Gale Garnett Explained

Birth Name:Gale Zoë Garnett
Birth Date:1942 7, df=y
Birth Place:Auckland, New Zealand
Genre:Folk
Occupation:Singer
Years Active:1960–1980s
Label:RCA Victor

Gale Zoë Garnett (born 17 July 1942)[1] is a New Zealand-born Canadian singer best known in the United States for her self-penned, Grammy-winning folk hit "We'll Sing in the Sunshine". Garnett has since carved out a career as an author and actress.

Biography

Garnett was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and moved to Canada with her family when she was 11.[1] She made her public singing debut in 1960, while at the same time pursuing an acting career, making guest appearances on television shows such as 77 Sunset Strip.[1]

She made her New York nightclub debut in 1963 at The Blue Angel Supper Club[2] and was signed by RCA Victor Records that same year.[3] In the fall of 1964, Garnett scored a number four pop hit,[4] with her original composition "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" (also No. 1 on Billboards Adult Contemporary singles chart for seven weeks and a Top 50 country hit), and recorded her debut album, My Kind of Folk Songs, for RCA Victor.[1]

Riding the success of "We'll Sing in the Sunshine", which won a 1965 Grammy for Best Folk Recording, sold over one million copies thus gaining gold disc status,[5] Garnett continued to record through the rest of the 1960s with her backing band the Gentle Reign. Her follow-up to "We'll Sing in the Sunshine", "Lovin' Place", was her only other single to chart in America.[1] She appeared twice on ABC's Shindig! and The Lloyd Thaxton Show at the height of her singing fame in the mid-1960s.

Garnett delivered a notable performance in the Rankin-Bass feature Mad Monster Party in the late 1960s, with the memorable tunes "Our Time to Shine" and "Never Was a Love Like Mine." At this period she had begun to be more influenced by the counterculture, and had embraced psychedelic themes to some extent.[1] [6] In the late 1960s she recorded two albums of psychedelic-inflected music with the Gentle Reign.

In 1975, Garnett participated in an Off-Off Broadway theater production of Starfollowers in an Ancient Land, written and directed by H. M. Koutoukas, at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York City's East Village. Garnett performed in the cast, and also co-wrote the music for the production with Tom O'Horgan.[7]

Later career

Although Garnett had retired from the music business by the 1980s,[1] she continued occasionally appearing in feature films (including the 2002 sleeper hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and on television shows, usually in supporting roles.

In subsequent years, she branched out into journalism, writing essays, columns, and book reviews for various newspapers and magazines. She also wrote and performed two one-person theater pieces, Gale Garnett & Company and Life After Latex.[8] [9]

Garnett also did the voice of the "Mother KOIT" liners for KOIT-FM (93.3 FM) in San Francisco in the mid to late 1960s during its progressive rock formatted era (1968–1970).

Books by Garnett

Garnett published her first novel, a romance titled Visible Amazement,[10] in 1999. She followed with Transient Dancing (2003), the novella Room Tone (2007), and Savage Adoration, her latest release (2009).

Discography

Albums

Track listings:

Singles (partial list)

Filmography

Film

Television

Soundtrack

Notes and References

  1. Book: The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Colin Larkin. Guinness Publishing. 1992. First. 0-85112-939-0. 945.
  2. Book: Billboard. October 19, 1963. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.. 1–16.
  3. . Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 19 October 1963. New Gal in Town. Billboard. 16.
  4. Book: Bronson, Fred. The Billboard book of number 1 hits. Billboard Books. 2003. 159. 0-8230-7677-6.
  5. Book: Murrells , Joseph . 1978. The Book of Golden Discs. 2nd. Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. London. 175. 0-214-20512-6. registration.
  6. Web site: Gale Garnett . Classicbands.com . 17 July 1942 . 18 August 2015.
  7. La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Starfollowers in an Ancient Land (1975)". Accessed January 16, 2019.
  8. Web site: Steve Huey . Gale Garnett | Biography . . July 17, 1942 . August 18, 2015.
  9. http://www.citadeltheatre.com/pdf/ProductionHistory2006.pdf
  10. Book: Garnett, Gayle Zoe. Visible Amazement . Stoddart Publishing. 1999. 0-7737-6176-4.
  11. Book: Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life - Manoah Bowman - Google Books . 2016-10-11 . 9780762460526 . 2020-04-23. Bowman . Manoah . Running Press .

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