Wendy James
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Wendy James (born on the 21st January 1966, in East Sussex, England) is a singer/songwriter best known for her lead singing role in the late 80's pop band Transvision Vamp. She is currently the singer in the band Racine.
James was adopted soon after birth and left home at the age of 16, moving to the English seaside town of Brighton. Whilst there, she studied drama and English at college. After a year, she began singing in a nightclub, where (according to her) she mainly sang Patti Smith cover songs. There she met and began dating Nick Christian Sayer. James soon began living with Sayer and the pair began collaborating on songs (although Sayer was the principal song writer). Eventually Sayer and James moved to London where they teamed up with friends, Dave Parsons, Tex Axile and Pol Burton. The five of them soon formed the pop-punk band Transvision Vamp. Their first release entitled "Revolution Baby" failed to make much of an impact, but their third single "I Want Your Love" was a top 10 hit in the U.K. charts in 1988. The band released three albums in total before disbanding.
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[edit] Solo career
With almost all of the song writing tasks taken on by Nick Sayer in her previous band, James found the transition to solo artist difficult, due to her lack of experience in this area. Her solution to this problem was to write an open letter to one of her musical idols Elvis Costello, asking for guidance. In response Costello wrote a full album's worth of material for her. These songs became the tracks on her first solo album entitled "Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears" (1993). Unfortunately, the album did not do well in her native U.K. where it was slated by the British music press. After this, Wendy went on decade long hiatus.
[edit] Racine
In her time away from the music business, James moved from England to New York and learned to write and perform music (using mostly computer and electronic equipment) and in 2004 she returned as the lead singer in a new band called Racine. The band released their first album that same year entitled “Racine No1”. James has spent time playing small venues around the UK and New York and a second album is planned.
[edit] Trivia
Never afraid to speak her mind, Wendy has had strong opinions on a number of topics.
- Kylie Minogue: "I think the attitudes she's portraying in her songs are really dangerous",
- Smash Hits magazine: "pollution of the mind",
- the ecology: "Transvision Vamp are responsible human beings who don't see why we should be destroying the planet we live on",
- animal rights: "animals are far more logical in the way they live their lives than human beings are".
