Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy in concert, 1974
Background information
Born October 25, 1941 (1941-10-25) (age 69)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Genres Pop
Occupations Singer, actor
Instruments Vocals, Guitar
Years active 1970–present
Labels Capitol
MCA
Helen Reddy Inc.
Associated acts Olivia Newton-John
Website Official Website

Helen Reddy (born October 25, 1941) is an Australian-born singer who in the 1970s enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed fifteen singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 three of which reached #1, including her signature hit "I Am Woman".

Contents

Early years

Reddy was born into a well-known Australian show business family in Melbourne, Victoria, where she attended Tintern Girls Grammar School. Her mother, Stella (née Lamond), was an actress, and her father, Max Reddy, was a writer, producer and actor.[1] Her half-sister, Toni Lamond, and her nephew, Tony Sheldon, are actor-singers. Reddy is Jewish,[2] and also of part Irish descent on her father's side.[3]

At age four, Reddy joined her parents on the Australian vaudeville circuit, singing and dancing; she'd recall: ""It was instilled in me: you will be a star. So between the ages of 12 and 17 I got very rebellious and decided this was not for me. I was going to be a housewife and mother."[4] Reddy's teenage rebellion in favor of domesticity manifested as marriage to Kenneth Claude Weate, a considerably older musician and family friend; divorce ensued in a few months and to support herself as a single mother - daughter Traci being born several months after the divorce - Reddy resumed her performing career, concentrating on singing as health problems made dancing impossible (Reddy had a kidney removed at age 17). Reddy sang on radio and television, eventually winning a talent contest on the Australian pop music TV show Bandstand, the prize ostensibly being a trip to New York City to cut a single for Mercury Records. After arriving in New York City in 1966, Reddy was advised that Mercury's position was that her prize was only the chance to audition for the label, and that the label considered the Bandstand footage to constitute her audition, which was deemed unsuccessful. Despite possessing only $200 and a return ticket to Australia, Reddy elected to remain in the US with three year old Traci and pursue a singing career.

Reddy would recall her 1966 appearance at the Three Rivers Inn in Syracuse, New York - "there was like twelve people in the audience"[5] - as typical of her early US performing career. In fact, the lack of appropriate working papers made it difficult to obtain any singing jobs in the US, and she was forced to make several trips to Canada where, being a British Commonwealth country like Australia, she had the right to work. In the spring of 1968 Martin St James - a hypnotist/entertainer and fellow Australian Reddy had met in New York City - threw Reddy a party with an admission price of five dollars to enable Reddy - then down to her last $12 - to meet her rent. It was on this occasion that Reddy met her future manager and husband Jeff Wald a 22 year old secretary at the William Morris Agency who crashed the party:[6] Reddy told People in 1975 "[Wald] didn't pay the five dollars but it was love at first sight."[7].

Wald would recall he and Reddy married three days after meeting and along with daughter Traci the couple took up residence at the Hotel Albert in Greenwich Village.[8] Reddy would later state that her decision to marry Wald was "out of desperation over her right to work and live in the United States".[9] According to New York Magazine, Wald was fired from William Morris soon after meeting Reddy and "Helen supported them for six months doing $35 a night hospital and charity benefits. They were so broke that they sneaked out of a hotel room carrying their clothes in paper bags." Reddy would recall: "When we did eat it was spaghetti and we spent more of what little money we had on cockroach spray."[10] Wald then landed a job as talent coordinator at Mister Kelly's in Chicago; while living in that city Reddy gained a reputation singing in local lounges[11] - including Mister Kelly's - and, in the spring of 1968, recorded her first single: "One Way Ticket" for Fontana, a division of Mercury Records. The single was not a success, although it did give Reddy her chart debut in her native Australia at #83.

The "I Am Woman" era and stardom

Within a year, Wald had relocated Reddy and her daughter to Los Angeles, where Wald was hired at Capitol Records and where within a few years Reddy would attain stardom; however, Wald was hired and fired the same day.[11] Reddy became frustrated as Wald found success managing such acts as Deep Purple and Tiny Tim without making any evident effort to promote Reddy; after eighteen months of career inactivity, Reddy gave Wald an ultimatum: "he [must] either revitalize her career or get out...Jeff threw himself into his new career as Mr. Helen Reddy. Five months of phones calls to Capitol Records executive Artie Mogull finally paid off. Mogull agreed to let Helen cut one single if Jeff promised not to call for a month. She sang "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar...It became a hit" - #13 in June 1971 - "Helen Reddy was on her way."[11]

Reddy's stardom was consolidated when her single "I Am Woman" reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1972. The song was co-written by Reddy with Ray Burton; Reddy has attributed the impetus for writing "I Am Woman" and her early awareness of the women's movement to expatriate Australian rock critic and pioneer feminist Lillian Roxon. Reddy is quoted in Fred Bronson's The Billboard Book of Number One Hits as saying that she was looking for songs to record which reflected the positive self-image she had gained from joining the women's movement, but could not find any, so "I realized that the song I was looking for didn't exist, and I was going to have to write it myself. "I Am Woman" was recorded and released in May 1972 but barely dented the charts in its initial release. However, female listeners soon adopted the song as an anthem and began requesting it from their local radio stations in droves, resulting in its September chart re-entry and eventual #1 hit status. "I Am Woman" earned a Grammy Award Best Female Pop Vocal; at the awards ceremony, Reddy concluded her acceptance speech by famously thanking God "because She makes everything possible". The success of "I am Woman" made Reddy the first native of Australia to top the US charts and also to win a Grammy.

Over the next five years, Reddy had more than a dozen other U.S. Top 40 hits, including two more #1 hits. These included the Alex Harvey country ballad "Delta Dawn" (#1, 1973), "Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)" (#3), "Keep on Singing" (#15, 1974), "You and Me Against the World" (written by Paul Williams and featuring daughter Traci reciting the spoken bookends) (#9), "Emotion" (an English version of the French tune "Amoureuse"), "Peaceful"" (#12), "Angie Baby" (#1), "Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady" (#8, 1975), Richard Kerr-Will Jennings-penned "Somewhere in the Night" (#19; later a bigger hit for Barry Manilow), and the Carole King-Gerry Goffin song "I Can't Hear You No More" (1976). Reddy's total sales figures for the United Sales are estimated in excess of 10 million singles and 15 million albums; her worldwide album sales tally is estimated in excess of 25 million.

At the height of her fame in the late 1970s, Reddy was a headliner, with a full chorus of backup singers and dancers to standing-room-only crowds on The Strip in Las Vegas. Reddy's opening acts were the then-up-and-coming Barry Manilow, and Joan Rivers. In 1976, Reddy covered the Beatles song "Fool on the Hill" for the musical documentary All This and World War II.

Reddy was also instrumental in furthering the career of Olivia Newton-John, as she encouraged her friend to move from Britain to the United States in the early 1970s. At a subsequent party at Reddy's house after a chance meeting with Allan Carr, the film's producer, Newton-John won the starring role in the hit film version of the musical Grease.

Career eclipse

Reddy was most successful on the Easy Listening chart, scoring eight #1 hits there over a three-year span, from "Delta Dawn" in 1973 to "I Can't Hear You No More" in 1976. However, the last named track evidenced a sharp drop in popularity for Reddy, with a #29 peak on the Billboard Hot 100. Reddy's 1977 remake of Cilla Black's 1964 hit "You're My World" indicated comeback potential, with a #18 peak, but this track - co-produced by Kim Fowley - would prove to be Reddy's last Top 40 hit. Its parent album, Ear Candy, Reddy's tenth album, would become her first album to not attain at least Gold status since her second full-length release: Helen Reddy from 1972.

In 1978, Reddy sang as a backup singer on Gene Simmons' solo album on the song True Confessions.

Of Reddy's eight subsequent single releases on Capitol, five reached the Easy Listening Top 50 - including "Candle on the Water", from the 1977 film Pete's Dragon (which starred Reddy). Only three ranked on the Billboard Hot 100: "The Happy Girls" (#57) - the follow-up to "You're My World" and, besides "I am Woman", Reddy's only chart item which she co-wrote - and the disco tracks "Ready or Not" (#73) and "Make Love to Me" (#60), the latter a cover of an Australian hit by Kelly Marie - which gave Reddy a lone R&B chart ranking at #59. Reddy had also ranked at #98 on the C&W chart with "Laissez Les Bontemps Rouler", the B-side to "The Happy Girls".

Without the impetus of any major hits, Reddy's four Capitol album releases subsequent to Ear Candy failed to chart. In 1981, Reddy would say: "I signed [with Capitol] ten years ago...And when you are with a company so long you tend to be taken for granted. For the last three years I didn't feel I was getting the support from them."[12]

May 1981 saw the release of Play Me Out, Reddy's debut album for MCA Records, who Reddy said had "made me a deal we [Reddy and Wald] couldn't refuse"; "we shopped around and felt the most enthusiasm at MCA."[12] In fact, Reddy's new label affiliation would result in only one minor success: her remake of Becky Hobbs' 1979 C&W hit "I Can't Say Goodbye to You" returned her for the last time to the Billboard Hot 100 at #88. "I Can't Say Goodbye to You" also returned Reddy to the charts in the UK and Ireland (her sole previous hit in both areas was "Angie Baby"). Reddy's 14 November 1981 TOTP performance brought "I Can't Say Goodbye to You" into the UK Top 50; the track would rise there no higher than #43, but in Ireland reached #16, giving Reddy her final evident high placing on a major national chart. MCA released one further Reddy album: Imagination, in 1983; it would prove to be Reddy's final release as a career recording artist. The unsuccessful Imagination was released just after the finalization of Reddy's divorce from Jeff Wald whose subsequent interference in her career Reddy would blame for the near-decimation of her career profile in the mid-80s: "Several of my performing contracts were canceled, and one promoter told me he couldn't book me in case a certain someone 'came after him with a shotgun.'"[13] Reddy states that it was being effectively blacklisted from her established performance areas which led to her pursuing a career in theater where Wald had no significant influence.

Later recordings

In 1990, Reddy issued - on her own label - the album Feel So Young, including remakes of Reddy's repertoire favorites; her one interim recording had been the 1987 dance maxi-single "Mysterious Kind", on which Reddy had vocally supported Jessica Williams. 1997 saw the release of Center Stage, an album of show tunes which Reddy recorded for Varèse Records; the track "Surrender" - originating in Sunset Boulevard - was remixed for release as as dance maxi-single. Reddy's final album would be the 2000 seasonal release The Best Christmas Ever.

Film, theatre and television

A frequent guest on talk shows and variety programs of the '70s and early '80s - with credits including The Bobby Darin Show, The Carol Burnett Show and The Muppet Show - Reddy helmed the 1973 summer replacement series for The Flip Wilson Show (Reddy had become friends with Flip Wilson when she'd worked the Chicago club circuit early in her career); the series, The Helen Reddy Show, provided early national exposure for Albert Brooks and the Pointer Sisters. Also in 1973, Reddy became the semi-regular host of The Midnight Special, a position she retained until 1975.

Her film career includes an extended cameo as a nun in Airport 1975 - singing her own composition "Best Friend" - and a lone starring role in Walt Disney's Pete's Dragon, introducing the Oscar-nominated song "Candle on the Water". For her part in Airport 1975, Reddy was nominated for a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer - Female. One of the few musical stars featured in the all-star chorale in the 1979 film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Reddy has since played cameo roles in the films Disorderlies (1987) and The Perfect Host (2010).

Despite her late '70s chart decline, Reddy still had sufficient star power in 1979 to host "The Helen Reddy Special" broadcast that May, on ABC-TV; Jeff Wald was the producer. In September 1981, Reddy announced she would be shooting the pilot for her own TV sitcom, in which she would play a single mother working as a lounge singer in Lake Tahoe.[12] However, this project was abandoned. Reddy has been an occasional television guest star as an actress, appearing on the series Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Jeffersons (as herself), Diagnosis Murder, and BeastMaster.

In 2007, Reddy had a voice cameo as herself in the Family Guy television show's Star Wars parody, "Blue Harvest". She played a 'red'-themed ('Red'-dy) member of the Red Squadron, alongside Red Five (Chris Griffin), Red Buttons, Redd Foxx, Big Red, Red October, Simply Red and others.

In the mid-80s, when Reddy claims to have been effectively blacklisted in her established performance areas due to the malicious actions of her ex-husband Jeff Wald, Reddy embarked on a new career in the theater where Wald had no significant connections. Reddy mostly worked in musicals including Anything Goes, Call Me Madam, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and - both on Broadway and the West End - Blood Brothers. She also appeared in four productions of the one-woman show Shirley Valentine.

Notable stage roles include:

Personal life and recent years

Reddy, who gave what she announced as her farewell performance with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 2002, stated in 2008 that "she will never again perform before an audience", specifying "It's not going to happen. I've moved on", and that "her voice has deepened to a lower key, and she's not even sure she could sing hits such as 'Delta Dawn'."[14]

Reddy became a naturalized American citizen in 1974, subsequently availing herself of the opportunity to maintain dual American/Australian citizenship when said opportunity was made available. She has been married and divorced three times, and has two children.

Reddy was briefly married as a teenager to Kenneth Claude Wheate, a considerably older musician and family friend who she says she wed to defy her parents who wished her to follow them into show business; the couple divorced before the birth of their daughter Traci who became Traci Wald after her adoption by Reddy's second husband Jeff Wald. In a 1975 People interview Reddy admitted her relationship with then husband and manager Jeff Wald was volatile with the couple having "huge, healthy fights" but that she owed her success - she was then the world's most successful female vocalist for two years running - to Wald: "He runs it all. Naturally when the moment of performance comes I have to deliver — but everything else is him. It's not my career, it's our career." On 2 January 1981 Reddy and Wald had separated with Wald moving into a Beverly Hills rehab facility to attempt to overcome an addiction to an eight year addiction to cocaine. Reddy subsequently filed for divorce but withdrew her petition the day after filing it, stating: "After thirteen years of marriage, a separation of one month is too short to make a decision."[17] In 1982 after finding evidence of Wald's continued substance abuse Reddy again separated from him and initiated divorce proceedings which this time went through in January 1983.[18] In June 1983 Reddy married Milton Ruth who was a drummer in her band; the couple divorced in 1995.

Active in community affairs, Reddy served as the state of California's Parks and Recreation commissioner for three years. In 2002, she retired from performing and moved from her longtime residence in Santa Monica, California back to her native Australia, living first on Norfolk Island, before taking up residence in Sydney. There, she was a practicing clinical hypnotherapist, and Patron of the Australian Society of Clinical Hypnotherapists. In April 2008, Reddy was reported to be living "simply and frugally off song royalties, pension funds and social security...[renting] a 13th-floor apartment with a 180-degree view of the Sydney harbor."[14] Her apartment had been recently appraised, causing Reddy concern over its future affordability; however, the upshot was that the New York-based landlord learned his tenant's identity and wrote her: "I had no idea it was the Helen Reddy who was living in my unit. Because of what you have done for millions of women all over the world, I will not sell or raise your rent. I hope you'll be very happy living there for years to come."[14]

Reddy published an autobiography, The Woman I Am, and appeared on the Today show in 2006. She was also added to the ARIA Hall Of Fame, with a tribute performance by Vanessa Amorosi of "I Am Woman" at the ceremony. Reddy suffers from Addison's disease, a failure of the adrenal glands, which requires constant treatment.[19]

Reddy (2nd from right) in early 2007 with students at a Women's Leadership conference in Sydney.

Discography

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Helen Reddy Biography (1942-)
  2. ↑ Levins, Harry (2000-12-14). "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB052D53A6AA236&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2008-06-16.  - "Although Helen Reddy is Jewish, she has just released an album titled "The Best Christmas Ever." When an Internet interviewer cocked an eyebrow, Reddy said she had stuck to her religious beliefs by making sure that no song mentioned Jesus Christ."
  3. ↑ Reddy, Helen (2006-05-09). "Autobiography: "The Woman I Am"". http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/05/08/DI2006050800939.html. Retrieved 2008-06-16. 
  4. ↑ [1]
  5. ↑ [2]
  6. ↑ [3]
  7. ↑ [4]
  8. ↑ http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/jeff_wald.htm
  9. ↑ [5]
  10. ↑ [6]
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 New York Magazine vol#9 #32 (9 August 1976). pp. 24-27. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Billboard vol#93 #37 (19 September 1981). p. 37. 
  13. ↑ [7]
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 "USA Today". http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-04-16-helen-reddy_N.htm. Retrieved 6 July 2010. 
  15. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0714761/bio
  16. ↑ http://www.filmreference.com/film/23/Helen-Reddy.html
  17. ↑ [8]
  18. ↑ [9]
  19. ↑ Addison's Awareness Week 7th – 11th May 2007

External links