelweiss" (1967), which reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. He recorded 25 studio albums and several soundtracks, wrote songs and plays and hosted TV shows during the 1970s and 1980s, including They Sold a Million (BBC), Musical Time Machine (BBC) and the chat show Gas Street (ITV). Outside of his work in show business, he was a patron of the Macular Society, a UK charity for anyone affected by central vision loss.
Chris Karan is a Britain-based Australian jazz drummer and percussionist of Greek descent.
Ronald Ernest Alfred Roker is an English songwriter, singer and record producer.
Anita Madeleine Harris is an English actress, singer and entertainer.
"Step Inside Love" is a song written by Paul McCartney for Cilla Black in 1967 as a theme for her TV series Cilla, which first aired on 30 January 1968.
John Stanley Livingstone Harris was a Scottish composer, producer, arranger, conductor, and musical director. He lived in the United States from 1972 until his death.
Chris Demetriou born in Paphos, Cyprus, is a British songwriter, musician, and record producer. A cover of a song he co-wrote with John Kongos, "He's Gonna Step On You Again", appears in Q magazine's top hundred singles of all time.
Bassey – The EMI/UA Years 1959–1979 is a 5-CD boxset compilation from Shirley Bassey issued in 1994, this set features 94 studio recordings on four CDs, recorded for EMI/United Artists between 1959 and 1979. Disc five features a previously unreleased live recording from Carnegie Hall. The boxset was reissued by EMI in 2010 in a standard jewel case set.
Sandie Shaw is a retired English pop singer. One of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s, she had three UK number one singles with "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" (1964), "Long Live Love" (1965) and "Puppet on a String" (1967). With the latter, she became the first British entry to win the Eurovision Song Contest. She returned to the UK Top 40, for the first time in 15 years, with her 1984 cover of the Smiths song "Hand in Glove". Shaw retired from the music industry in 2013.
The Very Best of Andy Williams is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in the UK on October 5th, 2009. A note from Williams inside the CD booklet explains that the album "was put together to coincide with my memoir Moon River and Me, published by Orion Press. It includes many of the songs that you made hits. I truly appreciate that, and I hope you enjoy the songs we selected for this CD." This compilation includes recordings that either charted in the UK but not in the US or charted much higher on the UK singles chart than they did on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. It entered the UK albums chart on October 17, 2009, and reached number 10 during its six weeks there.
Len Beadle was an English music publisher, songwriter, music producer and performer, most famous for writing the theme to the hit children's TV show The Adventures of Rupert Bear. He formed the vocal harmony group The Raindrops together with Jackie Lee.
Michael Julien, also known as Peter Warne, was a British songwriter, who was the co-writer of a number of hit songs around the world.
Donna Terry Weiss is an American singer and songwriter. She won a Grammy Award in 1982 for co-writing "Bette Davis Eyes" (1974) with Jackie DeShannon.
Beverley Anne Harrell, is an Australian pop singer, most famous for her 1966 Australian hit "What Am I Doing Here with You?".
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
