Twinkle (singer)

Twinkle

Twinkle in 1964
Background information
Birth name Lynn Annette Ripley
Also known as Twinkle Ripley
Born (1948-07-15)15 July 1948
Surbiton, Surrey, England, UK
Died 21 May 2015(2015-05-21) (aged 66)
Isle of Wight, England, UK
Genres Pop music
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter
Instruments Vocals
Years active 1963–1980s
Labels Decca Records

Lynn Annette Ripley[1] (15 July 1948 – 21 May 2015), better known by the stage name Twinkle, was an English singer-songwriter. She had chart successes in the 1960s with her best known songs, "Terry" and "Golden Lights".

Early life

Born in Surbiton, Surrey into a well-to-do family, Ripley was known to her family as "Twinkle". She attended Queen's Gate School with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and was the aunt of actress Fay Ripley.[2]

Career

Twinkle owed her rapid entry into the recording studio at the age of 16 to her then-boyfriend, Dec Cluskey, of the popular vocal group The Bachelors, who was introduced to her by her sister, a music journalist, and who passed on to his manager a demo that Twinkle's father played to him.[3] Her song "Terry" was a teenage tragedy song about the death of a boyfriend in a motorcycle crash. Big Jim Sullivan, Jimmy Page and Bobby Graham were among the high-profile star session musicians who played on the recording,[3] which conjured up a dark mood with its doleful backing vocals, spooky organ, 12-string guitar and slow, emphatic rhythm arranged by Phil Coulter. The theme was of a common type for the era, it bore some similarities to the Shangri-Las' slightly later "Leader of the Pack" (1964), but the record caused a furore, accusations of bad taste leading to a ban from the BBC.[3]

The follow-up, "Golden Lights", was also written by Twinkle, with a B-side again by producer Tommy Scott.[4] By then Cluskey was her ex-boyfriend: Twinkle dated Peter Noone in 1965.[1] The lyrics express disillusionment with the pop business: her EP track "A Lonely Singing Doll", the English-language version of France Gall's 1965 winning Eurovision Song Contest song for Luxembourg, "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", originally written by Serge Gainsbourg, returned to a theme similar to "Golden Lights". "Johnny" continued to explore dangerous territory, this time that of a childhood friend who becomes a criminal, but it seems the pressure to produce "another Terry" led her producers to pass over her own material, for "Tommy", a song written for Reparata and the Delrons and "The End of the World" a tune composed for Skeeter Davis. Twinkle made few live appearances but performed "Terry" at the annual New Musical Express hit concerts.[5] After recording six singles for Decca Records she "retired" at the age of eighteen in 1966.[3]

In 1969 she recorded a self-written single, the Tamla Motown-styled "Micky", backed by "Darby and Joan", both produced by Mike d'Abo for the Immediate label.[1] The single vanished, unpublicised. In the ensuing years, unsigned and working in music for advertising, she recorded a suite of songs inspired by her relationship with "Micky", the actor/model Michael Hannah, who was killed in an air-crash in 1974. These remained unreleased until they were included on CD compilations. Her later recordings appeared under the name Twinkle Ripley. She recorded a 1975 single, "Smoochie" with her father, Sidney Ripley as "Bill & Coo".[6]

In the 1980s "Golden Lights" was covered by The Smiths and appeared on their compilation albums The World Won't Listen and Louder Than Bombs while in 1983 Cindy & The Saffrons covered "Terry".

Photographic publicity portraits of Twinkle taken in the mid-1960s are exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery.[7]

Personal life

In 1972, she married actor-model Graham Rogers,[8] who starred in the Milk Tray chocolate adverts. They had two children, Michael and Amber.[9]

Death

On 21 May 2015, Twinkle died at 66 on the Isle of Wight, after a five-year battle with cancer.[10]

Discography

This list of songs or music-related items is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Singles

for Decca Records
for Instant Records
for Bradleys Records, as Twinkle Ripley
for Bradleys Records, as duo Bill & Coo
for EMI Records, as Twinkle

[13]

EP

Album

Compilations

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Twinkle profile at". Mikedabo.com. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  2. ↑ "Sixties Pop Star Lynn 'Twinkle' Ripley Has Died, Aged 66" Retrieved 11 August 2015
  3. 1 2 3 4 Richie Unterberger (15 July 1948). "Twinkle | Biography". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  4. ↑ "Twinkle (3) – Golden Lights (Vinyl) at". Discogs.com. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  5. ↑ "TWINKLE TERRY 1964 pop hit". YouTube. 25 January 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  6. ↑ "Bill And Coo – Smoochie/Always I Love You – Bradleys – UK – BRAD 7513". 45cat. 11 April 1975. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  7. ↑ "National Portrait Gallery – Person – Twinkle". Npg.org.uk. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  8. ↑ Cole, Nick (19 May 2015). "Twinkle tribute: Pop star married Scunthorpe man who starred in Milk Tray TV ads". Scunthorpetelegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-05-27.
  9. ↑ Stevens, Christopher. "Lynn 'Twinkle' Ripley is the starlet who said no to Mick Jagger". Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  10. ↑ Staff (23 May 2015). "Lynn 'Twinkle' Ripley | Sixties Singer Twinkle Dies". Hub.contactmusic.com. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  11. ↑ "Twinkle (3) – Tommy / So Sad (Vinyl) at Discogs". Discogs.com. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  12. ↑ "Twinkle – Poor Old Johnny / I Need Your Hand in Mine – Decca – UK – F 12219". 45cat. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  13. ↑ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 570. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  14. ↑ "Twinkle | Discography". AllMusic. 15 July 1948. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/6/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.