TAKE TWO: TAYLOR DAYNE

With her big voice and even bigger hair, Taylor Dayne stood out during her reign back in the late '80's and early '90's with her soul-inflected pop-dance songs. She was born Leslie Wunderman and raised in New York. After she graduated high school, she began performing with a variety of rock bands before going solo (and billing herself as "Les Lee") and recording a few dance tracks. This helped land her with Arista Records and with a name change to the more dramatic "Taylor Dayne", she hit it big with her first single, "Tell It To My Heart" which became a world wide smash in 1987. A debut album was quickly put together and given the title of her single. Dayne had more top-ten hits from the album including "Prove Your Love", "Don't Rush Me" and the moving ballad,  "I'll Always Love You".

Her follow-up album, "Can't Fight Fate" in 1989 continued Dayne's string of chart successes and featured "With Every Beat of My Heart", "I'll Be Your Shelter", "Heart of Stone" and her first U.S. number one pop hit, "Love Will Lead You Back".  By the release of her third album, "Soul Dancing" in 1993 and despite a dynamic dance cover of Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love" reaching the top-forty on the pop charts, the album didn't do as well as her previous releases.  Dayne soon departed from Arista and recorded "Naked Without You" in 1998 which she was more involved with the production and writing of the record but the album failed to chart.

It would be ten years later before Dayne would release another album. "Satisfied" was not a major success but she did reach the top of the U.S. dance club charts with "Beautiful" in 2008. Sadly, this has been the last album the singer has released to date. But Dayne has remained active over the years with her appearing on reality shows, acting on Broadway with "Aida" and performing in film and television. Although she never married, Dayne had twins via a surrogate in 2002. Let's look back and enjoy a couple of my favorite songs by the incredible Taylor Dayne: