Sarah Cracknell

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Sarah Cracknell (born 12 April 1967, Chelmsford, Essex) is an English pop singer who fronts the band Saint Etienne and is known for her light, girlish singing voice. She is the daughter of Stanley Kubrick's first assistant director Derek Cracknell.

Saint Etienne (also comprised of band members Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs) was originally to be an indie/dance act featuring various vocalists. After Moira Lambert sang on their initial 1990 single "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and Donna Savage was heard on the follow-up single "Kiss and Make Up," Cracknell lent her vocals to "Nothing Can Stop Us" and ended up doing the rest of the singing on their debut album Foxbase Alpha. Cracknell has been Saint Etienne's permanent vocalist since then.

Preceded by the single "Anymore" in 1996, Cracknell released a solo album, Lipslide, in May 1997. Originally released in the UK only by Gut Records, the album featured dance, indie and pop tunes and received generally good reviews by critics, although it was not a big seller (Cracknell has in interviews placed some of the blame for this on lack of proper promotion by Gut). The UK version of the album is now out of print.

Lipslide finally surfaced in the U.S. three years later, when Instinct Records released it in February 2000. With completely different cover art, the original album's tracklisting was also modified: five tracks were removed and four new songs plus a remix were added. Months later, Instinct released the Kelly's Locker EP, which contained the five tracks originally removed from the UK version of Lipslide, along with two previously unreleased songs and a new remix.

Cracknell was Spiller's first choice for the vocals of his number-one hit "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" in 2000, but she turned it down. She has also recorded tracks with various artists such as David Holmes ("Anymore", "Gone"), Xploding Plastix ("Sunset Spirals"), Cheapglue ("You've Just Won Me Over") and Paul Van Dyk.

Cracknell married Martin Kelly (of Heavenly Records) on December 5 2004. They have two children.

[edit] Trivia

Cracknell collaborated with French pop star Etienne Daho several times. She co-wrote and sang back-up vocals on "Les passagers" from his 1996 album Eden, and also co-wrote "Le premier jour" which was released as a single from his greatest hits compilation Singles. With Saint Etienne, they collaborated together on the Resurrection EP. Saint Etienne's single "He's on the Phone" (which featured both Cracknell and Daho) was actually an English-language adaptation of Daho's French-language 1984 single "Weekend à Rome".