Bonnie Raitt has mirrored on the “inspiration” and “staggeringly nice singing” of Renée Geyer, the celebrated Australian soul and blues singer who died earlier this week, aged 69.
Geyer loved solo success in Australia within the ‘70s with covers “It’s a Man’s Man’s World”, “Heading within the Proper Course” and with the bouncy ’80s pop quantity “Say I Love You,” although by no means reaped the business rewards that her abilities deserved.
Later, she would relocate to Los Angeles, the place she contributed to recordings for a lot of stars, together with Raitt.
“Shocked and so saddened to listen to of the sudden passing of one other buddy and one of many best singers I’ve ever recognized, Australia’s incomparable Renée Geyer,” writes Raitt on her social pages.
“Her husky, highly effective and deeply soulful voice and phrasing has blown me away since I first heard her again in 1980 in LA, whereas making her So Fortunate album,” with Bump Band and producer Rob Fraboni, she writes.
Raitt “was so knocked” out that she tapped Fraboni and the band members oh her personal, subsequent album, 1981’s Inexperienced Mild. The album cracked the highest 40, peaking at No. 38 on the Billboard 200.
Geyer possessed an “impossibly low growl, unearthly excessive swoops however largely, staggeringly nice singing, there was nobody like her,” Raitt enthuses. “She was feisty, fiercely impartial and confronted loads being a robust lady on this music enterprise. She was additionally my good buddy and can stay an inspiration and in my coronary heart at all times.”
Geyer cemented her icon standing in 2005, when she was inducted into the ARIA Corridor of Fame alongside Break up Enz, Normie Rowe, Smoky Dawson, The Easybeats, Hunters & Collectors and Jimmy Barnes. Then, in 2013 she was the primary lady to be inducted into the Music Victoria Corridor of Fame; and in 2018 acquired the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award on the Australian Ladies in Music Awards.
Whereas attending College Hospital Geelong to bear hip surgical procedure, specialists found that Geyer additionally had inoperable lung most cancers. She died Tuesday (Jan. 17), “in no ache” and “peacefully amongst household and mates,” reads a household assertion.
After the unhappy information broke, the music group paid tribute to the proficient, late artist, together with Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, Colin Hay, Kate Ceberano, Marcia Hines, Sarah McLeod and Troy Cassar-Daley. “The U.S. had Aretha, the U.Okay. Dusty Springfield. We had Renée. She taught us all a lot,” explains Hay, former singer and songwriter with Males at Work. “She knew not solely what music was, however the place it got here from. We had an inkling, however a lot of it was so far-off.”
Since launching her personal recording profession in 1971, Raitt has effortlessly melded music and activism, inspiring generations and incomes “icon” standing — she was bestowed the Icon Award on the 2022 Billboard Ladies In Music occasion.
Her 21st and newest album, 2022’s Simply Like That, is nominated for 4 Grammy Awards.
