Briana Corrigan
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Briana Corrigan (born May 30, 1965) was the first female singer for The Beautiful South, from 1988 to 1994.
She was born in Northern Ireland and was known for her quiet and intelligent personality, and hot temper. Her family moved from the city of Belfast in County Antrim to scenic Portstewart on the North Coast of Ireland when she was eleven, but her love for the theatre made her move to Newcastle in England at the age of eighteen, to take an acting course. There she began singing with The Anthill Runaways. Go! Discs Records, who were considering signing the band, gave her an offer, to travel to Hull and sing with Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway of The Beautiful South. Soon after she was asked to go to Milan with the band to help record their debut album Welcome to the Beautiful South. She appeared alongside Dave Hemingway on the band's only UK number 1 single "A Little Time".
After appearing on three albums, Corrigan left the band in 1992 to pursue a solo career, a decision that was prompted partly by a desire to record and promote her own material (which she felt was not getting enough exposure in The Beautiful South) and partly by ethical disagreements with some of Heaton's lyrics, particularly songs such as 36D, which criticized British glamour models and the industry that employed them. Hemingway later remarked, "We all agree that we should have targeted the media as sexist instead of blaming the girls for taking off their tops".[1][2][3]
After she left the band, she recorded the solo album, When My Arms Wrap You Round, in 1996. The single, "Love Me Now", did not make the top 40, and the album itself never charted.
She moved to the West Country with her partner, but eventually moved to Dublin, Ireland where she lives now.
