#2 - 10 White Singers We Once Thought Were Black

Lisa Stansfield

We all remember this soulful rich voice the local hip-hop and R&B stations used to play the mess out of some “Been Around the World,” so for many years. Most just assumed that Stansfield was a black woman who really missed her baby. That was until you saw the music video or caught her performance on American Band Stand. Boy, wasn't we shocked to see that black woman with the powerful, rolling voice was a white woman with really dark, really short hair who liked to wear WAY too much makeup. Either way, that song has stayed in rotation for years.

Stansfield was born to Marion and Keith Stansfield in Heywood, Lancashire, in England, where she attended Redbrook School, Rochdale. Her first television appearance was on a talent programme in the Granada TV area in 1982. She won it singing The Human League track "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of". The series was produced by the then Head of Light Entertainment at Granada TV, Johnny Hamp.
After releasing several unsuccessful singles in her mid-teens, she co-hosted a children's TV pop show, Razzamatazz with Alistair Pirrie; additionally, Stansfield could be seen in 1983 children's television series The Krankies Klub, alongside comedian Jimmy Cricket and rock band Rocky Sharpe and the Replays. She became an international celebrity in the early 1990s.
Her R&B vocal features and texture are similar to ^[2] that of her American contemporary and Arista label-mate, Taylor Dayne.

Career

Her British band Blue Zone saw modest success with the single "Jackie", where she achieved some success with her guest vocals on Coldcut's record "People Hold On". She is probably best known for her first UK number-one single, "All Around the World" (1989), which also peaked at number three in the United States Billboard Hot 100 the following year. Other worldwide hits from her solo debut album Affection include "This Is the Right Time" (featuring a house music influence production by Coldcut with Mark Saunders), "Live Together", "What Did I Do to You" and "You Can't Deny It". "All Around the World" and "You Can't Deny It" both hit number one on the Billboard R&B chart. Affection went platinum in the United States and sold a total of five million singles worldwide.
In 1990, Stansfield was among the high profile artists who participated in the Red Hot + Blue charity disc produced by the Red Hot Organization, which honoured Cole Porter's songwriting and benefitted AIDS research. She demonstrated her swing and jazz abilities on the song "Down in the Depths", which was one of few traditional renditions to appear on the album. Thus began an illustrious and respected tradition of Stansfield offering jazz and torch songs to outside projects (most recently she sang "I've Got the World on a String" for the Mona Lisa Smile soundtrack). This is likely what got her noticed for consideration as the female lead in the independent film Swing (1999), in which she also sang the majority of the film's songs.
In 1992, Stansfield won a BRIT Award as best British female solo artist. Her second album Real Love did not quite live up to the success of Affection; it did spawn four Top 40 singles on the European charts: "Change", "All Woman", "Time to Make You Mine" and "Set Your Loving Free". "All Woman" became Stansfield's third number one single on the Billboard R&B chart and due to the success of that song, the album went gold.
She performed Queen songs alongside George Michael and what was left of Queen at the tribute concert on 20 April 1992 for their late frontman Freddie Mercury. The performance was later released by Queen. The concert was recognised by the music community as an important event in the work around the AIDS issue.
Also in 1992, Stansfield appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album, Red Hot + Dance, contributing an exclusive remix of her hit single "Change," "Change (Metamorphisis Mix)." The album donated all proceeds to AIDS charities and worked to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic.
She continued recording disco-influenced soul throughout the 1990s. Her third album So Natural (1993) spawned three Top 40 European singles including the title track (UK number 15), "In All the Right Places" (UK number 8), and "Little Bit of Heaven" (UK number 32), but the album was never released in the United States. She had continued success throughout Europe, but her popularity in North America had diminished.
Her self-titled fourth album Lisa Stansfield (1997) was a hit in Europe with two Top Ten singles: "People Hold On" (re-released as a dance mix by the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and "The Real Thing," and the Top 40 track "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" (a remake of Barry White's 1973 hit); upon being released in North America, the album received some mainstream attention. Its peak charting position was number 30 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 55 on the Billboard 200. Also in the U.S., "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" also became Stansfield's last Top 40 R&B hit, and the remix by Frankie Knuckles hit number 1 in October on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. It was her final Hot 100 hit. Subsequently, the remix album was released due to Stansfield's reinterest from the dance community. The music video for the song featured a nude Stansfield strolling a city street, acquiring a few items of clothing along the way. VH1 featured the clip and even gave it the Pop-Up Video treatment.
Her 2001 album Face Up was less successful, charting but with less publicity but featured the singles "Let's Just Call It Love" and "8-3-1" and found her experimenting with newer styles of R&B such as 2-step while continuing with her established sound. Stansfield's husband, Ian Devaney, delivered an arrangement for the ballad "How Could You", which displayed his love of Burt Bacharach. Only one single was released in the United Kingdom.
Following the release of Face Up, a greatest hits collection called Biography was released. Stansfield then parted ways with Arista/BMG records, ending an eighteen year association with the label. Stansfield signed with ZTT Records for the United Kingdom, and her 2004 release The Moment was produced by Trevor Horn, who has worked with Seal, Grace Jones and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, among others. The album was distributed in Europe by Edel. Featuring the singles "Treat Me Like a Woman" (released as a "double A side" with "Easier") and "If I Hadn't Got You" a song written by Chris Braide with ex-Squeeze songwriter Chris Difford. The album found her exploring more pop oriented album and focusing on ballads.
At the time of the project's release, ZTT Records was gearing large amounts of its resources into re-marketing its music catalogue and producing the Trevor Horn concert for The Prince's Trust and its accompanying double CD, Produced by Trevor Horn. The release of "Treat Me Like a Woman" was delayed twice. Her record label eventually paired it with the album "Easier". Later that year ZTT dropped her from their record label. A DVD of Stansfield's Ronnie Scott's performance in 2003 was released in 2005.
Stansfield also has a career in acting; she starred in the 1999 film Swing with actor Hugo Speer, and recorded cover versions of swing songs and a few original songs written in the style for the soundtrack. She later appeared on a London stage in The Vagina Monologues. In 2006, she guest-starred in the series Goldplated. In 2007, she starred in a Marple episode ("Ordeal by Innocence") and later joined the cast of The Edge of Love.
In 1998 Stansfield was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party (UK).^[3]

Personal life

Stansfield is married to English musician Ian Devaney and from 1993 until 2008 they lived in Dublin, Ireland.^[4][5] In 2008, Stansfield sold her six-bedroom Victorian house Mount Henry on Torca Road in Dalkey for € 6 million (originally asking for € 8 million in May 2007), and moved out of Ireland.^[6][7]