Renée Geyer

As a young girl, born to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Renée found an inexplicable dark hole in her soul, which she filled with music. The sounds of the sixties became her way to survive the tribulations of the outside world, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin her companions. Only her family and one close friend ever heard Renée sing.

That friend took Renée to a rehearsal where a bunch of friends were putting together a band. Renée was encouraged to get up and sing. She sang the Bee Gees’ ‘To love somebody’ She joined that band, then another and another, each time being surrounded by better and better musicians.

In the beginning Renée Geyer was so shy she couldn’t face her audience. She knew she had to change that. Within the space of three years she had transformed herself into a dynamic performer filled with self-confidence, a singer who scored her first major hit with a stunning and unforgettable version of James Browns’ ‘It’s a man’s world’. Her performance went right to the heart of everyone who heard it. Renée was just 22.

Next to discover Renée’s talents were the major headlining acts that found the Renée Geyer Band as their support. Word spread and Renée was invited to record an album with legendary Motown Records producer Frank Wilson. Her 1977 single ‘Stares and whispers’ was on the way to becoming a major hit on black music radio in America until programmers realised their mistake in assuming that the singer African American.

Renée kept exploring music, trying out for Broadway shows, acting, touring Europe and America with the likes of Joe Cocker and Chaka Khan. She was writing songs for others, working as a session singer (listen to the end fade of Sting’s ‘We’ll be together’) and continued making her own records (another major hit with the salsa-reggae styled ‘Say I love you’). All that time her talent, reputation and audience was growing.

In 1993 Renée contributed to the Seven Deadly Sins TV soundtrack. Noted songwriter Paul Kelly requested that Renée sing his ‘Foggy highway’. Paul then produced an album for Renée and wrote several songs for the project, including the album title track, ‘Difficult woman’.

In 2003 she received her first ARIA Award nomination for her album Tenderland.

1n 2006 Renee appeared in the Countdown Spectacular tours.

Links:
http://www.reneegeyer.com.au/