French singer Brigitte Fontaine made a series of increasingly strange and eclectic art-pop in the 1970s that gathered a lot of acclaim in France, although she remains obscure to an international audience. Initially she was an eccentric but accessible pop singer, presenting melodic and orchestrated material a la a more daring version of... [+] Read More

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Who was the second biggest selling music star to come out of Liverpool after the Beatles? It wasn't Gerry & the Pacemakers or Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, nor was it the Searchers.

It was Cilla Black, a one-time coat-check girl from the Cavern Club who was still learning to sing with confidence, forget developing a technique, just... [+] Read More

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Usually thought of as a middle-of-the-road popular singer, Françoise Hardy -- at the beginning of her career, at least -- covered more stylistic ground and owed more debts to pop/rock than she's given credit for. Immensely popular in her native France, the chanteuse first displayed her breathy, measured vocals in the early and mid-'60s. Her... [+] Read More

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Most Americans first heard of Lulu when she soared to the top of the charts with the pop ballad "To Sir with Love," the theme to the film of the same name, in 1967. Actually, the Scottish singer -- born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie -- had been a star in Britain since 1964, when she hit the Top Ten with a raucous version of "Shout." Lulu's... [+] Read More

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One of the most fascinating figures of rock's fringes, Nico hobnobbed, worked, and was romantically linked with an incredible assortment of the most legendary entertainers of the '60s. The paradox of her career was that she herself never attained the fame of her peers, pursuing a distinctly individualistic and uncompromising musical career that... [+] Read More

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The most commercially successful female singer in British chart history, Petula Clark was born November 15, 1932 in Epsom, England. Trained to sing by her soprano mother, Clark embarked on a stage career at the age of seven; soon she was a fixture on British radio programs, and began hosting her own regular show Pet's Parlour -- a series... [+] Read More

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