Kim Wilde

Kim Wilde (born Kim Smith; 18 November 1960) is an English pop singer, author, DJ and television presenter. The eldest child of 1950s rock 'n' roller Marty Wilde (birth name Reginald Smith) and Joyce Baker, who had been a member of the singing and dancing group the Vernons Girls, Kim Smith was born in the West London suburb of Chiswick. In 1980, at age 20, she completed a foundation course at St Albans College of Art & Design. As Kim Wilde, she was signed to RAK Records by Mickie Most.

Wilde released her debut single "Kids in America" in January 1981. An instant success, it reached number two in the UK Singles Chart and scaled the Top 5 in other countries such as Germany, France and Australia. Although it achieved only moderate success in the US, peaking at number 25 when released in 1982, it is often regarded today as Wilde's signature song. Her debut album Kim Wilde repeated the success of the single, spawning two further hits in "Chequered Love" (Top 5 in the UK, France, Australia and Germany) and the UK-only single "Water on Glass".  

Wilde's follow-up album was 1982's Select, led by the hit singles "Cambodia" and "View from a Bridge". Both were number 1 hits in France and reached Top 10 positions in Germany and Australia. Wilde's third album, Catch as Catch Can (1983) was a relative failure. The first single from the album, "Love Blonde", was another success in France and Scandinavia, but failed to have major success in other countries. The failure of the album led to her leaving RAK and signing with MCA Records in the summer of 1984.

Wilde's first MCA album Teases & Dares was again overlooked in her home country, but fared better in Germany, France and Scandinavia as well as scoring another German Top 10 single with "The Second Time" (which was Top 30 in the UK). The video for this song appeared in an episode of the 1980s TV hit Knight Rider in 1985.[ The second single, "The Touch", was not a commercial success, but the third single, the rockabilly "Rage to Love", made the UK top 20 in 1985. On her fifth album, 1986's Another Step, Wilde wrote or co-wrote most of the songs. The album's lead single "Schoolgirl" flopped in Europe and Australia, but Wilde's fortunes improved in spectacular fashion with the album's second single, a Hi-NRG remake of The Supremes classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On". After topping the charts in Australia and Canada and peaking at number two in the UK, it became a US number one single in 1987. With that hit, she became the fifth UK female solo artist ever to top the US Hot 100, following Petula Clark, Lulu, Sheena Easton, and Bonnie Tyler. Her popularity, especially in her native UK, was revitalised and she scored further Top 10 hits in 1987 with "Another Step (Closer to You)" (recorded with Junior) and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (a Comic Relief charity single, recorded with comedian Mel Smith). 

In 1988, Wilde released her biggest selling album to date, Close, which returned her to the UK top 10 and spent almost eight months on the UK album chart. It produced four major European hits: "Hey Mr. Heartache", "You Came", "Never Trust a Stranger" and "Four Letter Word" (the last 3 were Top 10 hits in the UK). The release of the album coincided with a tour of Europe, where she was the opening act for Michael Jackson's Bad World Tour. Wilde released her next album, Love Moves, in 1990. The album barely made the UK Top 40, and, although it was a Top 10 success in Scandinavian countries, it failed to sell as well as its predecessor and only spawned two minor hits, "It's Here" a Top 20 success in Middle and Northern Europe as well as "Can't Get Enough (Of Your Love)", her last Top 20 hit in France. She toured Europe again, this time opening for fellow Briton David Bowie.

Worldwide, Wilde has sold over 10 million albums and 20 million singles. She holds the record for being the most-charted British female solo act of the 1980s, with seventeen UK Top 40 hit singles. Starting in 1998, while still active in music, she has branched into an alternative career as a landscape gardener, which has included presenting gardening shows on the BBC and Channel 4. In 2005, she won a Gold award for her courtyard garden at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show. 

Beverly "Guitar" Watkins

Beverly "Guitar" Watkins (April 6, 1939 – October 1, 2019) was an American blues guitarist. Sandra Pointer-Jones wrote, "Beverly Watkins is a pyrotechnic guitar maven whose searing, ballistic attacks on the guitar have become allegorical tales within the blues community."

Watkins was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1939. When she was about 12 years old, her family moved to Commerce, Georgia. She began playing music in school, and, in high school, she played bass for a band called Billy West Stone and the Down Beats. Around the year 1959, she was introduced to Piano Red, who had a daily radio show on WAOK, and she subsequently joined Piano Red and the Meter-tones, who played in a number of towns in the Atlanta area, and then Atlanta clubs such as the Magnolia Ballroom and the Casino, before starting to tour throughout the southeast, primarily at colleges. About the time the group renamed itself Piano Red and the Houserockers, they started touring nationally. 

The group had two successful singles: "Dr. Feelgood" and "Right String but the Wrong Yo-Yo". After recording "Dr. Feelgood" the group was known variously as Piano Red & The Interns, Dr. Feelgood & The Interns, and Dr. Feelgood, The Interns, and The Nurse. After the breakup of the band in about 1965, Watkins played with Eddie Tigner and the Ink Spots, Joseph Smith and the Fendales, and then with Leroy Redding and the Houserockers until the late 1980s. Subsequently she has been based in Atlanta, a well-known fixture at the Underground Atlanta.

Watkins had a long and continuous musical career, and worked with artists including James Brown, B.B. King, and Ray Charles. However, like many roots musicians, she found it difficult to crack the airwaves, and achieved recognition much later in her career, after the advent of the internet made it possible for musicians not backed by major labels to be heard by a wider audience. She was re-discovered by Music Maker Relief Foundation founder Tim Duffy, who started booking her in package shows, and in 1998, with Koko Taylor and Rory Block, was part of the all-star Women of the Blues "Hot Mamas" tour. Her 1999 CD debut, Back in Business, earned a W. C. Handy Award nomination in 2000.  

Watkins died after a heart attack on October 1, 2019 at the age of 80.

Kim Gordon

Kim Althea Gordon (born April 28, 1953) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and bassist, guitarist, and vocalist in the band Sonic Youth. Born in Rochester, New York, Gordon was raised in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Los Angeles's Otis College of Art and Design, Gordon moved to New York City to begin an art career. There, she formed Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore in 1981.

In 1981, Gordon joined the short-lived band CKM, with Christine Hahn and Stanton Miranda, and met her future Sonic Youth bandmates Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore through Miranda. At the time, Gordon, then 27 years old, had never played an instrument. Originally the band released their first two albums, Confusion is Sex (1983) and Bad Moon Rising (1985) on Neutral and Homestead Records, respectively, before signing with SST to release EVOL (1986) and Sister (1987). In October 1988, the band released Daydream Nation through Enigma Records.  

In 1989, Sonic Youth signed onto DGC Records, a subsidiary of Geffen, and released Goo (1990), which became the group's first commercial hit. Also in 1989, Gordon, Sadie May, and Lydia Lunch formed Harry Crews, and released the album Naked in Garden Hills. To promote Goo, Gordon toured with Sonic Youth extensively between 1990 and 1991, and a documentary titled 1991: The Year Punk Broke documented the band's tour with Nirvana, Babes in Toyland, Dinosaur Jr., Gumball and Mudhoney. In early 1991, Courtney Love, who had been influenced by Sonic Youth and the no wave scene, sent Gordon a letter asking her to produce her band Hole's debut record, Pretty on the Inside. Gordon, along with assistance from Don Fleming, produced the album in March 1991, which received critical acclaim and later achieved cult status. In 1992, Gordon released a single, "Electric Pen," with Mirror/Dash, a short-lived project she formed with Moore.

In 1993, Gordon formed the musical project Free Kitten with Julia Cafritz. They released their debut studio album, Nice Ass, in 1995, followed by Sentimental Education (1997), both on the independent label Kill Rock Stars. As a part of Sonic Youth, Gordon released several albums in the mid–late 1990s, including Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994), Washing Machine (1995), and A Thousand Leaves (1998), all on DGC Records. They subsequently released NYC Ghosts & Flowers in 2000, and Murray Street in 2002. Around 2002, Gordon became involved with The Supreme Indifference, a musical collaboration that involved Gordon, Jim O'Rourke and Alan Licht.

Sonic Youth released their sixteenth and final studio album, The Eternal (2009), on Matador Records before disbanding in 2011. Gordon formed the experimental duo Body/Head with Bill Nace, releasing their debut album Coming Apart in 2013. She subsequently formed Glitterbust with Alex Knost, releasing a self-titled debut album in 2016. Body/Head released their second studio album, The Switch, in 2018. She released her first solo album, No Home Record, in 2019. 

Clara Smith

Clara Smith (c. 1894 – February 2, 1935) was an American classic female blues singer. She was billed as the "Queen of the Moaners", even though she had a lighter and sweeter voice than many of her contemporaries.

Smith was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. In 1910 she began working on African-American theater circuits and in tent shows and vaudeville. By the late 1918 she was appearing as a headliner at the Lyric Theater in New Orleans, Louisiana and on the Theater Owners Bookers Association circuit. In 1923, she settled in New York City, appearing at cabarets and speakeasies there; that same year she made the first of her commercially successful series of gramophone recordings for Columbia Records, for which she recorded 122 songs, working with many other musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, and Don Redman. 

She recorded two duets with Bessie Smith: "My Man Blues" and "Far Away Blues" (Columbia 14098-D), on September 1, 1925. She recorded Tom Delaney's "Troublesome Blues" in 1927. Her May 1926 recording of "Whip It to a Jelly", was noted as "one of the more overt sexual blues".

In 1933 she moved to Detroit, Michigan, and worked at theaters in revues there until her hospitalization in early 1935 for heart disease, of which she died.

Kim Shattuck

Kimberly Dianne Shattuck (July 17, 1963 – October 2, 2019) was an American singer, musician, and songwriter. She was the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the American punk rock band the Muffs, which formed in 1991. She was a member of The Pandoras. In 2001, she was a singer, guitarist and songwriter for The Beards, a superpop side project composed of Shattuck, Lisa Marr, and Sherri Solinger.

She was raised in Orange County where she began playing guitar while attending Orange Coast College, where she was studying photography. From 1985 to 1990, Shattuck was a member of The Pandoras. In 1991 she formed The Muffs in Los Angeles. The band started as a collaboration between guitarists Kim Shattuck and Melanie Vammen, from The Pandoras. After the addition of bassist Ronnie Barnett and drummer Criss Crass they started performing and recording.

The band  released their initial 7" EPs and singles – "New Love" and "Guilty" (1991), and "I Need You" (1992) – on the West Coast independent labels Sub Pop and Sympathy for the Record Industry. Based on the public and critical response to these early releases, the band was signed to Warner Bros. Records. Their self-titled debut album came out in 1993. Crass left soon after its release, and drummer Jim Laspesa filled in during the subsequent tour, with Roy McDonald (formerly of Redd Kross) taking over the position permanently in 1994. By the time the tour was over, Vammen had decided to leave the group as well.

As a trio of Shattuck, Barnett, and MacDonald, The Muffs recorded their second album, Blonder and Blonder. It was released on Warner's subsidiary Reprise Records in 1995. The album included the college radio hit single, "Sad Tomorrow". The Muffs contributed a cover of the 1981 Kim Wilde hit "Kids In America" to the soundtrack for the 1995 film Clueless. Their version of the song is also used in the music video game Rock Band 2, and was later reissued on The Muffs' 2000 compilation album, Hamburger. 

The band made their third album, Happy Birthday to Me, in 1997, and it proved to be their final release through Warner Bros. Moving to independent label Honest Don's Records, they released Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow in 1999. Also in 1999, the band contributed the song "Pimmel" to the compilation album Short Music for Short People on Fat Wreck Chords. 

Towards the end of 1999, the group went on hiatus, and didn't create any new material for five years. Their fifth album, Really Really Happy, was released in 2004. The Muffs' first album in a decade, Whoop Dee Doo, was released by Burger Records in July 2014. Shattuck wrote all 12 songs, and handled production and engineering of almost the entire album. In October 2019, The Muffs released their album No Holiday. It comprises tracks spanning the beginnings of the band in 1991 to 2017.

In addition to her work with the Muffs, Shattuck was involved in numerous other musical projects: She sang on a NOFX song, "Lori Meyers" on the album Punk in Drublic, as well as on a Bowling for Soup song, "I'll Always Remember You (That Way)", which was included with the single "My Wena". She also collaborated with vocals for the Kepi Ghoulie song "This Friend of Mine" on the album American Gothic and The Dollyrots for their track "Some Girls" off the album A Little Messed Up. She also participated in a reunion of The Pandoras on July 4, 2015, at the Burger Boogaloo in Oakland, California. 

She died at her home in Los Angeles on October 2, 2019, from complications of ALS, aged 56.

Marisol

Josefa Flores González (born 4 February 1948), known professionally as Marisol or Pepa Flores, is a retired Spanish singer and actress who was popular in Spain during the 1960s as a child and teen star.

She was born Josefa Flores González on 4 February 1948 in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain. From early childhood, she demonstrated a love of singing and flamenco dance. In 1959 she was discovered by film producer Manuel José Goyanes Martínez, who saw her on television. Marisol became a sensation both in Spain and overseas. Director Luis Lucia Mingarro propelled her to national stardom in the film trilogy Un rayo de luz (Ray of Light), Ha llegado un ángel (An Angel Has Arrived) and Tómbola (Lottery). The films featured Marisol singing some of her best-known songs, "La vida es una tómbola" ("Life Is a Lottery"), "Corre, corre, caballito" ("Run, Run, Little Horse"), "Bambina", "Ola, Ola, Ola", "Estando contigo" ("Being with You"), "Chiquitina" ("Little Girl") and "Nueva melodía" ("A New Melody"). 

In 1963 she starred in Marisol Rumbo a Río (Marisol Is Bound for Rio), where she played twins (similar to Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap) and sang "Bossanova junto a ti" ("Bossanova Close to You"), "Muchachita" ("Little Woman"), "¡Oh, Tony!" and "Guajiras". Marisol co-starred with Robert Conrad in the 1964 film La Nueva Cenicienta (The New Cinderella), in which she sang "Me conformo" ("I Am Happy"). Mel Ferrer directed her in Cabriola (Prancer) in 1965, where she sang "Cabriola", "¡Ay, vagabundo!", "Ya no me importas nada" ("You Mean Nothing to Me") and "Sevillanas", and went shopping in Paris with Audrey Hepburn. She appeared in Búscame esa chica (Find Me That Girl) with El Duo Dinámico. The film had biographical elements, featuring Marisol singing "Mi pequeña estrella" ("My Little Star"), "Typical Spanish" and "Solo a Ti" ("Only To You"). She had a cameo in La historia de Bienvenido (Bienvenido's Story), a story about a donkey.  

Pepa Flores is retired, and lives in Malaga, where she works for charitable causes. 

Peaches

Merrill Nisker (born 11 November 1966), better known by her stage name Peaches, is a Canadian musician, producer, director, visual artist and performance artist.

Born in Ontario, Peaches began her musical career in the 1990s as part of a folk trio, Mermaid Cafe.  In 1995, she started the Shit, a noisy four-piece combo with Chilly Gonzales (a.k.a. Jason Beck), bassist Sticky (later of Weeping Tile and Music Maul), and Dominique Salole (a.k.a. Mocky). Their absurd, highly sexual rock music was a harbinger for what Nisker would become, as it was during this time that she adopted the Peaches name. The Peaches moniker was taken from the Nina Simone song "Four Women" where Simone screams at the end, "My name is Peaches!" In Toronto, before rising to fame, she lived above Come As You Are with fellow recording artist Feist.

After creating a six-track EP, Lovertits, Peaches moved to Berlin, Germany. While visiting her old friend Jason Beck, who was enjoying modest European success as Chilly Gonzales in his new home base of Berlin, Peaches landed a one-night gig. On the merits of that show alone, Berlin's Kitty-Yo label signed her on the spot. The label offered her the chance to record a new album, The Teaches of Peaches, back home in Toronto, and the already-completed Lovertits EP was released in the summer of 2000. The full-length album The Teaches of Peaches, was released that Fall. 

In 2003, she released her second album Fatherfucker on XL/Kitty-Yo after years of touring and opening for artists like Marilyn Manson and Queens of the Stone Age. She once again wrote and programmed all of her album's music herself. The single "Kick It" features Iggy Pop. For her third album, 2006's Impeach My Bush, Peaches enlisted guest musicians Joan Jett, Greg Kurstin, Josh Homme, Samantha Maloney, Beth Ditto, Feist, Dave Catching, Brian O'Connor and Radio Sloan to perform on several of the tracks. The Herms (short for hermaphrodites) were formed in spring 2006 as Peaches' live backing band. They played at both small and large venues with sex and sex-related themes as the "shock factor" for the audience. Peaches and Herms was the opening act for Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus during the second half of their 2006 summer U.S. tour. Her fourth album I Feel Cream, was released on May 4, 2009 in Europe, and May 5 in North America.

Her songs have been featured in movies such as Mean Girls, Waiting..., Jackass Number Two, My Little Eye, Drive Angry, and Lost in Translation. Her music has also been featured on television shows such as Lost Girl, The L Word, Ugly Betty, South Park, Skam , The Handmaid’s Tale, 30 Rock, True Blood, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Letterkenny and has been used for the promotion of Dirt. 

Norma Tanega

Norma Cecilia Tanega (January 30, 1939 – December 29, 2019) was an American folk and pop singer-songwriter, painter, and experimental musician. In the 1960s she had a hit with the single "Walkin' My Cat Named Dog" and wrote songs for Dusty Springfield and other prominent musicians. In later decades Tanega worked mostly as a percussionist, playing various styles of music in the bands Baboonz, hybridVigor, and Ceramic Ensemble. 

Tanega began classical piano lessons at age nine. She entered Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1952 and in her senior year directed the school's art gallery. By age 16 she was exhibiting her paintings at both Long Beach's Public Library and its Municipal Art Center, playing Beethoven and Bartók at piano recitals, and writing poetry. At age 17 she entered Scripps College on a scholarship and continued her studies at Claremont Graduate School, achieving an MFA in 1962. After spending a summer backpacking around Europe,she moved to New York City to pursue her artistic career. Living in Greenwich Village she became involved in the folk music scene and political activism, including early opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Tanega worked for a short time at a mental hospital, where she sang and played songs for patients. She spent her summers working as a camp counselor upstate in the Catskill Mountains. One summer Brooklyn-based record producer Herb Bernstein happened to be visiting the camp and saw Tanega performing some of her songs. Impressed by what he saw, Bernstein took her to meet Four Seasons songwriter Bob Crewe.

Her first single, "Walkin' My Cat Named Dog", went on to be an international hit in 1966, peaking at number 22 on both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Charts, and #3 in Canada. Tanega's impetus for the song came from living in a New York City apartment building that didn't allow dogs, so she kept a cat instead, named the cat "dog" and took the cat out for walks. The single's success landed her appearances on American Bandstand and Where the Action Is, and also a slot as the only woman on a North American tour with Gene Pitney, Bobby Goldsboro, Chad and Jeremy and The McCoys. On that tour Tanega was initially backed up by members of The Outsiders, who ended up not being able to follow Tanega's more idiosyncratic music and she had to take on session musicians to accompany her onstage. While some of her songs riffed off of traditional tunes like "Hey Girl", derived from Lead Belly's take on "In the Pines", many of her songs diverged from the structure of typical pop and folk music, such as her song "No Stranger Am I", set to a 5/4 time signature.

In 1966 Tanega traveled to England to promote her music. Her tour included a performance on the ITV program Ready Steady Go!, where she met British pop singer Dusty Springfield. On a visit to New York, Springfield entered a romantic relationship with Tanega, and the two went back to England and lived together for five years. The couple took up residence in London's Kensington district where Tanega continued to paint and play music. She contributed guitar tracks to Springfield's 1967 album Where Am I Going? and Springfield recorded many of Tanega's songs. These included "No Stranger Am I", the 5/4 number that originally appeared on Tanega's first album; "The Colour of Your Eyes", which Tanega wrote for Springfield in Venice, Los Angeles; "Earthbound Gypsy" and "Midnight Sounds", both co-written in New York with Tanega's high school friend Dan White; and "Come for a Dream", co-written with bossa nova musician Antônio Carlos Jobim. Tanega also penned the English language lyrics for Springfield's version of "Morning", a cover of the song "Bom Dia" by Gilberto Gil and Nana Caymmi. In 1970 Tanega teamed up with jazz pianist Blossom Dearie to write a song about Springfield for Dearie's album That's Just the Way I Want to Be.

In 1972 Tanega moved back to Claremont, California and took jobs teaching both music and English as a second language. She returned to painting and exhibiting her artwork. Musically she switched from playing guitar to percussion and her style evolved from folk-rock singer-songwriting to more instrumental and experimental music. In the 1980s she was a member of Scripps ceramics professor Brian Ransom's Ceramic Ensemble, a group that played Ransom's handmade earthenware instruments. Over the years Ceramic Ensemble played at universities, folk festivals, and art museums. In the 1990s Tanega founded the group hybridVigor, starting as a duo with Mike Henderson for their first album, then expanding to a trio with the addition of Rebecca Jamm for their second album. In 1998 Tanega formed the Latin Lizards with Robert Grajeda, and the duo released the album Dangerous in 2003. Her next band was called Baboonz with guitarist Tom Skelly and bassist Mario Verlangieri. The trio released a self-titled CD in 2008, the album HA! In 2009, and a third called 8 Songs Ate Brains in 2010. Other recording projects soon followed, including the album Push with John Zeretzke, Twin Journey with Steve Rushingwind Ruiz, and a return collaboration with Ceramic Ensemble sound sculptor Brian Ransom for their album Internal Medicine.

Tanega died on December 29, 2019, at her home in Claremont, California, aged 80.