Sue and Sunny were a British
vocal
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production i ...
duo and
session singers
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a t ...
operating in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Although sisters, their stage names were Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie. For three years (1969-1972) they were members of British pop group
The Brotherhood of Man.
Career
Born Yvonne Weetman ('Sue') and Heather Weetman ('Sunny') in
Madras
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
, India,
they made their
recording
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, r ...
debut together in 1963 under the name The Myrtelles, with their
cover version
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...
of
Lesley Gore
Lesley Sue Goldstein (May 2, 1946 – February 16, 2015), known professionally as Lesley Gore, was an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. At the age of 16, she recorded the pop music, pop hit "It's My Party (Lesley Gore song), I ...
's "Just Let Me Cry" on the independent
Oriole record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
.
The
single
Single may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Single (music), a song release
Songs
* "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004
* "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008
* "Single" (William Wei song), 2016
* "Single", by ...
was not commercially successful.
The girls then released two singles under the name of Sue and Sunshine before settling on the name Sue and Sunny.
Whilst recording with songwriter and producer
Kenny Lynch
Kenneth Lynch, OBE (18 March 1938 – 18 December 2019) was an English singer, songwriter, entertainer, and actor. He appeared in many variety shows in the 1960s. At the time, he was among the few black singers in British pop music. He was app ...
the girls changed their name to The Stockingtops at his request, but decided it was not for them and reverted to Sue and Sunny. In 1965, they sang backing vocals on
Alex Harvey's single, "Agent OO Soul" / "Go Away Baby" (Fontana – TF 610), produced by
Chris Blackwell
Christopher Percy Gordon Blackwell (born 22 June 1937) is an English businessman and former record producer, and the founder of Island Records, which has been called "one of Britain's great independent labels". According to the Rock and Roll ...
of
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
.
In 1966, when Sunny (the younger of the pair) was still only 15, the two turned professional doing the cabaret circuit. After three years they decided that their audiences were too old for them, and went to Germany to play the airbase circuit, where, despite releasing two German singles, they still felt out of place and returned to London.
Whilst in London they were asked to do a session as
backing singers for
Lesley Duncan
Lesley Cox (née Duncan; 12 August 1943 – 12 March 2010) was an English singer-songwriter, best known for her work during the 1970s. She received much airplay on British radio stations such as BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2, but never achieved ...
. The session went well and suddenly the duo found themselves in demand, recording with, amongst many others,
The Ace Kefford Stand
Christopher John "Ace" Kefford (born 10 December 1946) is an English bassist. He was the co-founder of The Move in October 1965 with Trevor Burton, after meeting David Bowie at Birmingham's Cedar Club, following a performance by Bowie's band ...
,
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, Pop music, p ...
,
Python Lee Jackson
Python Lee Jackson were an Australian rock band active from 1965 to 1968, before a brief sojourn in the United Kingdom from late 1968 to mid-1969. The group had recorded a single, " In a Broken Dream" (October 1970), featuring Rod Stewart as gue ...
,
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
,
Cerrone
Marc Cerrone Daryl Easlea, "Supernature Boy", ''Record Collector'', #502, February 2020, pp.60-63 (, ; born 24 May 1952) is a French disco drummer, composer, record producer and creator of concert shows. Cerrone is a producer of 1970s and 198 ...
,
Love Affair,
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, ...
,
Mott the Hoople
Mott the Hoople were an English rock band formed in Herefordshire. Originally known as the Doc Thomas Group, the group changed their name after signing with Island Records in 1969. The band released albums throughout the early 1970s but fai ...
,
Peter Wyngarde
Peter Paul Wyngarde (born Cyril Goldbert, 23 August 1927 – 15 January 2018) was a British television, stage and film actor from the late 1940s to the mid 1990s. He was best known for portraying the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist ...
,
T. Rex,
Tom Jones,
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
, and
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was an English singer known for his gritty, bluesy voice and dynamic stage performances that featured expressive body movements. Most of his best known singles were recordings of son ...
. It was the Cocker sessions, and in particular "
With a Little Help from My Friends
"With a Little Help from My Friends" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, from their 1967 album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. It was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and sung by drummer Ringo Starr (as Sgt. Pep ...
", where Sunny sang with
Madeline Bell
Madeline Bell (born July 23, 1942) is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s with pop group Blue Mink, having arrived from America in the gospel show ''Black Nativity'' in 1962, with the ...
and
Rosetta Hightower
Rosetta Jeanette Hightower (23 June 1944 – 2 August 2014) was an American singer and the lead singer of the 1960s girl group The Orlons. She was born in Philadelphia.
As lead singer of The Orlons, the Orlons recorded several Top 10 U.S. hits ...
, that propelled the girls into the limelight.
When "With A Little Help" reached
number one
Number One most commonly refers to:
* 1 (number)
Number One, No. 1, or #1 may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''Number 1'' (Big Bang album), and the title song
* ''No. 1'' (BoA album), and the title song
* ''No.1'' (EP), by CLC
* ''n.1 ...
in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
they found themselves accompanying Cocker on several
television programme
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed bet ...
s including ''
Top of the Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British Record chart, music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show ...
''. They now worked with artists as diverse as
James Last
James Last (, ; born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 – 9 June 2015), also known as Hansi, was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist (Last won the award for "best bassist" in Germany in each of ...
,
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...
,
Giorgio Moroder
Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (, ; born 26 April 1940) is an Italian composer, songwriter, and record producer. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Father of Disco", Moroder is credited with pioneering euro disco and electronic dance mu ...
, and
Brotherhood of Man
Brotherhood of Man are a British pop group who achieved success in the 1970s. They won the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest with "Save Your Kisses for Me".
Created in 1969 by songwriter and record producer Tony Hiller, Brotherhood of Man was initia ...
, with whom they
charted in 1970 with the
hit single
A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single or simply a hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record' ...
, "
United We Stand
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
".
In March 1972, they just missed the UK top 30 with the single "Third Finger, Left Hand", released under the name
The Pearls
The Pearls were an English 1970s girl vocal duo from Liverpool, England, featuring Lyn Cornell and Ann Simmons (née O'Brien). They released a total of 12 singles, the most successful being "Guilty", which reached No. 10 in the UK Singles Char ...
, a group name that was more successful with the personnel of
Lyn Cornell
Lyn Cornell, sometimes billed as Lynn Cornell (born 1940) is an English pop and jazz singer. She is best known for her membership of The Vernons Girls, The Carefrees and The Pearls, having had at least one chart hit with each group, and as a s ...
and Ann Simmons.
Sue and Sunny themselves are a little unsure of how many
records
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, ...
they have actually released. In an interview with ''Disc''
on sale on 20 April 1974, Sunny was quoted as saying "Sue and I found ourselves recording on our own and we had a couple of singles put out. But nothing really happened for us". They appear to have recorded around a dozen singles, but to confuse things further they also recorded under the names Sue & Sunshine, The Stockingtops, and as part of
The Nirvana Orchestra. They also recorded an
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
for
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
which was, confusingly, also released – with a different cover – on the CBS subsidiary, Reflection.
Sunny finally had a hit record with "
Doctor's Orders" in 1974,
and in 1976 Sue, now known as 'Sue Glover' recorded a
solo
Solo or SOLO may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Comics
* ''Solo'' (DC Comics), a DC comics series
* Solo, a 1996 mini-series from Dark Horse Comics
Characters
* Han Solo, a ''Star Wars'' character
* Jacen Solo, a Jedi in the non-canonical ''S ...
album for
DJM
DJM is a range of DJ mixers made by Pioneer Electronics.
Mixers in the DJM series include the DJM-300, DJM-350, DJM-400, DJM-450, DJM-500, DJM-600, DJM-700, DJM-750, DJM-707, DJM-800, DJM-850, DJM-900 Nexus, DJM-900 Nexus 2, DJM-909, DJM-100 ...
, entitled ''Solo''.
On three occasions, Sue and Sunny have sung backing vocals at the
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...
. In 1969, they accompanied
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, ...
to victory in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, performing "
Boom Bang-a-Bang". They returned to support
Joy Fleming
Joy Fleming (born Erna Raad, 15 November 1944 – 27 September 2017) was a German singer. She is best known for her performance in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1975. She performed the song " Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein" and was placed seven ...
in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, in 1975, joining
Madeline Bell
Madeline Bell (born July 23, 1942) is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s with pop group Blue Mink, having arrived from America in the gospel show ''Black Nativity'' in 1962, with the ...
to back up the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
entry "
Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein", which placed seventeenth. In 1981, Sue resurfaced with an entry in the UK ''
Song for Europe'' competition fronting the group 'Unity' with the song "For Only A Day", but failed to find favour with the voting juries, finishing in last place.
Sue and Sunny joined forces again to sing backing vocals for
Vikki Watson
Aeone Victoria Watson (born 22 April 1959, Liss, Hampshire, England), best known as her mononym Aeone (pronounced ay-own), is a British musician and singer-songwriter, who now lives in Los Angeles, California, United States. Her music has been ...
's UK entry "Love Is..." in
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
at the 1985 Eurovision final. This song was placed fourth.
The sisters also toured regularly with popular German orchestra leader, James Last, during much of the 1970s.
They also were part of the Birds of Paris, a group of backing singers that worked mainly with disco producer
Alec R. Costandinos and included Madeline Bell,
Joanne Stone, Kay Garner,
Vicki Brown
Vicki Brown (23 August 1940 – 16 June 1991) was an English pop, rock and contemporary classical singer. She was a member of both The Vernons Girls and The Breakaways and was the first wife of fellow singer and musician Joe Brown and mother o ...
and
Katie Kissoon
Mac and Katie Kissoon are a pop soul duo, consisting of brother and sister Mac Kissoon (born Gerald Farthing, November 11, 1943, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) and Katie Kissoon (born Katherine Farthing, March 11, 1951, Port of Spain).
E ...
. Sue, Sunny and Bell contributed backing vocals for three albums by
Donna Summer
LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948May 17, 2012), known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the " Queen of Disco", while her mus ...
during the later part of the decade.
In 1979, Sue Glover appeared in the debut TV play from
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over se ...
, ''
Talent'', playing the part of club singer 'Cathy Christmas'.
On
David Mitton
David Nelson Godfrey Mitton (27 February 1939 – 16 May 2008) was a British director, producer, writer, model maker and special effects technician. He was best known for producing and directing the children's television programmes ''Thomas ...
and
Robert D. Cardona
Robert Daniel Cardona (born March 7, 1930) is an American television writer, producer, director and animator. He co-founded Clearwater Features, along with David Mitton, in 1980.
Career
Cardona has been based in the United Kingdom for much of ...
's ''
Tugs'', Sue Glover sang the rendition of the show's theme song in the final episode "Bigg Freeze". In an interview from
Sodor Island
The Island of Sodor is a fictional island featured as the setting for ''The Railway Series'' books by the Rev. Wilbert Awdry (and his son Christopher), begun in 1945, and for the popular ''Thomas & Friends'' television series since 1984, alth ...
Fansite (SiF), a
Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine is an anthropomorphised fictional tank locomotive in the British ''Railway Series'' books by Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher, published from 1945. He became the most popular and famous character in the series, ...
fan site, Mike O'Donnell, the composer, said that there were talks to providing the theme song on record. However, the show never took off because of
TVS going bankrupt.
See also
*
Brotherhood of Man
Brotherhood of Man are a British pop group who achieved success in the 1970s. They won the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest with "Save Your Kisses for Me".
Created in 1969 by songwriter and record producer Tony Hiller, Brotherhood of Man was initia ...
References
External links
Sunny fansiteat united-mutations.com by Geoff Wills, 2002
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sue and Sunny
Living people
English women singers
English musical duos
Sibling musical duos
English session musicians
English people of Indian descent
Year of birth missing (living people)
Brotherhood of Man members