Dana gillespie biography
Dana Gillespie
British blues singer (born 1949)
Musical artist
Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie (born 30 March 1949), known professionally as Dana Gillespie, is an English actress, singer and songwriter. Originally performing and recording in her teens, over the years Gillespie has been involved in the recording of over 70 albums, and appeared in stage productions, such as Jesus Christ Superstar, and several films. Her musical output has progressed from teen pop and folk in the early part of her career, to rock in the 1970s and, more recently, the blues.
Early life
Gillespie was born in Woking, Surrey, the second daughter of Anne Francis Roden (née Buxton; 1920–2007) and Hans Henry Winterstein Gillespie (1910–1994), a London-based radiologist of Austrian nobility. Her older sister, Nicola Henrietta St. John Gillespie, was born in 1946. Dana Gillespie was the British Junior Water Skiing Champion in 1962.
Career
Gillespie began a personal and professional relationship with the singer David Bowie in 1964 when he was 17 and she was 14. Their relationship lasted a decade; Bowie wrote the song "Andy Warhol" for her, Gillespie sang backing vocals on Ziggy Stardust (1972), and Bowie and Mick Ronson produced her 1973 album Weren't Born a Man. Bowie ended contact with Gillespie following his split from his first wife Angie Bowie. Gillespie looked back on her time with David Bowie fondly.
Gillespie recorded initially in the folk genre in the mid-1960s. Some of her recordings as a teenager fell into the teen pop category, such as her 1965 single "Thank You Boy", written by John Carter and Ken Lewis and produced by Jimmy Page. Page also played, uncredited, on Gillespie's 1968 debut LP, Foolish Seasons.
She performed backing vocals on the track "It Ain't Easy" from Bowie's The ❉ The remarkable blues singer and cult film icon on her amazing career. “After Bowie and MainMan collapsed around our feet I knew that I couldn’t really carry on a kind of pop star image in stilettos and plunging necklines, and blues was what I always loved. I went to Ace Records, having probably lost a bit of credibility while wobbling around in my Manolo Blahnik high heels!” – Dana Gillespie. A world-renowned blues singer, Dana Gillespie started her career on the folk and R&B scene in 1960s London, rocked the London stage alongside the likes of Marsha Hunt and Paul Nicholas in gospel musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Catch A Soul, was a prime mover in David Bowie’s rise to superstardom as part of the MainMan empire, cutting the RCA albums Weren’t Born A Man and I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle, worked with maverick film directors Ken Russell and Nicolas Roeg, and ran the Mustique Blues festival for twenty years. She’s also become a cult movies icon thanks to her appearances in Hammer’s The Lost Continent and Amicus’ The People That Time Forgot. In 2019, Cherry Red Records released an anthology of her MainMan recordings, What Memories We Make, and Ace Records her latest album Under My Bed. 2021 sees Dana having published her keenly awaited memoirs, ‘Dana Gillespie: Weren’t Born a Man’ published by Hawksmoor Publishing and with two new albums awaiting release. There’s seemingly no stopping this feisty force of nature, and We Are Cult‘ had the pleasure of her company over the telephone, to discuss her incredible life and career… How are you keeping? I’m kind of busy. I’m in the lockdown. But in the summer I got to finish the memoir. I’ve written two albums, which are both in the middle of recording, so I’ve been keeping busy. Well, that’s one thing I find I really appreciated from reading your boo DANA GILLESPIE INTRODUCTION Dana Gillespie’s 2021 memoir, Weren’t Born A Man (Hawksmoor Publishing), lifted the lid on one of entertainment’s wildest, most adventurous and creative lives. Dana was born in 1949. Mid-childhood, she moved from the country to central London just as a full-scale blues revival was under way. By 16, she was recording singles for Pye. In 1968, she was signed by Decca, leading to two LPs, the second of which, Box Of Surprises, was written entirely by her. At the turn of the decade, Dana was in the original London cast of two prominent musicals – Catch My Soul and Jesus Christ Superstar. Simultaneously, she was part of a team of session singers (Elton John, David Byron, Madeline Bell) who recorded soundalike versions of pop hits for Avenue Records. She and childhood friend, David Bowie, were both managed by Tony Defries and his MainMan company. In 1973, Dana’s third album, Weren’t Born A man, recorded at Trident Studios and produced by Bowie, Mick Ronson, Robin Cable and Dana, came out on RCA. The follow-up, Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle, appeared in 1974 and Dana undertook a US tour in support of it. While Dana was working on demos for her third RCA album, MainMan imploded. Unable to record while still in contract, Dana returned to the UK and sought gigs and acting jobs, appearing in The People That Time Forgot (1977), The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1978), Nic Roeg’s Bad Timing (1980) and Mai Zetterling’s Scrubbers (1982). Among the people with whom she acted were Doug McClure, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Denholm Elliott Joan Greenwood, Terry-Thomas, Kenneth Williams, Roy Kinnear, Penelope Keith, Prunella Scales, Art Garfunkel, Harvey Keitel and Kathy Burke. In 1982, Dana resumed her recording career with Blue Job (Ace Records), a collection of early 20th century bawdy blues numbers. She kept one foot in the pop camp with the 1984 album, Solid Romance (Bellaphon), which spawned international hit, ‘Move
"I believe the blues should be sung by an older person because it's about emotions and experience. I couldn't do
justice to it when I was younger because my voice didn't have the edge it needed to convey the emotion, nor did I
have the first hand experience to sing about blue themes convincingly."
But after 45 years in music and over 60 albums Dana Gillespie is well qualified to sing the blues. A career that combined radio, theatre, film and sport (she was once British junior water-skiing champion) with music, Dana has been in the public eye since recording her first album at the age of 15. Her music has evolved from folk in the 60s through 70s Bowie-esque glam-rock to the raunchy in-your-face blues she performs today.
Dana Gillespie has been dedicated to the blues from an early age: "I discovered the blues when I went to the American Folk Blues Festival in 1962 and also to see the Yardbirds at the Marquee Club. I was in my early teens and hadn't heard anything like it before - blues wasn't easily available in the UK back then". Bessie Smith especially inspired her because of her combination of sly, funny and bawdy lyrics. "Blues was my first musical love because it's earthy, spiritual and honest."
In 1964 she recorded for Pye, with Donovan on guitar and became a regular on the folk circuit. She recalls: "[at that age] I was doing folk because I couldn't afford a band and I hadn't found my musical niche".In those early years Dana got to know many of the top bands and people in the music business. Most shared her love of blues, and played their own version of it. Bob Dylan who was an old friend of Dana from the 60s showed interest in her music in 1997, when he invited her to support him on his UK tour, which included a sell-out show at Wembley. After a swathe of singles on Pye and two LPs for Decca, she moved to RCA and made WEREN'T BORN A MAN in 1973, some ti Bio