Laura Branigan - Gloria

[highplainsdem]

I do love power ballads...and this was a great one.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Yeah she was a great one

YouTube has several interviews with her, she usually seems a little how do I put this, wowed or even dazed. Read a few articles, some said her career never reached full potential, execs didn't know what to do with her powerful voice. I dunno. Of the era, surely Blondie and others went further. I think the more successful had larger management teams and thus wider reach for supportive talent like songwriting. This song, for example, was a rework by her own crew from an Italian song. It's been critiqued here or there as having vague meaning. Perhaps her second most famous hit "Self Control" suffers from the same criticism. To me they're sort of women in dark unclear distress situation songs. Curious to say the least.

[CurtEastPoint]

2. and gone too soon at 47, Aneurysm

[highplainsdem]

8. Yes. Gone much too soon. So much talent...

[Skittles]

11. she was 52

still too young

[CurtEastPoint]

12. Yep, I goofed. Sorry. And yes, way too young.

[highplainsdem]

3. She still had a lot of success. See this article/obituary from the Irish Times:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/powerful-champion-of-the-rock-ballad-1.1156290

Branigan was born in Brewster, New York, the fourth of five children of a stockbroker and a housewife. After playing the lead in a high school musical theatre production, she attended the Academy for Performing Arts in Manhattan. Her breakthrough came in 1979 when she was hired as a backing singer for a European tour by Leonard Cohen.

This brought her to the attention of Atlantic Records, which signed her to a long-term contract - and the result was Gloria. The accompanying album, called Branigan, was equally successful and the prelude to a career in which she was to sell more than 10 million records in the US alone.

Her popularity continued in 1983 with the hits Solitaire (co-written with Diane Warren) and How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?, composed by the unknown Michael Bolton. In 1984 Branigan recorded Self Control, a translation by Steve Piccolo of another European hit composed by Bigazzi. It was the title song of her third album, and a top 10 hit in both the US and Britain.

Branigan's later hits included The Lucky One (1985), from the television drama An Uncommon Love, and Spanish Eddie (1986). The 1985 album Hold Me included I Found Someone, another Bolton song that was later to be a hit for Cher. Branigan's final hit came in 1988 with a high-velocity version of The Power Of Love. The song had been a British and European hit for Jennifer Rush, and it was revived again by Celine Dion in 1994.

Much more at the link.


Long article at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Branigan

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Wow, the articles I read surely missed a bit

They pegged her as a waitress.

[highplainsdem]

5. Possibly she worked as a waitress once, at least part-time, for a while. It isn't that

unusual for musicians (or actors) to work in restaurants till they can quit their day job.


EDITING to add a link: https://www.therichest.com/pop-culture/celebrities-worked-restaurants-before-famous/


I have no idea whether Branigan ever worked in a restaurant, though. I know very little about her.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Apparently I don't know much either

and tend to believe what I read

[highplainsdem]

7. Well, most of us tend to believe what we read. And again,

she could have had a waitress job once, and that kind of detail makes good copy for some journalists.

[CurtEastPoint]

9. Wikipedia says... (fwiw)

Between 1970 and 1972, Branigan attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City,[12] and supported herself by working as a waitress.

[highplainsdem]

10. Thanks! I hadn't read the entire article there, just glanced at it.

It would be unfortunately typical of some journalists to mention the waitress angle (thinking that would sound more interesting) but not the background and training in the arts.