For her latest album, ‘Tenderland’, her first for ABC Records, Renée Geyer has chosen to apply her talent and experience to just a few of the songs that have reached her ear over the years. Songs that offer Renée a chance to transform them into something completely new and magical and personal, from Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye to Prince, from Gladys Knight and Lulu to Bobbie Gentry.
WHERE DID IT BEGIN?
A young girl, born to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, found an inexplicable dark hole in her soul she filled with music, putting herself to sleep at night with her transistor radio under her pillow. The sounds of the sixties became her way to survive the tribulations of the outside world, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin her companions. Only her family and one close friend ever heard Renée sing.
That girlfriend took Renée to a rehearsal where a bunch of friends were putting together a band. Renée was encouraged to get up and sing. She didn’t know why, but she knew what would happen. She sang the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” and felt the power of her performance fill that room. She joined that band, then another and another, each time being surrounded by better and better musicians, who were attracted to Renée like the proverbial moths to a flame. It’s been like that all her life.
In the beginning Renée Geyer was so shy she couldn’t face her audience. She knew she had to change that, because above everything else, this was what she wanted to do. She wanted to sing. Within the space of three years she had transformed herself into a dynamic performer filled with self-confidence, a singer who scored her first major hit with a stunning and unforgettable version of James Browns’ “It’s A Man’s Man’s World”. Her performance went right to the heart of everyone who heard it. Renée was just 22.
Next to discover Renée’s talents were the major headlining acts that found the Renée Geyer Band as their support. Word spread and Renée was invited to record an album with legendary Motown Records producer Frank Wilson. Her 1977 single “Stares And Whispers” was on the way to becoming a major hit on black music radio in America until programmers looked at the stunning blue-eyed blonde on the record cover. Not whom they thought they were hearing!
Renée kept exploring music, trying out for Broadway shows, acting, touring Europe and America with the likes of Joe Cocker and Chaka Khan. She was writing songs for others, working as a session singer (listen to the end fade of Sting’s “We’ll Be Together”) and continued making her own records (another major hit with the salsa-reggae styled “Say I Love You”). All that time her talent, reputation and audience was growing.
In 1993 Renée contributed to the “Seven Deadly Sins” TV soundtrack. Noted songwriter Paul Kelly requested that Renée sing his “Foggy Highway”. The result was beyond Paul’s expectation. Renée had spectacularly made that song her own. Paul then produced an album for Renée and wrote several songs for the project, including the album title track, “Difficult Woman”. Renée was transformed in the process. She had always put herself into her songs. She was now bringing herself into her performance, revealing a delightful sense of humour on stage between songs.
In the 70s Renée Geyer had started out a sensual blues belter. By the ‘90s she had evolved into an icon, someone to look up to for never having let go of her dreams. The consummate entertainer with a proud body of work who still transfixed a room with the power of her song, never repeating herself, always in search of new challenges.
It’s been a long, eventful journey, with so much left to do and try. There are plans for an album with orchestra, sessions with the new generation of dance producers, many songs waiting that have been written especially for her. Those projects have to wait. In 2003 Renée Geyer is looking at her 20th album, in her 30th year as a singer, in her 50th year of life.
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