WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO. . .

. . . Helen Reddy?

She was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1941 and at the age of four, Helen joined her family's act where they toured the country singing and dancing.

At seventeen, Helen entered a singing contest on the Australian TV show, "Bandstand" and won. The prize was a trip to New York City to record a single with Mercury Records. However, when she arrived, she discovered that the prize was actually just an opportunity to audition to record a single and her performance on the show was considered the audition and the label passed.

With only a return ticket back to Australia. Helen decided to stay with her three year old daughter, Traci  from a brief marriage, to try and pursue a music career in the US. She had difficulty finding work because she lacked the proper work visa but she would go to Canada for some jobs since it was a commonwealth but her luck would change when she met twenty-two year old, Jeff Wald at a party. They were married three days later which would take care of her immigration issues and he would later become her manager.

Helen struggled for years trying to get noticed and they moved from New York to Chicago before ending up in Los Angeles in 1969. Jeff got a job at Capital Records and he managed artists such as Deep Purple and Tiny Tim but Helen was getting impatient for her husband to secure her a record deal. Jeff finally managed to get the label to allow her to record a one-time single.

The song was "I Don't Know How To Love Him" from the musical, "Jesus Christ Superstar" and it went to number thirteen on the charts in 1971 and Helen was officially offered a recording contract with Capital. 

"I Am Woman", co-written by Reddy, would become the game-changer for this singer. The song would go to number one on the pop charts in 1972, sold over a million copies, and won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Performance. The song also proved timely as it was released during the women's liberation movement and was embraced as an anthem.

Helen Reddy became one of the top female singers in the 1970's with fifteen songs in the top forty of the Billboard Hot 100 chart with three of those reaching number one. By the late seventies, Helen's career began to wane and by 1983, she released what would be her final album,  "Imagination" due to poor sales and a divorce from Jeff Wald who managed to have her effectively blacklisted from her music career. Helen decided to move foward by doing musical theater and performing in such shows as "Anything Goes" and  "Call Me Madam".

Helen published her autobiography in 2006 called, "The Woman I Am" but she has retired from performing due to her suffering from Addison's disease.

Here is a collection of some of Helen Reddy's hit songs:

"I Don't Know How To Love Him" - Helen Reddy (1971)

"I Am Woman" - Helen Reddy (1972)

"Delta Dawn" - Helen Reddy (1973)

"Peaceful" - Helen Reddy (1973)

"Angie Baby" - Helen Reddy (1974)

Here she is performing "You And Me Against The World" as a duet with Kermit the frog:

WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO. . .

                                            LAURYN HILL?

Last seen: MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 (2002)

She seemed destined for a long and successful career in music but after releasing her live album eight years ago, she pretty much disappeared from the public eye. What happened to Lauryn Hill?

She started her career as an actress, appearing on the soap opera, "As The World Turns" and in films like, "Sister Act 2" and Steven Soderbergh's "King of the Hill" before focusing on music.

In high school, she met Prakazrel "Pras" Michel and his cousin, Wyclef Jean and together they formed a musical group called The Fugees which was short for "The Refugee Camp".  They released two albums but it was their second one, "The Score" (1996) that brought the band world wide acclaim. The Fugees won two Grammy Awards for the album, which included Best R&B Vocal By A Duo Or Group for their hit remake of the Roberta Flack classic, "Killing Me Softly With His Song".

In 1998, Lauryn Hill completed her first solo record, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" which was partly prompted by her frustrations within the Fugees. She took what she had done with her band and pushed it forward, creating a near perfect album that combined rap, reggae and hip hop beats with touches of classic soul throughout.

The album was a monster hit topping the Billboard album and R&B album charts and would go on to sell eighteen million copies. She received ten Grammy Award nominations and would go to win five of them, including Best New Artist and Album Of The Year. This was the most nominations and wins by a female artist ever in one year.

She became a media sensation and appeared on a wide range of magazine covers including Time. She soon became disenchanted with her new found fame and the music industry and retreated. She stayed away from the public for a few years, trying to refocus her life on her family and other creative outlets.

In 2001, she resurfaced and performed new material for a small audience for MTV. The concert was essentially a guitar, her voice and songs that focused on her thoughts on religion, society and love. An album of that concert was released the following year and although it was not critically praised, it did manage to sell over a million copies.

The Fugees attempted to come back together in 2004, which included an appearance at the 2005 BET Award show, a European tour, a Hollywood reunion concert in 2006 and a few leaked songs before old tensions flared back up, causing the group to disband, apparently for good in 2007.

There have been rumours that Lauryn Hill has been working on her follow-up album since 2004 and has made sporadic concert appearances over the years but not much has really come together.

Here are a few of my favorite songs off of her first album:

Lost Ones - Lauryn Hill

Everything Is Everything - Lauryn Hill

Nothing Even Matters - Lauryn Hill & D'Angelo


This is the beautiful music video for her song, "Ex-Factor":



This song, "Repercussions" has popped up on the internet but no one seems to know whether it is actually a new song or some older material but it is a good tune. It makes me hopeful that she will release a new CD sometime real soon.

Repercussions - Lauryn Hill

WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO. . .

             AMY WINEHOUSE?

Last seen:  "Back To Black" (2007)

Messy bee-hive. Heavy black eyeliner. Prison tats. Dirty ballet slippers. Substance abuse issues. Amazing voice.

You put all those things together and you can only come up with one person. So what exactly has happened to the talented Ms Winehouse?

Back in 2007,  I remember hearing some buzz about this British singer who did this retro-soul thing with a modern sensibility whose album was just being released in the U.S. I decided to buy it although I thought it was probably no more than a lot of hot-air hype. I was very surprised by how good it actually was. It was a fresh and confident record and I loved every single song.

I loved "Back To Black" so much that I went out and bought her first CD, "Frank" (2003) which was released here after the success of this album.  Her debut was more of a jazz fueled hip-hop sound which was also very interesting. Although it's not as perfect as her follow-up, it certainly had plenty of highlights and it showed off her potential.

Amy did very well at the Grammys, where "Back To Black" won five of the six awards it was nominated for in 2008 including Record of the Year, "Rehab".

So after all this success, you would have thought things would be going well for her and she would have released a new album by now. Unfortunately, Ms Winehouse has had a well documented history of drug and alcohol abuse, mood swings, and eating disorders and perhaps the stress of her new found fame triggered her relapse. Whatever the case may be, she has become distracted by unhealthy activities that has prevented her from creating any new material. I hope she gets all the help she needs to recover.

There have been recent rumors that she has been recording and that there could possibly be a new album out later this year. Let's hope so. . . she's only twenty-six and could have a long career ahead of her if only she can only pull herself together. I am very curious to see what she will do next.

Here is a selection of some of my favorite songs off of  "Back To Black":

He Can Only Hold Her.mp3

Tears Dry On Their Own.mp3

Love Is a Losing Game.mp3

And this is the music video for the single of title track, "Back To Black":



As a bonus, here is a song off of her debut, "Frank":

Intro/Stronger Than me.mp3