Latest news with #singers
Daily Mail
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Sylvia Young dies aged 86: Daughter pays tribute to stage school pioneer who launched careers of Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora and Billie Piper
Sylvia Young whose world famous stage school launched the careers of Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora, Billie Piper and Spice Girl Emma Bunton, has died at the age of 86. Her daughter, West End star Frances Ruffelle, confirmed this morning that her mother had died peacefully this morning surrounded by her family. Frances is herself the mother of pop star Eliza Doolittle, another member of the talented family. Some of Britain's best known entertainers and singers owe their careers to the pioneering teacher, who founded her eponymous school in 1972. Now based in Westminster, the £14,400 a year school began with part time classes in the east end of London, before expanding to a larger space in Marleybone and then changing venues once again to a converted church in Westminster where it remains today. The school has a strong reputation for nurturing young talent with an alumni that reads like a roll call of British showbuisness. Other famous faces who attended include presenter Denise Van Outen and Tom Fletcher from McFly. Denise Van Outen credited Sylvia for her career. In an interview she told how Young has advised her 'don't focus on one thing, try and do all of it and you'll always work.' Van Outen has enjoyed a successful career in TV, film and theatre, performing in the West End and on Broadway. Today, Young's daughter, Frances Ruffelle who was the original Eponine in the West End stage stage production of Les Miserables, paid tribute to her mother on social media. She said: 'Our mum was a true visionary, she gave young people from all walks of life the chance to pursue their performing arts skills to the highest standard. 'Her rare ability to recognise raw talent and encourage all her students, contributed to the richness of today's theatre world, even winning an Olivier award herself along the way. 'She believed hard work with a bit of luck brought success and she was an example of that herself. 'Above all she leaves the memory of an East End girl who's worked hard to achieve her goals, took hold of life and lived it to the full. 'Her family were everything to her, her wonderful husband, Norman, our dad and her grandchildren, Eliza, Nat, Phoenix and Coral and her great grandson, Felix. We share her love with her wide and inclusive family, her friends, her students, you all meant the world to her.' Tributes have poured in for Syliva. Radio legend Tony Blackburn wrote: So sorry to hear Sylvia Young has passed away. She founded the Sylvia Young Theatre School which has been responsible for starting so many careers in TV and Theatre. 'She was a very lovely lady who I have had the privilege of knowing for many years. She will be sadly missed. R.I.P Sylvia.' Actor Sadie Frost wrote: 'What a woman, what a family, what a legacy! 'Sending everyone so much love and support - I am here if you need me. 'She was always so lovely to me and will cherish memories forever.' EastEnders star Adam Woodyatt, famous for playing Ian Beale, also replied to Frances's Instagram post, sharing a broken heart emoji.
Times
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Iris Williams obituary: Welsh singer compared to Shirley Bassey
In the pantheon of celebrated Welsh female singers, comparisons between Iris Williams and Shirley Bassey were inevitable. Born barely a dozen miles apart in south Wales, both were mixed race, born to white mothers and black fathers, and their chosen career paths followed similar courses. Both possessed big, rich voices and a classy stage elan that stood out on the club circuit at a time when black or mixed-race British singers were a rarity. Both recorded Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth's He Was Beautiful, although it was Williams's version that was the Top 20 hit. Popular at royal command performances, both were recognised in the honours list, Bassey first as CBE and then as a Dame, and Williams, who in 2004 was appointed OBE. Yet much as Williams admired Bassey, she found the constant comparisons irritating. 'We're both dark-skinned and come from the Cardiff area but it ends there for me and my style is completely different,' she insisted. 'She is a great singer, with a wonderful voice, but I hate being compared to her and have tried everything to rid myself of it. I want to be me.' Certainly, there were differences as well as the obvious similarities. In Williams's own words she was not as 'gregarious' as Bassey, less inclined towards 'the big belter numbers' and in the view of many her singing boasted a greater emotional depth. 'I don't use half of the voice that she does because I don't need to — as I see it, I am telling a story,' she noted. Yet when she chose to let rip there was no doubting the strength, power and sheer vivacity of her delivery. Terry Wogan, who championed her on his radio shows, was a particular fan of the creamy resonance of what he called her 'basso profundo'. Her singing took her from the factory floor to the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and then into the charts and to her own BBC series. She later moved to the United States but remained proud of her Welsh heritage. Alongside Bassey, Tom Jones and a 13-year-old Charlotte Church, she sang at a concert to mark the opening of the Welsh National Assembly in 1999 in front of an audience that included Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and the future King Charles. 'Wales will always be my great passion,' she said. When she was the subject of a 2002 documentary film on Welsh TV, she gamely insisted on being interviewed in Welsh. She had learnt Welsh as a child but had barely spoken the language in decades and 'brushed up' by practising on her dog Mimi. She was subsequently admitted to the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Her two marriages, to Clive Brandy and Edward Jones, both of whom served as her manager, ended in divorce. 'A lot of female singers make the mistake of making their husband their manager,' she said. 'It generally doesn't work because you should be able to go home and leave work behind. When you're married to your manager all you do is talk showbusiness.' She is survived by her son Blake from her first marriage. She was born in 1946 in Rhydyfelin, near Potypridd, in south Wales, the illegitimate daughter of an African-American GI who was stationed in Britain during the Second World War and who met her mother — who was already married — in a local dance hall. A romance blossomed but the taboo-breaking relationship was doomed and the daughter who resulted was given up for adoption. Williams spent her first five years in a children's home until she was fostered by Bronwen Llewellyn, a miner's wife from Tonyrefail, who encouraged her to sing. She was subsequently reunited with her birth mother and a half-brother in the mid-1980s after she found them via an advert placed in a local newspaper. Growing up as the only black child in her village was 'a bit of a problem', but she argued that the prejudice made her tougher, which served as an asset as she began to 'mingle into the world'. On leaving school she worked in a glove factory in Llantrisant, and when it closed and she found herself without an income her former piano teacher put her name forward for a scholarship at the Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. She won a place and after appearing on the Welsh BBC pop music TV show Disc A Dawn, she had a hit in the country of her birth in 1971 with Pererin Wyf, a Welsh-language version of Amazing Grace. Three years later she won the annual Cân i Gymru (A Song for Wales) competition. Her breakthrough outside Wales came in 1979 when she had a Top 20 UK hit with He Was Beautiful, a song based on the theme from the film The Deer Hunter. During the 1980s she ran a pub near Ascot named The Pheasant Plucker with her first husband while continuing to appear on the nightclub circuit. By the early 1990s she had moved to New York, where she appeared in concert with Bob Hope and Rosemary Clooney. She also sang at gala benefits for the clinics started by Betty Ford, whose husband, the former US president Gerald Ford, helped her to access classified files to find her birth father. By the time she discovered his identity he was already dead and she did not contact his family. Suspecting that they did not know of her existence, she had no wish to cause any posthumous upset. In later years she was a popular entertainer on cruise ships, singing jazz standards and show tunes and joking with audiences that Bassey, who was a decade older, was her 'younger sister'. Iris Williams, singer, was born on April 20, 1946. She died of undisclosed causes on July 9, 2025, aged 79
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Josh Ross and Cameron Whitcomb lead CCMA nominations
Breakout country singer Josh Ross and "American Idol" star Cameron Whitcomb are the leading nominees heading into this year's Canadian Country Music Association Awards. (July 17, 2025)
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Connie Francis was a trailblazing pop star haunted by tragedy
There may be more widely revered singers, but the statistics don't lie – worldwide, the Italian-American Connie Francis was the best-selling female vocalist of the 50s and 60s. Her breakthrough hit, 1958's Who's Sorry Now, was written as far back as 1923 and had been a hit for Johnnie Ray just a couple of years earlier, with a swinging, uptempo arrangement. But what made the 19-year-old Francis's version click was the way in which she took pleasure in her ex's misery, coolly and coyly cooing over the slow-rocking backing while picking his failed love life apart; for a finale, she ended the song with impressive, high-kicking spite. In contrast, her second UK No 1 was the daffy Stupid Cupid, written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, and loaded with ear-catching gimmicks: the bow-and-arrow guitar effect on the chorus; Francis jumping an octave when she sings 'Cu-pid!'; and instruments that drop out – the musical equivalent of a wink – to allow her voice to sound as seductive as possible. Her career would follow this pattern through the late 50s and early 60s, alternating lightly updated pre-rock ballads with teenage material redolent of soda shops and drive-ins, the kind of American 50s scenario later lit in neon by Happy Days and Grease. Of the ballads, My Happiness and Mama were especially heartfelt performances, and both reached the top 10 in Britain and America, while the desperation of the country-leaning My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own gave her the second of three US No 1s. The finger-snapping Fallin' and It's Gonna Take Some Time were cool and sassy, while Lipstick on Your Collar (its title later used by Dennis Potter as a late 50s signifier) and Vacation were so camp, they were almost gleeful self-parodies. In 1960, Francis made her big-screen debut in Where the Boys Are, and the Sedaka/Greenfield theme song became another transatlantic top five single. 1960 was also the year Brenda Lee broke through – up to this point, Francis had been a lone trailblazer for women in rock'n'roll; the likes of Wanda Jackson and Jo Ann Campbell made great records but never came close to a top 10 hit, while the girl group era which gave us the Ronettes, the Chiffons and the Shangri-Las didn't begin in earnest until 1962. Francis struggled to adapt to the rise of the teenage girl group, though when she recorded material as strong as 1965's soulful No Better Off it was clear the fault didn't lie with the singer. She would be edged further into easy listening territory, scoring her last two hits in the UK with the darkly intense My Child in 1965 (she would never have children of her own) and the accusatory Jealous Heart in 1966. The latter could have been directed at her father, also her manager, who had broken up her relationship with the singer Bobby Darin by waving a gun at him; Francis would later describe Darin as 'the most interesting human being I've ever met in my life'. The following decades were less than kind to Connie Francis, who seemed to be dogged by tragedy. She was raped at knifepoint and almost killed in her motel room in 1974, after performing at a fair in New York state. She went public with the story, and Howard Johnson Motor Lodges were ordered to pay her $2.5m in compensation (later reduced to $1.475m in a settlement); this would then become a test case, leading to major upgrades in American hotel and motel security. The attacker was never found. Francis's bravery in going public couldn't help her overcome the mental health repercussions, and she didn't sing in public for several years afterward. Then in 1981, her brother was shot dead, apparently by a professional hitman; the trauma would lead to Francis being misdiagnosed with manic-depressive disorder. She was involuntarily hospitalized by her controlling father, and spent much of the 1980s in and out of psychiatric institutions. Again, Francis was brave enough to speak out as a survivor, and became a spokesperson for Mental Health America to help others 'suffering from the deleterious effects of depression and trauma of all kinds'. Though the hits had dried up in the mid-60s Connie Francis kept a devoted following. In 1977, 20 All Time Greats made her – rather shockingly – the first female solo artist to have a No 1 album in Britain. She had also been the first female singer of the modern pop era to score three US No 1 singles, while 1962's Pretty Little Baby – only an album track at the time – would become a TikTok hit, gaining millions of streams in 2025 thanks to its use by Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian. Connie Francis was a trailblazer, both as a pop star and an advocate of mental health support, and – like most trailblazers – she had to face the highs and the lows on her own.
RNZ News
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Music Feature: The legendary Mavis Staples.
This week for our music feature, Dianne Swann is here to guide us through the music of the greatest singers of all time, the legendary Mavis Staples Mavis has spent over 70 years on stage, she began her career at just 8 years old when she debuted as a singer with her family band 'The Staple Singers'. She later forged a remarkable solo career and became a powerful voice in the civil rights movement Over the decades, Mavis has sung across a wide range of genres - including gospel, soul, folk, pop, R&B, the blues, rock, and hip hop. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
