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Helen Reddy

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In concert, 1974

Helen Reddy (born October 25, 1941 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) is an Australian singer/songwriter. She has won a Grammy Award, been a theatrical stage performer appearing on Broadway, an actress in feature films and credited with singing and writing one of the most iconic and culturally significant songs of the 1970s, "I Am Woman."

She also became the first Australian to have a #1 single in the United States, win a Grammy Award, and have her own variety shows on United States television. Born and raised in Australia, Helen Reddy became a naturalized United States citizen in 1974. In 2002, she retired from performing concerts and recording and now resides in Sydney, Australia.

Helen Reddy became one of the world's most successful female singers of the early 1970s music scene. Reddy scored many certified gold hit records including three #1 singles and fifteen Top 40 pop singles on Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. She has sold more than 15 million albums and 10 million singles worldwide.

She was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006.

Early years

Helen Reddy was born into a well-known Australian show business family. Her parents, performers on the Australian vaudeville circuit, were actress and singer Stella Lamond and writer-actor-comedian Max Reddy. Her sister, Toni is also an actress and singer. Her nephew is likewise an actor-singer by the name of Tony Sheldon.

Reddy began performing on stage with her parents at four years of age. In her late teens she was briefly married to an older musician, with whom she had a daughter, Traci, but they divorced soon afterwards. After beginning her career in radio and television in Australia, she won a talent contest on the Australian pop music TV show Bandstand which enabled her to move to the United States in 1966. Settling initially in New York, she met Jeff Wald, then an agent with the William Morris Agency; after living together for only four days, she and Wald married; he subsequently became her manager.

After a stint in Chicago, the family moved to Los Angeles, California, where Reddy tried to establish herself as a recording artist. Twenty-seven labels rejected her before she was finally signed to a contract with Capitol Records in 1970.

The "I am Woman" era and stardom

After years of trying to get her name out there as a vocalist and musician, Helen Reddy's first Top 40 U.S. hit (1971) was a cover of "I Don't Know How To Love Him" (from Jesus Christ Superstar). After this single success the music industry and record buying public began to take notice.

However, it was her next single "I Am Woman", that proved to be the catalyst that would propel her then fledgling career to new successful heights. In 1972, Reddy co-wrote with Australian musician Ray Burton, the song I Am Woman, which became a worldwide feminist anthem, worldwide hit, and her first U.S #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Reddy has attributed the impetus for writing "I Am Woman" and her early awareness of the women's movement to expatriate Australian rock critic and pioneer feminist Lillian Roxon. Reddy is quoted in Fred Bronson's The Billboard Book of Number One Hits as saying that she was looking for songs to record which reflected the positive self-image she had gained from joining the women's movement but couldn't find any, so "I realized that the song I was looking for didn't exist, and I was going to have to write it myself." The single actually barely dented the chart on its initial release in the summer of 1972, but it wasn't long before female listeners adopted the song as an anthem and began requesting it from their local radio stations in droves, spurring it to re-enter the charts in September and become a hit. "I Am Woman" earned a Grammy Award for Female Pop Vocal Performance and at the awards ceremony she concluded her acceptance speech by famously thanking God "because She makes everything possible".

Over the next five years, she had more than a dozen other U.S. Top 40 hits including two more #1 hits. These included the Alex Harvey country ballad "Delta Dawn" (#1, 1973), "Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)" (#3), "Keep on Singing" (#15, 1974), "You And Me Against The World" (written by Paul Williams and featuring daughter Traci reciting the spoken bookends), "Emotion" (an English version of the French tune Amoureuse), "Peaceful" (#15), "Angie Baby" (#1), "Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady" (#8, 1975), the sophisticated Richard Kerr-Will Jennings "Somewhere in the Night" (#19; later a bigger hit for Barry Manilow), and the Carole King-Gerry Goffin song "I Can't Hear You No More" (1976). Her last Top 20 record was a 1977 revival of Cilla Black's 1964 hit "You're My World", co-produced by Kim Fowley. Reddy's final chart record was "I Can't Say Goodbye To You" in 1981. She was most successful on the Adult Contemporary charts, scoring seven #1 hits there over a three-year span, from "Delta Dawn" to "I Can't Hear You No More."

At the height of her fame in the late 1970s, Helen Reddy was a headliner with a full chorus of backup singers and dancers to standing room only crowds on The Strip in Las Vegas. Reddy's opening act was the then up and coming Joan Rivers. In 1976, Reddy covered the Beatles song "The Fool on the Hill" for the ephemeral musical documentary All This and World War II.

Reddy was also instrumental in furthering the career of Olivia Newton-John — she encouraged her friend to move from Britain to the United States in the early 1970s, and Newton-John won the starring role of "Sandy" in the hit film version of the musical Grease after a chance meeting with the film's producer Allan Carr at a party at Reddy's house.

Behind the hits

The stories behind two of Reddy's biggest hits illustrate the often fickle nature of success in the music business. Both Bette Midler and the young Tanya Tucker recorded their own versions of "Delta Dawn" just before Reddy recorded hers. Once Tucker's version became a Top 10 hit on the country charts, Barbra Streisand's producer Tom Catalano decided that Streisand could have a pop hit with it, so he had an instrumental backing track recorded. Fortunately for Reddy, Streisand refused to sing the song, so United Artists song plugger Wally Schuster called Jeff Wald and offered the song and the completed backing track to Reddy, who put her own vocal on it.

Reddy's version of "Delta Dawn" was released in the summer of 1973, just two days ahead Midler's version, but disc jockeys preferred Reddy's rendition and it eventually went to #1 on the U.S. charts and was a hit in several other countries including Australia.

She was equally fortunate with "Angie Baby" (written by Alan O'Day)— it was first offered to Cher, who turned it down, so it was then offered to Reddy, who snapped it up, and it became her third U.S. #1 single (Cher was similarly unlucky with the song "The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia"— after husband Sonny Bono turned it down, it was recorded by Vicki Lawrence, who scored a #1 hit with it in 1973). The cryptic lyrics of "Angie Baby" have inspired a number of listener theories as to what the song is really about, and Reddy has refused to comment on what the true storyline of the song is, partly because she has said she enjoys hearing other listeners' interpretations. Reddy has also said that "Angie Baby" was the one song she never had to push radio stations into playing.

Film and theatre

Reddy has lent her acting and singing talents to many stage and screen productions. Her film career includes roles in Airport 1975 and Walt Disney's Pete's Dragon (in which she sang "Candle on the Water," which has become one of her best-known songs despite only charting on the A/C charts), and she appeared in numerous television specials. She also hosted two television series, including her own show and a late-night music program, The Midnight Special.

Reddy's stage credits include performances in Anything Goes, Call Me Madam, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and in works by British playwright Willy Russell. Reddy appeared both on Broadway and in the West End of London in the musical Blood Brothers, and in four productions of Shirley Valentine.

Notable stage roles include:

  • Shirley Valentine - as "Shirley"
    • Stage West, Canada (June, 1997)
    • 12 U.S. City Tour (February - April 1996)
    • Theatre by the Sea, R.I. (1995)
  • Blood Brothers - as "Mrs. Johnstone"
    • West End (1997)
    • Music Box Theatre, Broadway (January – May 1995)
    • Empire Theatre, Liverpool (1995)
  • Love, Julie - as "Gail Sinclair"
    • Sharon Stage, CT (August, 1996)
    • Cape Cod (July, 1996)
    • Westport Country Playhouse (June, 1996)
  • The Mystery of Edwin Drood - as "Edwin Drood/Miss Alice Nutting"
    • Sacramento Music Circus (July, 1988)
  • Call Me Madam - as "Mrs. Sally Adams"
    • Sacramento Music Circus (August, 1986)
  • Anything Goes - as "Reno Sweeney"
    • Long Beach Civic Light Opera (July, 1987)
    • Sacramento Music Circus (July, 1985)

Recently

Active in community affairs, Helen Reddy served as the state of California's Parks and Recreation commissioner for 3 years. In 2002, she retired from performing and moved from Santa Monica, California to Norfolk Island, Australia. Recently, Reddy published an autobiography and appeared on the Today show in May 2006. She was also recently added to the ARIA Hall Of Fame, with a tribute performance by Vanessa Amorosi of "I Am Woman" at the ceremony. Reddy suffers from Addison's disease, a failure of the adrenal glands, which requires constant treatment to maintain normal activities.[1] She also made a cameo in the Family Guy episode and Star Wars parody Blue Harvest as a member of the Red Squadron alongside Red Five (Chris Griffin), Red Buttons, Redd Foxx, Big Red, Red October, Simply Red and others.

Helen Reddy in early 2007 with students at a Women's Leadership conference in Sydney.

Helen Reddy has retired from performing concerts around the world, and is now a practicing Clinical Hypnotherapist based in Sydney and is Patron of the Australian Society of Clinical Hypnotherapists.

Discography

Albums

  • I Don't Know How to Love Him - 1970
  • Helen Reddy - 1970
  • I Am Woman - 1972
  • Long Hard Climb - 1973
  • Love Song for Jeffrey - 1974
  • Free and Easy - 1974
  • No Way to Treat a Lady - 1975
  • Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits - 1975
  • Music, Music - 1976
  • Ear Candy - 1977
  • Pete's Dragon (soundtrack) - 1977
  • We'll Sing in the Sunshine - 1978
  • Live in London - 1978
  • Reddy - 1979
  • Take What You Find - 1980
  • Play Me Out - 1981
  • Imagination - 1983
  • Feel So Young - 1990
  • Center Stage - 1998
  • The Best Christmas Ever - 2000
  • The Woman I Am: The Definitive Collection - 2006
  • Come With Me: The Rest of Helen Reddy - 2006

Singles

On the US Adult Contemporary chart, Reddy scored 14 top ten singles from Van Morrison's "Crazy Love" in 1971 to "You're My World" in 1977, with eight of those songs ("Delta Dawn," "Leave Me Alone," "Keep on Singing," "You and Me Against the World," "Angie Baby," "Emotion," "Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady," and "I Can't Hear You No More") reaching #1 and three others ("I Am Woman," "Peaceful," and "Somewhere In the Night") making #2.

Bibliography

  • The Woman I Am (2006) ISBN 1-58542-489-7

Notes

  1. ^ Addison's Awareness Week 7th – 11th May 2007

See also

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