Lesley Gore

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Lesley Gore (1967)

Lesley Gore (born Lesley Sue Goldstein ; born May 2, 1946 in New York ; † February 16, 2015 there ) was an American singer and songwriter.

Life

Adolescent years

Lesley Goldstein grew up in Brooklyn, New York. When she was four years old, her parents moved to Tenafly in the US state New Jersey . At first she played the piano intensively with her brother at home before she discovered her love for singing. During her studies at the Dwight School in Manhattan, she performed as a singer in a seven-member student band that made their living by performing in hotels. It was there in early 1963 that the producer of the Chicago record company Mercury , Quincy Jones , became aware of the young singer. He produced a series of test recordings with her, four of which were recorded in March 1963 at New York's Bell Sound Recording Studios .

Singing career

The title It's My Party was among the first test recordings . When Mercury announced that Philles Records wanted to release the song with the Crystals , Mercury launched Lesley Gore's version on the radio a few days after the studio recordings. It wasn't until the end of April that the single pressing came on the market and quickly found its way into the Billboard Hot 100 . In June the title reached number 1 and developed into a million-dollar success . This began a successful singing career for Lesley Gore. In 1963 she had another three top 10 listings on Billboard , and various institutions and magazines named her the “most hopeful female singer” on several occasions. Her second big hit in 1964 was You Don't Own Me , an early “feminism classic”. Until 1967 she was represented with 19 songs in the Hot 100 without interruption. By 1969 Mercury released 29 singles and ten vinyl albums with Lesley Gore, then she moved to the New York record company Crewe Records, where four singles were produced between 1970 and 1971. After that, Gore's record career was essentially over, only sporadically isolated recordings by various record companies followed. In 1975 there was another collaboration with her former producer Quincy Jones when the album Immortality was recorded.

Apart from It's My Party , which was also well placed in the charts of Great Britain (9th), Canada (1st), Australia (1st) and New Zealand, Gore did not play a major role internationally. With Maybe I Know it found its way into the British charts again (20th), besides it only found more attention in Canada, where 14 titles appeared in the hit lists by 1967.

In Germany, some Gore singles appeared under the Mercury Philips label in the 127 series. Among them were the German-language records Little, Little Liebling / Just you all alone , Goodbye Tony / Musician and Seven Girls / I deserve it . Lesley Gore did not appear in the German hit lists.

Actress and songwriter

Greenway Productions /
20th Century Fox
Lesley Gore (January 1967)
as Pussycat
( Please note copyrights )

In 1964 Gore enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College in New York , where she studied literature and drama, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968 . 1964 also marks the beginning of Lesley Gore's acting career. She took on a role in the teen film Girls on the Beach . In 1967 she played the role of Pussycat (Catwomans Sidekick ) in two episodes of the television series Batman and made her theatrical debut in the musical Half a Sixpence .

Gore also made a name for himself as a songwriter . With the title My Town, My Guy, and Me , also sung by her , she had her first success in this profession in 1965. She wrote the lyrics for Irene Cara for the song Out Here on My Own , which reached number 19 on Billboard and was nominated for an Oscar . Together with her brother Michael Gore , she wrote titles for the film Fame , the title song of which won an Oscar and previously received the Golden Globe Award .

Others

From 1972 Lesley Gore appeared increasingly in nightclubs, in the 1990s she was hired for oldie concerts. Having lived in a lesbian relationship for many years, she campaigned for equal civil rights for same-sex partnerships in an interview in 2009. Since 1983 she lived in New York with her partner, the jewelry designer Lois Sasson.

Lesley Gore died of lung cancer in a New York hospital at the age of 68.

Discography

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Pop singer Lesley Gore has died. Spiegel Online, accessed January 15, 2017 .

literature

  • Dafydd Rees, Luke Crampton: Q Rock Stars Encyclopedia. Dorling Kindersley Lt., London 1999, ISBN 0-7513-1113-8 , p. 415.
  • Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. Billboard Publications, New York 1988, ISBN 0-8230-7545-1 , p. 130.
  • Frank Laufenberg: Rock and Pop Lexicon. Bans 1, Econ Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-612-26206-8 , p. 620.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gore, Lesley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goldstein, Lesley Sue (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 2015
Place of death New York , United States