Del.icio.usLene Lovich
In the 1960s she moved to England with her mother after her parents separated. She settled in London, where she studied at art school, and in 1978 she signed with the influential new wave label Stiff Records. She had her biggest success in 1979 with her debut album Stateless and the single Lucky Number, which reached number 3 in the UK, and was a major hit throughout Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Her biggest American hit was New Toy (1981), which was written by Thomas Dolby, who had played keyboards in her band.
Lene Lovich was born Lili Marlene Premilovich on March 30th 1950 to a Yugoslavian father and British mother in 'MOTOR CITY' Detroit, USA. Suzi Quatro and Stevie Wonder were about the same age and growing up in Detroit at the same time. Her father unfortunately was mentally unstable and among other things kept threatening to move the family to Russia. So when Lene was about 13 her mother took the four children and fled to Hull, England. As a teenager Lene met up with long time soul mate/guitarist/co-songwriter Les Chappell. In the Autumn of 1968 Lene and Les went to London to attend art school. It was there that Lene first tied her hair into the plaits that later became her most famous visual trademark. She did it to keep her hair out of the clay when studying sculpture.
Over the following ten years or so the list of Lene's activities is somewhat lengthy and mind boggling. She attended several art schools, busked around London underground, appeared in cabaret clubs as an oriental dancer, went to Spain and hung around Salvador Dali's house until eventually she got to meet him. Played accoustic rock around London, sang in the mass choir of a show called "Quintessence" at the Royal Albert Hall, played a soldier in Arthur Brown's show, worked as a "go-go" dancer with the Radio One Roadshow, toured Italy with a West Indian soul band, played saxaphone for Bob Flags Baloon and Banana Band and for all girl cabaret trio The Sensations. Screamed for horror films, adapted lyrics for French disco star Cerrone (including the UK hit "Supernature" - ATLANTIC K11089 and LPs "Cerrone's Paradise" - ATLANTIC K50377 and "Cerrone IV" - S 83282) and worked with various fringe theatre groups. Quite a list I think you'll agree! She was also in the audience at Lancaster Arts Festival when Chuck Berry recorded "My Ding-a-Ling" (CHESS) live. As the audience was encouraged to sing-a-long technically I suppose this could be described as her first appearance on record. Unless of course she was one of "those of you who will not sing"? The record was a UK No.1.
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