Bonnie Tyler

A coalminer's daughter from South Wales, Bonnie Tyler cut her teeth on stage when she was a teenager singing with Bobby Wayne & the Dixies having previously been runner-up in a talent contest performing Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days. Tyler went on to form her own pub band Imagination, changing her name to Sherene Davies (adopting the names of her niece and aunt) before securing a deal with RCA and changing her name again, this time to Bonnie Tyler. She had her first hit Lost In France in 1976 followed by the album The World Starts Tonight. Throat problems resulted in a change of her voice to her now distinctive husky style, readily identifiable when she joined forces with top producer and songwriter Jim Steinman on the 1983 album Faster Than The Speed Of Night and the epic international hit Total Eclipse Of The Heart. Tyler had another major hit with Holding Out For A Hero from the movie Footloose and duetted with Shakin' Stevens on A Rockin' Good Way. In the late 2000s she was planning to work again with Jim Steinman on another new album.