Noosha Fox

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Noosha Fox
Birth nameSusan Traynor
Born (1944-12-08) 8 December 1944 (age 80)
Australia
Genres Pop
OccupationSinger
Years activeLate 1960s–current

Noosha Fox (born Susan Traynor, 8 December 1944) is an Australian singer. She is known as the lead singer of the British-based pop band Fox, who had three UK chart hits in 1975 and 1976. She also had a number 31 hit as a solo performer with "Georgina Bailey".

Contents

Career

Susan Traynor was born in Australia in 1944. [1] She began her music career as a singer in Sydney-based folk rock band Wooden Horse, who moved to England in 1970 and released two LPs. [2] After the band split up, she provided background vocals on American singer and songwriter Kenny Young's 1973 solo album, Last Stage For Silverworld. [3]

She then formed Fox, the band that included Young and Northern Irish singer-songwriter Herbie Armstrong. She adopted the stage name Noosha, a corruption of an anagram of her first name (nussa), [4] [5] and in performances wore dresses and accessories in 1920s and 1930s style. [6] With Fox, Noosha achieved three top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart: "Only You Can" and "Imagine Me, Imagine You" in 1975 and "S-S-S-Single Bed" in 1976. She left after their third album, Blue Hotel, to launch a solo career. Her first single, "Georgina Bailey", written and produced by Young, briefly entered the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart, reaching number 31 in 1977. [7]

In 1979, Noosha Fox tried to restart her solo career with a single, "The Heat Is On", written by Florrie Palmer and Tony Ashton, on Chrysalis Records. A later version of the song, by ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog, was a European hit four years later. [7] In 1980, Fox provided guest vocals for the songs "Perfect Strangers" and "Havana Moon" on Tim Renwick's self-titled debut album. [8]

Fox recorded several singles in the early 1980s for the Earlobe label but none were successful, and she withdrew from the music industry. [1] Although she did not write her own songs, her performance style has been credited with influencing Kate Bush and Alison Goldfrapp. [5] It was reported in 2007 on BBC Radio 4's The Music Group that Fox was recording a solo album of electropop [9] but it was not released.

On 1 August 2022, renowned music producer Shel Talmy released a 5-track downloadable EP of original songs by Noosha which had been recorded in 1978.[ citation needed ]

Personal life

Fox has been married since 1973 to physician and academic Michael Goldacre, [10] with whom she has four children, one of whom is Ben Goldacre, a physician and academic best known for his "Bad Science" weekly column. [11] Ben Goldacre announced that Fox was his mother after seeing her perform "S-S-S-Single Bed" on a BBC4 repeat of Top of the Pops , and stated that she was working on new material. [12]

Discography

YearTitleFormatLabelCatalogue refChart position
1977"Georgina Bailey" / "Pretty Boy"7" singleGTOGT 106No. 91 AUS, [13] No. 31 UK
1979"The Heat Is On" / "Some Enchanted Evening"7" singleCHRYSALISCHS 2337
1979"Skin Tight" / "Miss You"7" singleCHRYSALISCHS 2383
1981"More Than Molecules" / "Odd Peculiar Strange"7" singleEARLOBEELB S 101
1981"Hot As Sun" / "The Cheapest Night"7" singleEARLOBEELB S 105
Source: [7]

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References

  1. 1 2 Jörg Amtage und Matthias Müller präsentieren Alle Hits aus Deutschlands Charts 1954-2003. Pro Business. 2003. p. 223.
  2. ↑ "Wooden Horse II". Forced Exposure. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  3. ↑ "Last Stage For Silverworld". AllMusic . Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  4. ↑ Wilson, Dave. Rock Formations: Categorical Answers to how Band Names Were Formed. Cidermill Books. p. 147.
  5. 1 2 "Before Goldfrapp, before Kate Bush, there was Noosha Fox". Dangerousminds.net. 4 May 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
  6. ↑ John Connors, "Fantastic Noosha Fox", This Way Up, 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2020
  7. 1 2 3 Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 211. ISBN   1-904994-10-5.
  8. ↑ "Tim Renwick - Tim Renwick | Credits". AllMusic . Retrieved 25 April 2020.
  9. ↑ "Series 1, Episode 5". The Music Group. 10 October 2007. BBC Radio 4.
  10. ↑ Ian Fairlie (2009). "Book Reviews: Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre". Medicine, Conflict and Survival. 25 (3): 255–257. doi:10.1080/13623690902943552. S2CID   220378364.
  11. ↑ Goldacre, Ben (24 February 2015). "What eight years of writing the Bad Science column have taught me". The Guardian.
  12. ↑ Petridis, Alexis (29 May 2011). "Alexis Petridis on pop's worst year". The Guardian . London.
  13. ↑ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 117. ISBN   0-646-11917-6.
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