Noeleen Batley

Last updated

Noeleen Batley
Born25 December 1944 (1944-12-25) (age 77)
OccupationSinger
Years active1960-1972
Notable workBarefoot Boy, 1960

Noeleen Batley (born 25 December 1944) [1] was an Australian pop star in the 1960s and early 1970s. She was known as "Australia's Little Miss Sweetheart". [2]

Contents

Early life

Batley was born in Sydney on Christmas Day, 1944, and began singing at the age of five with her mother's encouragement. As a child, she sang on radio shows such as 2UE's Youth Parade, 2UW's Amateur Hour and the ABC's Rockville Junction. [2] She entered numerous talent competitions, and eventually won her first recording contract, with Festival Records, in 1960 as a prize in a singing competition. [1]

Career

Batley's first record "Starry Eyed" was released in February 1960, but was not a success. [3] However her next record, released in October of the same year, reached the Top 5 in all Australian mainland capital cities. [1] It was a recording of Barefoot Boy, a song written by the then 16-year-old Helene Grover. [2] [4] It remained in the charts for sixteen weeks. [2] With its success, Batley became the first Australian female pop singer to have a national hit song, and began to appear on TV shows such as Youth Show , Bandstand and Six O'Clock Rock . [1]

In 1961, Batley was voted Australia's Top Female Singer. [2] Her mother became her manager and together they completed a two-week tour of New Zealand in 1964. [3] She continued to record for Festival until 1969, when she went on a tour of Europe and England. She eventually settled in England, in 1970, and continued to perform there. [2] Her last recording, Seabird, was released in 1972. [2]

Later life

Batley married in 1975 and had a child in 1976. The family lived first in Essex, England, and then in Miami, Florida. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Arena</span> Australian singer, songwriter

Filippina Lydia "Tina" Arena is an Australian singer-songwriter, musician, musical theatre actress and record producer. She is one of Australia's highest-selling artists and has sold over 10 million records worldwide. Arena is multilingual, singing and recording in English, Italian, French and Spanish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Lee</span> American singer (born 1944)

Brenda Mae Tarpley, known professionally as Brenda Lee, is an American singer. Performing rockabilly, pop and country music, she had 47 US chart hits during the 1960s and is ranked fourth in that decade, surpassed only by Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Ray Charles. She is known for her 1960 hit "I'm Sorry" and 1958's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", which has become a Christmas standard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Springfield</span> Australian-American musician, singer-songwriter, and actor

Richard Lewis Springthorpe, known professionally as Rick Springfield, is an Australian-American musician and actor. He was a member of the pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971, then started his solo career with his debut single, "Speak to the Sky", which reached the top 10 in Australia in mid-1972. When he moved to the United States, he had a No. 1 hit with "Jessie's Girl" in 1981 in both Australia and the US, for which he received the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. He followed with four more top 10 US hits: "I've Done Everything for You", "Don't Talk to Strangers", "Affair of the Heart" and "Love Somebody". Springfield's two US top 10 albums are Working Class Dog (1981) and Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet (1982).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Ceberano</span> Australian singer

Catherine Yvette Ceberano is an Australian singer and actress who performs in the soul, jazz, and pop genres, as well as in film and musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar. Her song "Pash" received a gold sales certification in 1998. In 2019, she was one of the contestants in season one of The Masked Singer Australia as ‘The Lion’, where she was unmasked in episode seven, placing sixth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcia Hines</span> Australian singer (born 1953)

Marcia Elaine Hines, AM, is an American-Australian vocalist and TV personality. Hines made her debut, at the age of 16, in the Australian production of the stage musical Hair and followed with the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar. She achieved her greatest commercial successes as a recording artist during the late 1970s with several hit singles, including cover versions of "Fire and Rain", "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself", "You" and "Something's Missing "; and her Top Ten albums Marcia Shines, Shining and Ladies and Gentlemen. Hines was voted "Queen of Pop" by TV Week's readers for three consecutive years from 1976.

Patricia Ann Ruth Noble was an Australian singer and actress. Initially performing as Patsy Ann Noble, she was a teenage pop singer in the early 1960s, with regular appearances on the music and variety television series Bandstand. In November 1961, she released her biggest hit single, "Good Looking Boy", which reached the Top 10 in Melbourne and Top 20 in Sydney. At the 1961 Logie Awards, she won the 'Best Female Singer of the Year' award from TV Week. By 1962, she had transferred to the United Kingdom and continued her singing career by releasing singles there.

Patricia "Little Pattie" Thelma Thompson OAM is an Australian singer who started her career as a teenager in the early 1960s, recording surf pop, with her backing group The Statesmen, she subsequently went onto to record adult contemporary music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenn Shorrock</span> Musical artist

Glenn Barrie Shorrock is an English-born Australian singer-songwriter. He was a founding member of rock bands the Twilights, Axiom, Little River Band and post LRB spin-off trio Birtles Shorrock Goble, as well as being a solo performer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Festival Records</span> Australian record label

Festival Records was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Thorpe</span> Australian singer-songwriter from New South Wales

William Richard Thorpe AM was an English-born Australian singer-songwriter, and record producer. As lead singer of his band Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, he had success in the 1960s with "Blue Day", "Poison Ivy", "Over the Rainbow", "Sick and Tired", "Baby, Hold Me Close" and "Mashed Potato"; and in the 1970s with "Most People I Know Think That I'm Crazy". Featuring in concerts at Sunbury Pop Festivals and Myer Music Bowl in the early 1970s, the Aztecs also developed the pub rock scene and were one of the loudest groups in Australia.

Ronald Leslie BurnsAM is an Australian retired rock singer-songwriter and musician.

Janet Mead was an Australian Catholic nun who was best known for recording a pop-rock version of the Lord's Prayer. The surprise hit reached Number 3 on the Australian singles chart in 1974 and Number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the same year. The single earned her a Grammy Award nomination and an Australian Gospel Music Awards in 2004. It sold over one and a half million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA on 8 April 1974. It was also certified gold in Australia.

Linda George is an English-born Australian pop, jazz fusion and soul singer from the 1970s. In 1973, George performed the role of Acid Queen for the Australian stage performance of The Who's rock opera, Tommy. She won the TV Week King of Pop award for "Best New Female Artist". Her cover version of "Neither One of Us", peaked at No. 12 on the Australian Singles Chart and her 1974 single "Mama's Little Girl" reached the Top Ten. From 1972 to 1998, George also worked as a session singer and later became a music teacher. Her last CD recorded in the late 1990s will be available in 2012.

Judith Anne Stone AM is an Australian pop and country music singer. For much of the 1960s she was a regular performer on the music variety Bandstand, Stone's top 20 singles on the national charts are "I'll Step Down", "4,003,221 Tears from Now", "Born a Woman" and "Would You Lay with Me". On the Queen's Birthday Honours List of June 2006, Stone was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia, with the citation, "For service to the community as an entertainer at fundraising events for a range of charitable organisations, and as a singer."

Lori Balmer is an Australian pop singer, recording artist and worked as a session singer and model; and has appeared on TV in Australia, United States, Japan, Europe and Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilma Reading</span> Australian singer

Wilma Reading is a singer from Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

Bryan Davies is a British-born Australian pop music singer and entertainer. He appeared on 1960s TV pop shows, Sing! Sing! Sing! and Bandstand. From March 1962, at age 17, he became the youngest person in Australia to host their own TV show, The Bryan Davies Show. The singer issued two albums, On My Way (1965) and Together by Myself (1968). His most popular singles were, "Dream Girl" and "Five Foot Two Eyes of Blue" (October), which both reached the top 4 on the Sydney charts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Saddington</span> Musical artist

Wendy June Saddington, also known as Gandharvika Dasi, was an Australian blues, soul and jazz singer, and was in the bands Chain, Copperwine and the Wendy Saddington Band. She wrote for teen pop newspaper Go-Set from September 1969 to September 1970 as an agony aunt in her weekly "Takes Care of Business" column, and as a feature writer. Saddington had Top 30 chart success with her 1972 solo single "Looking Through a Window", which was written and produced by Billy Thorpe and Warren Morgan of the Aztecs. After adopting Krishna Consciousness in the 1970s she took the name Gandharvika Dasi. In March 2013 she was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, and died on 21 June, aged 63.

Diane Marie Jacobs, known as Dinah Lee, is a New Zealand singer who performed 1960s pop and adult contemporary music. Her debut single from early 1964, "Don't You Know Yockomo?", achieved No. 1 chart success in New Zealand and in the Australian cities of Brisbane and Melbourne. It was followed in September by her cover version of Jackie Wilson's, "Reet Petite", which also reached No. 1 in New Zealand and peaked at No. 6 in Melbourne. The Australian release was a double A-sided single with "Do the Blue Beat". On her early singles she was backed by fellow New Zealanders, Max Merritt & His Meteors. Lee appeared regularly on both New Zealand and Australian TV variety programs, including Johnny O'Keefes Sing, Sing, Sing and Bandstand. She toured supporting Johnny O'Keefe, as well as Ray Columbus & the Invaders and P.J. Proby. According to Australian rock music journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, in the 1960s, "Lee was the most successful female singer in both her New Zealand homeland and Australia ... on stage and on record Dinah had all the adventure and exuberance for the time the boys had".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelly Green (musician)</span> Australian singer (born 1947)

Kelly Green is an Australian singer. Born in the United Kingdom, she migrated to Australia in 1956, her singing career began in Sydney at the age of 15. Green grew up in a musical family – her father, Norman Sherratt, was a guitarist and her older twin sisters, Christine and Norma, were also singers. In the early 1960s Green appeared regularly on popular Australian music television shows, Bandstand, Six O'Clock Rock, and Sing, Sing, Sing, building a fan base. During April and May 1968, Green was the lead singer for the first Perth-based entertainment troupe to visit allied forces in Vietnam during the war there.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "MILESAGO - Groups & Solo Artists - Noeleen Batley". www.milesago.com. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "NOELEEN BATLEY | Biography | MusicMinder, the Premier Entertainers Directory". www.musicminder.com. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  3. 1 2 Veitch, Jock (29 March 1964). "Smiling on to Success". The Sydney Morning Herald . Fairfax Media . Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  4. "RareCollections - Helene Grover". ABC Radio National . Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 22 February 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2016.