Ruby Murray
Ruby Murray (born March 29, 1935 in Belfast , Northern Ireland , † December 17, 1996 in Torquay , England ) was an extremely successful British pop singer , especially in 1955 . In March of that year, she managed the extraordinary feat of simultaneously placing five singles in the British Top 20, including the number one hit Softly, Softly .
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Life
As an infant, she had to undergo glandular surgery in the neck area, which developed her characteristic hoarse voice. As a child she went on tour with vocal performances; she first appeared on television when she was twelve. As a teenager, she replaced Joan Regan as the singer on the BBC television show Quite Contrary . At 19 she released her first single Heartbeat , which entered the charts in December 1954 and soon climbed to number 3. Softly followed at the end of January , Softly , which took the top spot on February 18. Five more top ten listings completed the great success - all in all, Murray booked 80 weeks in the hit parade in 1955 with the seven hits, all produced by Norrie Paramor . In 1956 she starred and sang alongside Frankie Howerd in the comedy film A Touch of the Sun and received her own television show.
Just as quickly as the 19-year-old's career had started, it was almost over (in terms of chart positions). In 1956 and 1958 she brought a single into the top 20; In 1959, Goodbye, Jimmy, Goodbye was her last hit at number 10.
In 1957 she married Bernie Burgess, a member of the singing combo Jones Boys , and settled with him in England. Burgess became her manager, and the two toured as a duo for a while in the 1960s. In 1970 she released the single Change Your Mind and an album of the same name with new recordings of her hits and cover versions of current songs.
She later lived in Torquay ( Devon ) with her second husband Ray Lamar . In the early 1990s she was still performing with other stars of the 1950s in clubs and in oldie shows. In December 1996 Ruby Murray died of liver cancer after a long illness .
A play about Murray's life called Ruby (by Marie Jones) premiered in April 2000 in a Belfast theater.
Ruby Murray's name went down in the English language and has had an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary since 2005 , because in Cockney Rhyming Slang , Ruby Murray has been used as the rhyming replacement word for curry in the sense of a curry dish since the mid-1950s .
Web links
- Ruby Murray fansite
- Biography at 45 rpm
- Biography at Great Song Stylists
- Ruby Murray on the BBC (with audio recording of a 1956 interview)
- Ruby Murray in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ IMDb , fansite and Ruby Murray in the English language Wikipedia, other sources give December 18th .
- ↑ Charts UK
- ↑ According to IMDb , she died of alcohol abuse .
- ↑ news.bbc.co.uk
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Murray, Ruby |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Northern Irish pop singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 29, 1935 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Belfast , Northern Ireland |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 17, 1996 or December 18, 1996 |
| Place of death | Torquay , England |