Jane Aire (real name Jane Ashley) was another talented singer from Akron, Ohio whose career really got started outside her homeland, courtesy of a single on Stiff Records, Yankee Wheels. Jane was the lead singer of the band Jane Aire And The Belvederes.
Aire’s backing group The Belvederes were, in reality, a London group called The Edge, who came about when guitarist Lu Edmonds and drummer Jon Moss left a brief and unrecorded incarnation of The Damned in 1978.
After the Stiff single, Yankee Wheels (1978), Aire moved to Virgin to record an album featuring her backing band plus Chris Payne (trombone), Ray Warleigh (saxophone) and backing singers Rachel Sweet and Kirsty MacColl. The band released 1 LP and 2 singles with Virgin.
In 1980 she assembled a new bunch of Belvederes with Paul Cutler (guitar), Ian Curnow (keyboards), Sam Hartley (bass), Dave Ashley (drums) and former Deaf School saxophonist Ian Ritchie, Jane returned to Stiff to make a further single, a version of Dusty Springfield‘s I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten (1982).
