Leslie Winer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Baby Girl Maguire |
| Born | December 24, 1958 Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, writer, musician, poet |
| Labels | Transglobal, Rhythm King, Light in the Attic |
Leslie Winer (born December 24, 1958) is an American musician, poet, and writer. She began her career as a high fashion model before she transitioned into music.
Winer was born in Boston to a teenager and handed over to her adoptive grandmother in a hospital parking lot in what was an illegal adoption involving the exchange of money. [1] [2] She grew up in Weston, Massachusetts. [3] She relocated to New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts where she studied with Hannah Wilke and Joseph Kosuth. [4]
She is of Scots-Irish, Basque, Mi’kmaq, and Acadian descent. [5]
Winer began her career as a fashion model in 1980. Fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier described her as "the first androgynous model." [6]
Winer appeared in fashion campaigns for Valentino, Christian Dior and Chloé. [7] She also appeared on the magazine cover of Vogue Italia Pelle, Vogue Gioiello, and Vogue Australia . She continued to model throughout the 1980s.
In 2014, Winer returned to modeling as the face of Vivienne Westwood's spring/summer 2014 campaign. [8]
After her work brought her to London in the mid-1980s, she spent a great deal of time at Leigh Bowery's nightclub, Taboo. It was while in London she met musicians Jah Wobble, who was a former bassist for Public Image Ltd, and Kevin Mooney, former bass player for Adam and the Ants. [4]
In 1987, Winer co-wrote the track "Just Call Me Joe" with Sinéad O'Connor. The song would appear on O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra , with Winer performing the backup spoken vocal. [3] In 1988, she began recording under the name '©'. Winer recorded her first song, "Kind of Easy," with Karl Bonnie from Renegade Soundwave. [3]
In 1990, Winer recorded the album Witch with Wobble and Mooney. BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel played some tracks off this white label and the record went on to become a small cult classic prompting NME to refer to Winer as "The Grandmother of Triphop". [9]
In 1991, she moved to Miami and was working at Island Records founder Chris Blackwell's South Beach Studios, where she recorded her albums 3 Bags Full and Spider. [3]
Helmut Lang did a small pressing of her album Spider that he released in his NYC shop sometime around 1999 to promote one of his shows. [10] Winer occasionally records music with Swedish composer Carl Michael von Hausswolff and others. [11] She has also worked with Grace Jones.
Winer had a friendship with writer William S. Burroughs and credits him with being a major mentor. [5] Burroughs mentions his friendship with Winer in a number of interviews and books with French journalist Alain Pacadis and Burroughs’ own last book Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs . [12] [13]
Winer dated artist Jean-Michel Basquiat early in her career. [1] [8]
In 1986, Winer married Kevin Mooney for "the papers." "The British wanted me to leave the country," she said. [3]
Winer currently lives in France, where she has raised five daughters and is the executor of the estate of writer and poet Herbert Huncke. [1] [14]
| Album | Year | Artist | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Witch | 1993 | © & Leslie Winer | Debut release of the Transglobal label |
| Witch | 1999 | Leslie Winer | Re-release under her real name |
| Spider | 1999 | LW & © | Recorded between '94 & '97 [10] |
| & That Dead Horse | 2010 | Leslie Winer | Produced by Philip Marshall / Tapeworm |
| Always Already | 2011 | Purity Supreme | 4-track EP by Leslie Winer & Christophe van Huffel |
| &c. | 2012 | Leslie Winer | Produced by Philip Marshall / Tapeworm |
| 3 Bags Full | 2013 | LW & © | Completed in '94, also includes tracks from '88, '89 [15] |
| (1) | 2015 | Leslie Winer, CM von Hausswolff | Recorded and mixed in France and Sweden, 2012–13 [16] |
| YMFEES | 2018 | Leslie Winer & Jay Glass Dubs | |
| When I Hit You - You’ll Feel It | 2021 | Leslie Winer | Career-spanning double vinyl anthology incl. previously unreleased tracks |
| Track | Year | Artist | Release |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Just Call Me Joe" | 1987 | Sinéad O'Connor | The Lion and the Cobra |
| "You" | 1991 | Holger Hiller | As Is |
| "Counting the Rosaries (Happiness & Love Mix)" | 1991 | Book of Love | "Counting the Rosaries" |
| several tracks | 1992 | Max | Silence Running |
| "Personals" | 1994 | Jon Hassell & Bluescreen | Dressing for Pleasure |
| "If You Reach the Border" | 1995 | Bomb the Bass | Clear |
| "Calm Gunshot" | 2000 | Mekon featuring Leslie Winer | "Calm Gunshot" |
| "When I Was Walt Whitman" | 2013 | Mekon | Piece of Work |
| "This Blank Action" | 2014 | Diamond Version | CI |
| "Dave The Shoe" | 2018 | Christopher Chaplin | Paradise Lost |
| "Pioneer B" | 2020 | Fritz von Runte | The Last Album |
| "Tenderness" | 2021 | Maxwell Sterling | Turn Of Phrase |
| "Little Indian" | 2024 | Shelton | Little Indian (EP) |
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