Sheena Easton

Sheena Easton

Easton on 7 November 2009
Background information
Birth name Sheena Shirley Orr
Born (1959-04-27) 27 April 1959
Origin Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland
Genres Pop, dance, R&B, country
Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter, producer, actress, voiceover, designer
Instruments Vocals
Years active 1978–present
Labels Warner Bros., EMI, EMI/America, MCA, Universal
Website www.sheenaeaston.com

Sheena Shirley Easton (née Orr; born 27 April 1959) is a Scottish-born recording artist and stage and screen actress with dual UK-United States nationality. Easton first came into the public eye as the focus of an episode in the first British musical reality television programme The Big Time: Pop Singer, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.

Easton's first two singles, "Modern Girl" and "9 to 5", both entered the UK Top Ten, and she was the first UK female artist to appear twice in the same Top Ten since Ruby Murray. In 1981, "9 to 5" topped the US Hot 100, making her the third UK female solo artist to achieve this, following Petula Clark and Lulu, and she became one of the most successful British female performers of the 1980s.

A six-time Grammy nominee in the U.S., Easton is a two-time Grammy Award winner, winning Best New Artist in 1981 [1] and Best Mexican-American Performance in 1985,[2] for her duet with Luis Miguel on the song "Me Gustas Tal Como Eres". She has received five U.S. Gold albums and one U.S. Platinum album. She has recorded 16 studio albums, released 45 singles total worldwide, and had 14 U.S. Top 40 singles, seven U.S. top tens and one U.S. No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1981 and 1991. She also had 25 top 40 hits in international territories around the world. In Canada, Easton scored three gold and two platinum albums. She has sold over 20 million albums and singles worldwide.

Easton became the first and only artist in history to have a Top 5 hit on five different Billboard charts consecutively, with Morning Train (9 to 5) (both Pop and Adult Contemporary), "We've Got Tonight" with Kenny Rogers (Country), "Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)" (Dance), and "Sugar Walls" (R&B).

Easton's other hits include the James Bond theme "For Your Eyes Only", "Strut", "U Got the Look" and "The Arms of Orion" with Prince, "The Lover in Me" and "What Comes Naturally". She has worked with prominent vocalists and producers, such as Prince, Christopher Neil, Kenny Rogers, David Foster, Luis Miguel, L.A. Reid & Babyface, Patrice Rushen and Nile Rodgers.

Early life

Easton was born Sheena Shirley Orr in the Scottish town of Bellshill, the youngest of six children of steel mill labourer Alex Orr and his wife Annie. She had two brothers; Robert and Alex, and three sisters; Marilyn, Anessa and Morag. Her earliest known public performance as a singer was in 1964 at the age of five, when she sang "Early One Morning" for her uncle and aunt and various relatives at the couple's 25th wedding anniversary celebration.[3]

Easton's father died in 1969 and her mother had to support the family. According to Easton's website, despite her mother's heavy workload she was always available for her children: "Sheena always speaks very highly of her mum and the wonderful job she did in bringing up her and her siblings, including teaching them all to read at home before they were even enrolled in school."[3]

Easton did not consider a singing career until she saw the movie The Way We Were, with Barbra Streisand. Streisand's singing over the opening credits "overtook" the young girl and convinced her that what she wanted most was to be a singer and to have the same effect on others.[3]

Her top grades in school earned her a scholarship to attend the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, where she trained from 1975 to 1979 as a speech and drama teacher by day, while singing with a band called "Something Else" by night at local clubs.[3] She chose to study teaching rather than performing, because it was a course of study that would let her perfect her craft as a singer.[3]

In 1979, she married Sandi Easton, the first of her four husbands. They divorced after eight months, and Sheena decided to keep the surname Easton. That year, one of her tutors coaxed her into auditioning for Esther Rantzen, producer of the BBC programme The Big Time. Rantzen was planning a documentary film to chronicle a relative unknown's rise to pop-music stardom. Easton was selected as the subject for the programme, where she met and sang with Dusty Springfield and Lulu, whose manager Marion Massey told her that she was unlikely to make the big time. Within a year of the programme airing, Sheena Easton proved Massey wrong as EMI executives awarded her a contract, and Christopher Neil was assigned as her recording producer. Deke Arlon became her first manager, and Easton spent much of 1980 being followed by camera crews, who filmed her throughout the process of making her first EMI single, "Modern Girl".

Career

1981–82: "9 to 5", James Bond, Take My Time

Her first single, the disco-tinged soft-synth-pop tune, "Modern Girl", was released in the UK before The Big Time aired, reached number 56 and was certified a Silver single. At the end of the show, Easton was still unsure of her future as a singer. The question was resolved soon after the show aired, when her second single, "9 to 5", reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and was certified a Gold single in 1980. "Modern Girl" re-entered the chart subsequently and climbed into the top 10, and Easton found herself with two songs in the UK top 10 simultaneously. During 1980, Easton was voted "Best British Female Singer" by the Daily Mirror Pop & Rock Awards, "Best Newcomer" by Capital Radio, and "Best Female Singer" by the TV Times Readers Awards.

"9 to 5" was Easton's first single release in the United States, although it was renamed "Morning Train (Nine To Five)" for its release in the US and Canada to avoid confusion with Dolly Parton's hit movie title song "9 to 5". "Morning Train" became Easton's first and only number 1 hit in the US and topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts in Billboard magazine. "Modern Girl" was released as the follow-up and peaked at number 18, and before 1981 was over she had a Top 10 hit in both the US and UK with the Academy Award-nominated James Bond movie theme ”For Your Eyes Only”. The song was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe award in 1982 in the category "Best Music (Original Song)".[4] Easton's US success culminated in her winning the Grammy Award for "Best New Artist" of 1981.[1]

Easton's first three US albums, Sheena Easton (1981) (retitled edition of Take My Time), You Could Have Been With Me (1981), and Madness, Money and Music (1982), were all in the same soft rock/adult contemporary pop vein. The title track from "You Could Have Been With Me" made it in to the US Top 15, however, by the end of 1982, she saw her sales slumping. Easton was one of the first artists to record "Wind Beneath My Wings" (included on Madness, Money and Music), which later was a hit for Bette Midler.

Then, in 1982, Easton undertook her first US tour. Her performance in Los Angeles was videotaped and broadcast on HBO and later released on VHS as Sheena Easton Live at the Palace, Hollywood.

1983–87: Best Kept Secret, Todo Me Recuerda a Ti, A Private Heaven and No Sound but a Heart

In January 1983, Easton duetted with Kenny Rogers and had a Top 10 hit in the US with "We've Got Tonight", a cover of the Bob Seger song. The recording also earned her a number 1 single on the Country chart, and it reached the UK Top 30. Around the time of her hit record with Rogers, Easton headlined Act One, a one-hour variety special broadcast on NBC that featured Rogers and a cameo appearance by Johnny Carson.

October 1983 saw the release of the album Best Kept Secret and its first single, the synthesized dance-pop tune "Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)", became her fourth Top 10 hit. The single was Grammy-nominated for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" of 1983.[5] The follow-up single, "Almost Over You", reached the US Top 30 and was a number 4 AC chart hit. "Almost Over You" was very popular in Asia and was covered by the Chinese singer Sandy Lam. It also became a hit on the Country charts for Lila McCann in 1998.

In 1984, Easton recorded a Spanish-language single, "Me Gustas Tal Como Eres" ("I Like You Just the Way You Are"), a duet with Mexican star Luis Miguel. The single earned her a second Grammy, this time for Best Mexican-American Performance. The track was taken from the album Todo Me Recuerda a Ti (1984), and reissued by Capitol/EMI-Latin in (1989), which featured Spanish-language covers of seven previous Easton recordings and three new tracks. In the same year, she also made a transformation into a sexy dance-pop siren, changing her performance style in the process. She was rewarded with the biggest-selling US album of her career, RIAA certified gold & platinum A Private Heaven (1984), and her sixth Top 10 US single, "Strut". In the UK, however, the move was not a commercial success, as Easton would find herself shutout of the UK top 75 for the next three years.

Her career on the rise in the US, Easton was again Grammy nominated, this time for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" in 1984.[5] She was also one of the first artists to have a music video banned because of its lyrics rather than its imagery; some broadcasters refused to air the sexually risqué "Sugar Walls", which had been written for her by Prince (using the pseudonym Alexander Nevermind). "Sugar Walls" was named by Tipper Gore of the Parents Music Resource Center as one of the "Filthy Fifteen", a list of songs deemed indecent because of their lyrics, alongside Prince's own "Darling Nikki". The song eventually hit number 3 on the R&B singles chart and number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Easton's follow-up to A Private Heaven, entitled Do You (1985), was produced by Nile Rodgers and achieved gold status, although it failed to generate any breakout singles of the chart calibre of "Strut" or "Sugar Walls". In late 1985, Easton contributed "It's Christmas (All Over the World)" to the holiday release Santa Claus The Movie. In 1987, the release of a follow-up album, No Sound But a Heart (1987),[6] was hampered in the United States after an initial single release, ”Eternity”, (another Prince composition) failed to reach the pop, R&B or adult contemporary charts.[7] The album's release moved from February to June;[6] then in August the release was further held up as Easton's attorneys asked that the album be delayed after EMI Records was absorbed into EMI/Manhattan.[8] (This did not prevent the album from being released in Canada, Europe and other territories.)

Songs from the album were covered by other artists: Crystal Gayle and Gary Morris featured "Wanna Give My Love" and "What if We Fall in Love" on a 1987 duet album named for the latter song; Celine Dion recorded "The Last to Know" on 1990s Unison while Mexican singer Yuri featured the tune on her album Espejos De Alma (1995); Patti LaBelle covered "Still in Love" on 1989's Be Yourself; Pia Zadora recorded "Floating Hearts" on 1989's Pia Z. No Sound But a Heart eventually did get released in the United States in 1999, with four bonus tracks, including Easton's contributions to the soundtrack of the 1986 film About Last Night..., "Natural Love" and the Top 50 single "So Far, So Good".

1987–90: "U Got the Look" and The Lover in Me

In 1987, Easton appeared in Prince's concert film Sign o' the Times, during which they duetted on "U Got the Look", which became a No. 2 hit in the US for Prince and Easton. This led to Grammy nominations for "Best R&B Vocal, Duo or Group" and "Best R&B Song" of 1987.[9] The track also returned Easton to the UK hit parade for the first time in nearly four years. During her time collaborating with Prince, Easton was encouraged to write her own material. The most successful effort from her foray into songwriting was "The Arms of Orion", a duet with Prince and a single from 1989's Batman soundtrack. The song reached number 36 on the US Billboard Chart and number 27 in her native UK.

Since that time Easton has written and co-written songs for her albums throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. She also co-wrote a song with Prince for Patti LaBelle's album titled "Love '89". In addition they co-wrote "La, La, La, He, He, Hee", which Prince recorded for the b-side of the single "Sign o the Times". Tabloid press linked the two romantically, which she has always denied.[10]

In November 1987, Easton made her first dramatic acting appearance on the television program Miami Vice. She played a singer named Caitlin Davies, whom Sonny Crockett was assigned to protect until her court appearance to render crucial testimony against certain corrupt music industry mavens. Sonny and Caitlin ended up married by the end of the episode, the first of five episodes for Easton.

By the spring of 1988, a volume of the Miami Vice soundtrack was released and featured "Follow My Rainbow", which Easton had finished singing on her last appearance just moments before her character was eliminated.

The song also appeared on her next album The Lover in Me (1988), RIAA gold disc debut released the following autumn on her new label MCA Records, that put Easton back on the US and UK charts after the release of No Sound But a Heart was cancelled in the US. This album features Urban R&B and Dance-pop, and a sexier image. The title song from "The Lover in Me" reached US number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and (UK number 15) and became her biggest pop hit since "Morning Train". It also became a (number 5) hit on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks chart. It was followed on the US R&B chart by "Days Like This" (number 35) and (UK number 43), which missed the Billboard Hot 100. The third single released "101" (UK number 54) missed the Billboard top 100 but did make it to (US number 2) on the Billboard Dance chart.[11] A final single was released "No Deposit, No Return" and failed to chart. The album received positive reviews and featured collaborations with LA and Babyface, Prince, Angela Winbush, and Jellybean Benitez.

In 1990, Easton revisited her home country of Scotland to perform at a festival (The Big Day) in Glasgow. After announcing, that it was "good to be back home" in an American accent, she had bottles (some containing urine) thrown at her and, visibly shaken, she was forced to cut her set short. She vowed never to perform in Scotland again.[12]

1991–96: What Comes Naturally, Modern Girl (Live in San Diego), No Strings, and My Cherie

In 1991, What Comes Naturally became the last of Easton's albums to chart in the United States, peaking at number 90. The title song was also her last Top 40 single to date, reaching number 19. It also became her first hit in Australia since the mid-1980s, peaking at number 3.[13] Another two singles "You Can Swing It" and "To Anyone" followed but failed to chart. "What Comes Naturally" remained on the US pop chart for 10 weeks, and 11 weeks on the ARIA Chart in Australia. Easton has songwriting credits on three tracks. Easton is one of the few pop artists to adopt the new jack swing sound with chart success from the early 1990s.

1992 saw Easton become a United States citizen; she presently holds dual citizenship with the United Kingdom and the United States.

In Germany and Japan 1992 an unofficial recording of "Modern Girl" (Live in San Diego) was released by "That's Life" recordings. The music was from her early output with EMI and became a sort of bootleg version of her concert when she performed stateside on her first worldwide tour in 1982.

Easton followed this with the non-charting but critically acclaimed No Strings (1993), an album of jazz standards, and My Cherie (1995) her last pop album to date to see domestic release in the United States.

1996–99: Freedom, Home and Colors of Christmas Tour

Easton contributed vocals to the soundtrack of All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 and voiced the character Sasha La Fleur on "Count Me Out" and "I Will Always Be With You". Easton also contributed the theme song "Are There Angels" to the soundtrack for Shiloh in 1997; and provided the song "A Dream Worth Keeping" for the 1993 animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest.

In 1997, she played 'Melissa McCammon', a recording star, who is visited by time travellers from the future in an episode of the Canadian television series The Outer Limits (Season 2/Episode 19) entitled 'Falling Star'. The episode featured her singing two songs from My Cherie.

In the late 1990s, Easton retained an album contract with MCA Japan and released two discs of new material. However, neither album was originally released in the United States. Freedom, released in 1997 to coincide with the launch of her website and finally released in (Limited Edition) stateside in 2007, was a return to her trademark pop, including a remake of her debut single "Modern Girl".

In 1999 Universal/Victor released the self-produced acoustic set, Home. Also around this time, Sheena Easton Greatest Hits collection featuring 12 MCA singles recorded from 1988-1995 released and charted in Japan at number 98 (additional greatest hits collections surfaced in the US and UK, but did not chart).

Easton adopted a boy (Jake) and girl (Skylar) between 1995 and 1996. Motherhood led her to curtail her appearances and focus on casino gigs, corporate shows and theatrical work.[14] "Because I adopted my children, I could plan my timing", she told The Arizona Republic. "I knew exactly when they were coming along, so I knew when I had to change my life so it would be a stable life."[14]

Easton continued acting in America, starring in lead Broadway revivals of Man of La Mancha as (Aldonza) opposite Raul Julia in his last stage role (1992), and Grease as Rizzo (1996). Between 1994 and 1996, she played several characters in Gargoyles the animated series, including Lady Finella, the Banshee, Molly and Robyn Canmore. In 1999, she voice-acted a part-demon character, Annah-of-the-Shadows, in the computer game Planescape: Torment. She lives in Las Vegas with her two children and often performs in various casinos' entertainment venues. She voiced the character of Fiona Canmore for a scripted but unfinished episode of the cancelled animated feature, Team Atlantis.

In December 1998, Easton toured with "The Colors of Christmas" with artists Roberta Flack, Melissa Manchester, Peabo Bryson, and Jeffrey Osborne. Windham Hill Records produced "The Colors of Christmas" disc by Robbie Buchanan of holiday music. Easton contributed two tracks, "The Place Where We Belong" (a duet with Jeffrey Osborne), and "The Lord's Prayer".

1999–2013: Fabulous and hiatus

Easton performing live on November 7, 2009

In 1999 New York based One Way Records reserved the rights to release all of Easton's EMI-America catalog. For the first time in the US, No Sound But a Heart was released, 12 years after the album was made available elsewhere. All of Easton's EMI back catalogue was re-released and remastered with bonus tracks, incorporating B-sides and remixes. However, there was one notable exception to the re-release schedule, Easton's Spanish language album "Todo Me Recuerda a Ti".

Universal Japan released Best Ballads, a disc of ballads from her six previous albums from her MCA catalog with the exception of "For Your Eyes Only" for the Japanese market that failed to chart.

She also signed an album contract with Universal International UK and attempted a comeback of sorts with Fabulous (2000), an album of classic disco covers. The first single, "Giving Up, Giving In", reached UK number 54, and the album charted at UK number 185. A second single, a cover of Donna Summer's hit "Love is in Control", with double A-side "Don't Leave Me This Way", was withdrawn. Remixes of the singles were produced by Joey Negro, Sleaze Sisters, Sharp Boys, Rob Searle, DJ Soma Grow and Almighty. This was to be Easton's last album release to date. Released in 2000, it was Easton's 16th studio album. The album was only released throughout continental Europe, Spain, Estonia, Japan, Australia, and Argentina but not in the US.

In Japan, Fabulous was released in February 2001 and the first single was "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", which had originally been recorded by Frankie Valli in the 1960s, though a disco version had been a hit for the Boys Town Gang in the early 1980s. The album was packaged differently from the UK version and included two bonus tracks; "I Need Your Lovin'" (a cover of the 1980 Teena Marie song) and a remix of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You". In Australia, "Fabulous" was released 24 February 2001 and Easton was asked to perform songs from the album to close out 2001 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras ceremonies. The album was a commercial failure in the UK, though the album did enjoy mild success in dance clubs in London, Japan, and Australia.

In 2003, Easton contributed vocals to "If You're Happy", a cover for a Japanese disc called Cover Morning Musume-Hello Project. She also began to host Vegas Live, a talk show with Clint Holmes (later replaced by Brian McKnight). In 2004, she was inducted into the Casino Legends Hall of Fame at the Tropicana Resort & Casino.

2013-present: The Spy Who Loved Me and re-issues

In February 2013, Demon/Edsel Records (UK) reissued Easton's "You Could Have Been with Me" and "Madness, Money and Music" along with "A Private Heaven" and "Do You" in two compact disc packages remastered with bonus tracks, with the latter including the extended version of "Jimmy Mack" that has never been included on any of her reissues. In November 2014, a box set of Easton's first five albums in an original album series Compact Disc collection was released by Warner Music Group in the United Kingdom.

Currently Easton embarked on symphony concerts with guest vocalists entitled "The Spy who Loved Me" with material from spy movies of the past and present and featuring Bond style music with symphonies around the United States beginning in San Francisco from July, 2015 until January, 2016 with possible continuance later into 2016. Easton will also perform a small tour of dates the latter part of 2015 in Australia featuring her Greatest Hits.

November 2016, Easton accepts the role of "Dorothy Brock" in the revival production of "42nd Street" that will premier 20 March 2017 in London's West End Drury Lane.

Personal life

Easton has been married four times and has two adopted children.

Her first marriage was in Scotland to Sandi Easton at the age of 19. The marriage lasted eight months. Sandi Easton died in 1998, aged 48.[15]

Her second marriage in 1984 to Rob Light, a talent agent, ended after 18 months. Easton became a U.S. citizen in 1992, carrying dual citizenship with the United Kingdom, and adopted her first child, Jake Rion Cousins Easton, in 1994.[16] Two years later, she adopted again, this time a baby girl she named Skylar.[16] In the summer of 1997, she met producer Tim Delarm while filming an episode of ESPN Canon Photo Safari in Yellowstone National Park and they married in Las Vegas in July 1997; the marriage lasted one year. On 9 November 2002, she married John Minoli, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon; they divorced in 2003.[17]

Easton is a single mother to her two children and resides in Henderson, Nevada. She reportedly made shrewd investments in Florida property, that led to her appearance on the Sunday Times Rich List, but she denies such claims.[10]

Discography

Filmography

Broadway/London's West End

Concert Tours & Vegas Residencies

Awards and nominations

American Music Award

Year Nominee/work Award Result
1982 Sheena Easton Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist Nominated

Billboard Music Award

Year Nominee/work Award Result
1981 Sheena Easton Top Pop New Artist Won
2004 Sheena Easton Top Pop Artists of the Past 25 Years chart number 58

Other Awards

Best British Female Singer -1980 Daily Mirror Pop & Rock Awards

Best Newcomer -1980 Capital Radio

Best Female Singer - 1980 The TV Times Readers Awards

Sheena Easton First Artist with Top 5 Hits in all major categories: Pop, R&B, Country, Adult Contemporary, and Dance. Billboard Magazine 1985

Sheena Easton Casino Legends Hall of Fame-2004

Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Easton has won two awards from six nominations.

Year Nominee/work Award Result
1982 Sheena Easton Best New Artist Won
"For Your Eyes Only" Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Nominated
1984 "Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)" Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Nominated
1985 "Strut" Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Nominated
Me Gustas Tal Como Eres (with Luis Miguel) Best Mexican-American Performance Won
1988 "U Got the Look" (with Prince) Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Nominated

Note: "U Got the Look" was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. This nomination is credited to the songwriter (Prince) and not to Easton.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Grammy Award Nominees 1982 - Grammy Award Winners 1982".
  2. ↑ "Grammy Award Nominees 1985 - Grammy Award Winners 1985".
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Sheena Easton - The Official Website". sheenaeaston.com.
  4. ↑ "Session Timeout - Academy Awards® Database - AMPAS". oscars.org.
  5. 1 2 "Grammy Award Nominees 1984 - Grammy Award Winners 1984".
  6. 1 2 Beck, Marilyn. "New director selected for 'No Man's Land'. Daily News (Los Angeles). 22 December 1986.
  7. ↑ "Sheena Easton chart positions". Allmusic. Retrieved 16 May 2008.
  8. ↑ Van Matre, Lynn. "Friday". Chicago Tribune. 21 August 1987.
  9. ↑ "Grammy Award Nominees 1988 - Grammy Award Winners 1988".
  10. 1 2 Elfman, Doug. "Doug Elfman: Grist For the Rumor Mill." Las Vegas Review-Journal. 27 March 2009.
  11. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Hot Dance/Disco: 1974-2003. Record Research. p. 86.
  12. ↑ "How a generation of stars bombed in Glasgow's notorious comics graveyard". Daily Record. 12 August 2008. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
  13. ↑ The Book Top 40 Research 8th Edition
  14. 1 2 Cordova, Randy. "4/13: Sheena Easton at Phx Pride Festival." The Arizona Republic. 3 April 2008.
  15. ↑ The Scotsman - 2000 interview
  16. 1 2 "Biography". sheenaeaston.com.
  17. ↑ Daniel, Hugo (2013-12-16). "What's happened to Sheena Easton?". Daily Mail. Retrieved 2014-07-16.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sheena Easton.
Preceded by
Shirley Bassey
Moonraker, 1979		 James Bond title artist
For Your Eyes Only, 1981 		Succeeded by
Rita Coolidge
Octopussy (All Time High), 1983
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