Where we discuss crap backing singers and unlikely backing singers.

I was listening to Soft Cell the other day and on came Torch, which I quite like. But by Christ, that woman singer on the track is diabolical. Who was she? Was she ever allowed to record again?
Also I always remember some of Dee C Lee's vocals for The Style Council being very suspect (but she was fit as fuck in the 80s).

As for unlikely backing singers:

* Kid Creole's Cocunuts on U2's War (could someone check this for me?)
* Carol Vorderman singing with Dawn Chorus & The Blue Tits
* Mick Jagger on You're So Vain

I think the backing singer on 'Torch' was Cindy Ecstasy - essentially Soft Cell's drugs dealer at the time. She also did the 'rap' in the middle of 'Memorabilia' - the first E-driven acid/trance anthem about 8 years before the scene really exploded. Soft Cell spent quite some time in New York on the club scene around the time of their first album, I understand, and the E they were all taking was really strong compared to what was going around the clubs at the end of the decade. It was apparently what inspired 'Memorabilia'.

(Their extra keyboard player for live stuff at the time was Brian Moss, who went on to form Vicious Pink (Phenomena) and later Drug Free America, with Steve Dixon, who was doing production work for Soft Cell around the same time as Moss was doing live synths. Just so you know, like!)

Anyway...

My favourite bit of 'unlikely backing singer' triv (which I've mentioned here before) is how it's Nina Hagen and Lene Lovich doing the vocals on Cerrone's 'Supernature'. Not backing vocals, strictly speaking, but somehow they don't feel like lead vocal, either. I blame Kenny Everett and Hot Gossip. Lovich is credited with co-writing the track, I believe.

Re. "Torch": she was Cindy Ecstasy, who was Soft Cell's E dealer. (E hadn't properly arrived in the UK yet, but Soft Cell had tried it in New York, and were ahead of the curve.)

Dee C Lee was a great singer, you loon.

A few bleeding obvious before-they-were-famous backing singers:

Luther Vandross on Bowie's "Young Americans"
Antony Hegarty on Lou Reed's early noughties stuff
Madonna on Patrick Hernandez's "Born To Be Alive" (not so widely-known, that one).

(At last! I got in before Rhino on something! I'm writing this in my diary! ...and having it tattooed on my arm, etc.)

QUOTE:
Dee C Lee was a great singer, you loon

Alright, I did go on YouTube to check (Walls Come Tumbling Down at Live Aid, second half). I've been a bit unfair, but don't try and convince me she was in the band solely on her vocal ability.

tina turner did backing on frank zappa's apostrophe and over-nite sensation during a lull in her career. ike turner owned the studio where a lot of it was recorded, so she got paid pennies for doing it.

apparently zappa wanted to take her on tour but ike vetoed it on the grounds of him absolutely hating the music.

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

QUOTE:

* Mick Jagger on You're So Vain

Not really a backing singer, was he? It's like how Neil Young never did much back-up singing on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young records. Both of them, as soon as they open their mouth, effectively become the lead vocalist.

Michael McDonald on 'Ride Like The Wind'

Sting on 'Money For Nothing'

Annifrid from Abba on 'Movie Star' by Harpo

Prince on 'Why Should I Love You' by Kate Bush

Liam Gallagher on the Bunnyman's 'Nothing Lasts Forever'

Luther Vandross on Bowie's "Young Americans"

John Lennon sang back-up on Fame too. Not really surprising since he co-wrote it but he's hard to detect in the mix.

I dunno, I can hear Lennon on "Fame". Particularly the "Is it any wonder..." bit.

QUOTE:

Prince on 'Why Should I Love You' by Kate Bush

More surprisingly still: Lenny Henry on the same track.

I'm not sure Sting's vocal on "Money For Nothing" counts as backing singing, does it? If it does, can I have Paula Yates on "Firestarter"? (Or is that disallowed for being a sample?)

Luther Vandross was indeed majestic on the whole of Young Americans. I shall remember him that way.

Heaven 17 also had some fine backing vocal performances; Josie James on Penthouse & Pavement, Carol Kenyon on Temptation and Afrodiziak aka Caron Wheeler and Claudia Fontaine on Sunset Now.

Kate Bush also adds something to Games Without Frontiers.

***sorry, made mistake of picking good as supposed to unlikely****

I didn't know Caron Wheeler was in Afrodiziak.

Afrodiziak crack me up. They were to the early-mid 80s what the My Life Story orchestra were to the mid 90s: wheeled in by every Tom, Dick & Harry who wanted to give their record (and their ToTP appearance) a lick of, respectively, 'soul' or 'class'.

Carol Kenyon's vocal on "Temptation" is, of course, utterly storming. It's amazing that she never really