Episode 1 Queens of British Pop

SONG: "The Promise" by Girls Aloud

In 2009, it seems as if men are running out of things to say.

Female artists suddenly rule the charts

but they're far from the first to balance beehives,

give up their private lives

or sing heartbroken soul.

This golden generation didn't get here alone.

Women's lives weren't always in colour.

The women who came before them have not only been there and done that

but they've got the back catalogue to prove it.

This week we celebrate the trailblazers -

the stars that lit us up from the early '60s to the late '70s.

We give you our first Queens of British Pop.

# Who's that girl

# Running around with you?

# Tell me, who's that girl

# Running around with you?

# Tell me, who's that girl? #

Our first queen is the woman Elton John described

as the greatest white singer there has ever been.

The shy schoolgirl who grew up into the epitome

of glamour, soul and late-night heartbreak.

# Left alone

# With just a memory... #

Dusty was really...she was heavyweight, you know?

She paved for girls like Leona

and any other female that's followed from these shores.

Well, she was a serious musician.

Well, Dusty in the '60s was big as you could get.

There was nobody bigger than Dusty Springfield.

She was the female voice.

# You don't have to say you love me

# Just be close at hand

# You don't have to stay for ever

# I will understand... #

She's an icon. There were no other soul singers coming from England

at the time, particularly that had that many amazing songs.

# You don't have to say you love me... #

Dusty was one of the greatest ever to do my songs.

# You don't have to stay for ever

# I will understand... #

Who did we all fall in love with? Dusty Springfield.

Who did we want as our girlfriend? Dusty Springfield.

Whose songs did we sing? Dusty Springfield.

# Believe me! #

This is Mary Catherine Bernadette Isabel O'Brien from north London,

who told the nuns at her convent school that, one day,

she would be a jazz singer.

At the dawn of the '60s, she adopted her childhood nickname, Dusty,

and joining with her brother, Tom, formed The Springfields.

# And the gay, crowded places

# There on the beautiful... #

The Springfields played family-friendly folk

but it was clear Dusty was made of more soulful stuff.

# High in the sky is a bird on the wing

# Please carry me with you... #

By late 1963, The Beatles were making Britain

the centre of the pop universe,

and the now-solo Dusty was at the heart of it.

I remember all the press at the time,

the fact that Dusty had left The Springfields to go out on her own

was big news, you know?

Dusty Springfield had to go out there all on her own and become

a big star with the help of nobody.

That's down to her.

# I don't know what it is that makes me love you so

# I only know I never want to let you go

# Cos you started something Can't you see

# That ever since we met you've had a hold on me... #

When I think of her now, it's a very strong image of a woman

with that candyfloss hair backcombed up the wazoo,

the black eyes and the absolutely pale, pale lips.

In fact, she was singing a certain way

so that her lip-gloss wouldn't move.

# It's crazy, but it's true

# I only want to be with you... #

She might have created one of the trademark images of the '60s

but it was a mask as well as uniform.

She was actually very insecure, so the make-up and the hair

and the costumes and everything, that was a mask

that she could hide behind and once she went on stage, she was Dusty.

When she came off stage, she was Mary.

# How can I be sure...? #

Mary O'Brien was very shy, very timid

wouldn't really have spoken up in the same way

that Dusty Springfield did.

I started singing when I was 17

and purposely set about creating somebody else, Dusty Springfield.

# I just don't know what to do with myself... #

Despite her insecurities, in the early '60s,

everything was coming up Dusty.

She was the first act on Top Of The Pops,

she presented the latest acts on "Ready Steady Go!"

and even had her own show on the BBC.

Dusty will always be, for me,

of that period, the greatest -

for the looks, for the charm, for the voice.

# I don't know just what to do with myself

# I don't know just what... #

She was a proper singer.

You know a full-bore singer.

'Even though she was influenced by soul singers,

'she had her own sound.

'Once you hear her voice, you know it's Dusty Springfield.'

BOTH: # In the midnight hour

# When my loving for you comes out

# In the midnight hour

# You leave me spellbound... #

'She was great to work with, you know?

'We got on really well together'

and we were influenced by the same music.

Dusty so loved Black American music

that she wanted to champion Motown

and it's then unknown acts to a British audience

and pitched it as a TV special.

You're watching The Sounds Of Motown!

Introduced by Dusty Springfield.

CHEERING

And now, The Supremes!

It was a very brave move, in terms of nobody knew

who the hell these artists were,

so Dusty said, "Well, what if I introduce it and become part of it?"

# Wishing and hoping... #

My thrill and delight was when Dusty decided to do

Wishing And Hoping with me and Betty and Rosalind.

We had never really blended our voices together.

And it was a thrill to see how easy it was to do

and how much fun we had doing it.

# So, if you're thinking of how great true love is

# All you gotta do

# Is hold him and kiss him

# And love him... #

Her instincts were absolutely right because after

the special had aired, Motown really did explode.

People then suddenly went, "Oh, my God, this music is really good."

# The look of love

# Is in your eyes... #

There was no female artist bigger than Dusty

and no-one more difficult to please than Dusty the recording artist.

She didn't want to be in the control room with me or the engineer,

she wanted a separate room to hear playbacks.

So, I was loving it, how she sounded

but getting her happy seemed to be harder.

Underneath the facade, I really wasn't very grown-up at all

and was apt to lapse into all sorts of tantrums

if things didn't go my way

and very, very impatient and extremely hard, mainly on myself.

I think with the insecurities that she had

and her own demons, I'm sure that she was fighting,

it became a reflection of her feelings, what was inside her.

She was a tortured soul and, sometimes,

I guess that that torture comes across in her performance.

# If you go away

# On this summer day... #

She was very sensitive, extremely vulnerable.

And that was very attractive, a very attractive quality.

And you could hear it in her voice,

the great heart-rending vocals that she would give.

# If you go away

# If you go away. #

Whatever the public wanted to know about Dusty's life

she didn't want to tell them.

We had the same manager, briefly, and in fact in 1964

he decided to link us romantically.

So on the front page of the Daily Mirror

was a picture of myself and Dusty, you know?

Are they engaged or, you know,

which was ridiculous.

Every interview would go to her sexuality and she said,

"It's got nothing to do with the records I make.

"I'm number two in the charts and they want to know who I'm screwing."

# And don't tell me what to do... #

At the time, the insiders knew that Dusty was gay, you know?

And...but nobody...

the general public didn't, they do now.

And it's no big deal any more, but in those days if somebody was gay

you wouldn't publicise it, it wasn't something to be talked about

because it was voodoo in those days.

At the end of the '60s,

Dusty signed with Atlantic records

to record with American soul musicians,

a decision which didn't please all Dusty fans.

People wanted big ballads, didn't they, from her?

And it must have been quite difficult for her to move on.

# Billy Ray was a preacher's son

# And when his Daddy would visit He'd come along... #

When Dusty In Memphis came out,

it wasn't that well received at first.

Now, all these years later,

it's always in the best 50 albums of all time.

# Lord knows, to my surprise The only boy who could ever reach me

# Was the son of a preacher man

# The only one who could ever teach me

-# Was the son of a preacher man... #

-Subsequent recordings didn't chart,

and Dusty's career

began to look as anchored in the '60s as her eyeliner.

But in the late '80s, The Pet Shop Boys stepped in,

and provided Dusty with the perfect setting for her voice again.

# Since you went away I've been hanging around

# I've been wondering why I'm feeling down

# You went away... #

Certainly for us, the public, it was nice to hear Dusty again,

and, you know, to hear her talent.

Thank goodness she had that period before she went.

# How I'm gonna get through... #

But it was a last goodbye.

Dusty was diagnosed with breast cancer and lost her battle in 1999.

Maybe she's bigger...

..in our consciousness now that she's not here any more.

Kinda wish she were around, still.

# Oh, oh, oh-oh... #

I think she'll always be with us, you know,

I don't think there's anybody

that ever sounded better than Dusty Springfield.

# You've gotta give me some Give me some of your loving

# Whoa, yeah, yeah-yeah. #

APPLAUSE

If Dusty's the consummate professional

who started in the '50s,

our next Queen is a natural, barefoot, off the factory floor

and straight onto Top Of The Pops - Sandie Shaw.

Sandie Shaw, like Nancy Sinatra in America,

she absolutely epitomises Swinging '60s England.

She's the quintessential Swinging '60s girl.

I loved Sandie's look. She was original and special,

and not blonde.

Which I think was important at that particular time.

# We meet every night at 8... #

It sounds so arrogant and egotistic but I always knew I'd do it,

and I think it's because I was young.

And when you're young you don't know all the things that might stop you,

or limit you. You just have dreams.

# ..Long long live love. #

Sandra Ann Goodridge worked at Ford Dagenham,

but dreamed of being a singer.

I remember once in a dancehall, there was this group on

and there was the most terrible singer singing.

And I turned round to my friends. "Look, me and you could do better."

She said, "Well, you could anyway." So she went up to the group,

and said something in their ear

and next thing I knew I was onstage,

singing with them.

'It was only blokes around then. There weren't any girls doing it.

'So when I was on, all the boys in the bands,'

they were all huddled along the side of the stage,

cos they just couldn't get enough, cos it was so unusual

to actually see a girl standing up and singing like that.

When I came off, I fell into their arms. It was like a dream come true!

It was a working-class heartthrob that helped her realise her dream.

# Wish you wanted my love, baby... #

Afterwards, I met Adam Faith backstage.

He'd said, "I want you to make some records, here's my manager, etc,"

and then I was just about to sign a record contract,

and I mentioned it to my friends.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I'll be coming in, in future,

"cos I'm going to be a star."

As you do, when you're 16.

'They laughed, cos they thought, "She's lost it completely."

'But within months, I'd got a number one record.'

# I walk along the city streets You used to walk along with me... #

'It was amazing to have my song played on the radio all the time.

'To wake up and it was playing.'

The first time I heard it was in the kitchen with my mum,

and we danced around in the kitchen to it.

# Cos there is always something there to remind me... #

It was a completely surreal and unheard of situation

from some little girl in Dagenham.

# I was born to love you And I will never be free

# You'll always be a part of me... #

Adam Faith's manager, Eve Taylor, had a background in variety,

and saw Sandie as a light entertainment star.

# My dearest one... #

But songwriter Chris Andrews saw the girl of the moment.

The first time I saw her,

my God, she was absolutely stunning-looking,

very, very tall. Wonderful cheekbones.

And they always said, "You can't take a bad photograph of Sandie."

I played a few things on the piano,

Sandie sang, and this brilliant, unique voice came out.

I thought, "Great, we've got it."

# As long as you're happy, baby

# Whoa, as long as you're happy, baby... #

I just liked him immediately cos he was like the older brother

I think I'd always wanted. So we just immediately hit it off.

# You have a date for half past eight tonight

# Some distant bell starts chiming now... #

'I couldn't write music, couldn't play anything,'

but I was able to choose the musicians and I was able to say

'in my own limited naive way,

' "I want the horn to sound like this,

' "and if you put a guitar with a horn, what that sound would make?" '

It was a young woman finding her feet and expressing herself

'in this musical sense.'

# You wait and wait Girl don't come... #

Sandie was a natural from head to her very toes.

'I remember being called up to the box.'

Summoned up to the box!

'They're all sat round talking about my feet,

'and I said, "Sorry, I'm singing down there. What's all this about?"

'And they were saying to me, "Well,'

"we'd like you to continue singing

"like that, cos you sing better when you've got your shoes off."

# How can you tell me somebody loves you?

# How d'you know they mean it? #

But Sandie didn't really need permission to be herself.

It became sort of a trademark, I suppose.

It wasn't done to be all cool... That was...

She was absolutely natural.

The feet that launched 1,000 discs are barefoot no more.

A shoe collection, launched by Sandie Shaw,

and pretty psychedelic it was. Flashing lights and twisting torsos

transformed this Chelsea restaurant into a bizarre bazaar.

Because I'd become known as this fashionable person,

that everyone was copying anyway, some designers came to me and said,

would I like to do a range and they would put it together for me?

Sandie had style.

She knew exactly what she looked good in.

Let's take a swing at our mates across the channel,

where even the kids talk funny.

SHE SINGS IN FRENCH

Sandie's chic translated across the continent, and her manager

saw this as an opportunity to force her in a new direction.

Once upon a time, an English song, for the first time,

won the Eurovision Song Contest. I was the lucky one who sang it.

It had such an awful reputation, and I thought I was just so cool,

and it was the worst possible match!

-You think I'm very hard on you, but I'm not.

-She's bringing me down.

No, I'm not bringing you down cos you know it's the truth.

She convinced me that if I didn't do this, I could never work again.

# Had a dream last night... #

There were five songs in contention, but Sandy was hoping

Chris Andrews' song would win.

And now it's up to you.

The public, in the end, chose the song that they wanted,

which to my horror was Puppet On A String,

my least favourite of all the songs.

# I wonder if one day that You'll say that

# You care... #

I know that her manager wanted us to win,

and her manager was very clever.

But Sandie was a professional. She got on with what she was given.

The public had voted for Puppet On A String.

She was going to give a magnificent performance.

# I wonder if one day that You'll say that, you care

# If you say you love me madly I'd gladly, be there

# Like a puppet on a string... #

'I was just embarrassed by it.'

I didn't kind of realise that it wasn't for the audience

that I'd been aiming at before.

It was for a family audience. # String! #

APPLAUSE

Thank you. Thank you.

But as the natural became professional,

she found herself in the middle of the road.

She always says it ruined her career. But it went to number one

all over Europe, practically all over the world, except America.

I was very concerned cos I thought, "NOW what am I going to do?

"How am I going to get out of this and turn it around?"

Sandie tried to turn it round by becoming the driving force

behind her own TV show. She also produced an album,

covering artists such as the Stones and Dylan,

songs which she thought defined her generation.

# Pleased to meet you... #

Her old-school manager was less than impressed.

Of course, Evie hated it! She hated the thought of it,

she hated the sound of it, she hated the look,

she hated its very existence, so it kind of disappeared without a trace.

Shortly after that, what happened is that I began to lose...heart.

# Always something there to remind me... #

APPLAUSE

Sandie and her public started to disagree on what Sandie should be.

She'd tried to move on, but they hadn't.

# I walk along the city streets You used to walk along with me...#

In the early '70s Sandie deliberately withdrew

from the music industry to concentrate on her family.

But just as the Pet Shop Boys had reclaimed icon, Dusty Springfield,

someone in the '80s wanted to reclaim one of his.

Here's Sandie Shaw with The Smiths

The Smiths and Sandie Shaw. We all thought, "Of course!"

It seemed so perfect.

# Hand in glove

# The sun shines out of our behinds No, not like any other love... #

I think she pulled off that trick of not trying to look like she did then.

She seemed comfortable in her skin.

She seemed comfortable being the age she was,

and you thought, "Marvellous to see a woman behaving with such abandon,

"you know, on Top Of The Pops."

# Hand in glove... #

She wasn't behaving as a woman of her age, a mother, all this kind of thing

was supposed to behave.

# Oh, we don't care... #

She was the first singer ever to cover Led Zeppelin.

And she's a qualified psychotherapist, you know.

I'm actually very proud of what I did when I was younger.

I'm proud of what I did in the '60s and what I did in the '80s.

There are obviously lots of things I wished I'd done better.

Just give me the chance and I will!

Her mother was a baroness and a ballerina.

She went to convent school. She was posh.

Marianne Faithfull could never be and never was ordinary.

Andrew Oldham, you were the person who discovered Marianne Faithfull.

Is it literally possible to go to a party, pick up someone

with no evident talent and make a star of them.

Er, yes.

A couple of aspiring music moguls saw gold when they first spotted

the 17-year-old Marianne Faithfull.

As with everything in the '60s, it all started at a party.

-How did it begin, Marianne?

-I went to a party,

and there were lots of famous people there. The Rolling Stones were there

and Millie and Crystal. All these people.

It was amazing, the way she walked into the room,

and literally, it was like someone was standing at the record player

and turned the volume down. Everybody...everybody went, "Huh?"

And Mick said to Andrew, "She's a star."

And they came up and said to the person I was with,

"And can she sing?"

And he said, "Well, I shouldn't think so, but she's all right."

'They talked about me'

as if I wasn't there,

which was one of the most strange things about the '60s -

that if you were a girl or a woman, nobody spoke as if you had a brain,

or as if you could talk.

Without hearing her sing, this girl had a presence.

This was the girl that you knew was for the age of the Beatles and Stones

and so it didn't really matter how she sounded.

Within weeks, Marianne was in the studio

with a debut single written for her by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

# It is the evening of the day

# I sit and watch the children play... #

I took the acetate back, played it to my family.

They didn't think much about it and I forgot about it.

# I sit and watch as tears go by

# Mmm, mmm, mmm-mmm mmm mmm mmm-mmm... #

'And suddenly there was a job and I had to leave school,'

and of course, you know, you wouldn't be a normal little girl

if you didn't want to get away from your mother and go to London

and live in a flat and all that stuff, you know.

From St Joseph's convent school to the top 10,

Marianne's beauty and apparent innocence instantly fascinated.

# There's a little bird That somebody sends... #

Andrew's great ability was to look at an artist and take the basic raw data

and put it into a package that was what the media wanted.

# He's light and fragile... #

Everybody fell in love with her and they loved this convent girl image.

And she played the part really well.

# So thin and graceful The sun shines through... #

But Andrew knew the public would only want an innocent for so long.

I built up a friendship with Andrew Oldham. He said, "Look,

"I've gotta do something with Marianne.

"She's got a great body and all the rest of it,

"but people just see her as this

"sort of convent girl, really."

She just did everything she was told.

I mean, if Andrew Oldham said, "Do that," she'd do it,

cos that's the way things worked. He ran everything entirely.

She was treated, I thought, like a commodity.

I liked the fact that Terry O'Neill's pictures were going

against the sort of virginal little girl image.

If I'd known anything, or understood anything about anything,

I would have avoided it because it would... Eventually I would begin

to HATE being seen as a sexual object,

and that would be ALL people would see.

# Yesterday

# All my troubles seemed so far away... #

In the '60s, Marianne was the ultimate It-girl

and friends with all its boy geniuses.

# I believe in yesterday

# Suddenly I'm not half the one I used to be... #

But despite all her hard work, Marianne's career and relationship

with her management began to run out of steam.

Andrew was a great believer that pop stars should be available.

He lost his love affair with Marianne because of John Dunbar.

Because...married, she had the baby, and it ruined the image he'd created.

# I said something wrong Now I long for... #

Her marriage was short-lived and a Rolling Stone bounded into her life.

SCREAMING

I went down to Bristol

to see the Stones play and it was really wonderful.

It was like a revelation.

# Yeah, the place was packed Front doors was locked

# Yeah, the place was packed And when the police knocked... #

I hadn't understood it till then.

I'd never seen them play live before.

And I ended up that night with Mick.

And so Mick started calling me all the time.

This is an awful thing to say, cos I did fall in love with Mick,

but I wasn't making money and I was beginning to feel very insecure.

And so when Mick started calling me, I thought, "This is a way out."

I then stepped into that very privileged role

of Mick Jagger's consort.

Marianne gave Mick culture. Mick gave Marianne rock'n'roll.

# Please allow me to introduce myself

# I'm a man of wealth and taste... #

It's very hard to describe how she had this knowledge and charm

and breeding and character that everybody wanted a piece of.

Here was somebody who knew about the theatre, who knew about Chekhov,

knew what books to read.

And Mick loved her for it.

# Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name... #

What I gave to Mick was just my mind and my education.

Everything, really.

And that was very interesting. He had somebody to talk to

about all these things, and we did talk a lot.

She went from being Marianne Faithfull, the pop star,

to Mick Jagger's plus-one.

I thought that the only thing I could do was be the muse,

the beautiful girl on the arm, but it wasn't a high-self-esteem choice,

let's put it like that.

The establishment were to bring down rock'n'roll's royal couple.

Evidence that an unnamed naked woman was sitting on a sofa

with a rug around her, when police raided Keith Richards' house

at West Wittering, was given in court today.

We went down there to take acid,

and the News Of The World tapped the phones.

And then 25 cops walked in and busted us.

# Everybody must get stoned. #

I was the only woman there.

And, of course, I was very easy and free,

so this thing about the fur rug and me being naked and all this stuff,

and the shock, the public shock,

that this little song thrush could...

I don't know what they expected.

It was really the benchmark case

because the politicians and judges

wanted to stop sex, drugs and rock'n'roll coming to the UK.

And Marianne was part of that.

She was really right in there.

It didn't do her any good - Marianne.

It did the Stones a lot of good.

I became Miss X and awful jokes went round, horrible things,

and terrible letters were sent to me. Really nasty.

And then I began to believe that.

And that was the beginning of a very difficult period.

If you ask me, I guess I have to say that of course I took drugs,

like everyone.

Marianne was spiralling into drug abuse and depression.

Things worsened with the death of her close friend,

Rolling Stone Brian Jones.

Brian died, which had a very bad effect on me.

And I got very, very depressed after that.

# I saw her today at the reception... #

I was in a very sorry place and had a lot of inside pain and problems.

# You can't always get what you want... #

Marianne became a serious drug addict.

And the situation with drugs, as Andrew always taught,

nothing wrong with the drugs, as long as you're their master.

# Here I lie... #

She ended her relationship with Jagger and found herself

living on the streets, addicted to heroin.

# Tell me, Sister Morphine... #

In 1979, Marianne went back into the recording studio.

At the time, when I made Broken English,

I believed... I was always very dramatic,

and I believed I wasn't going to live after that.

I thought I was going to die after Broken English.

And to me, what Broken English was, was, "Right, this is my last chance.

"I'm going to lay it out."

# At the age of 37

# She realised she'd never ride through Paris

# In a sports car... #

There is that thing of when you listen to her sing,

you can hear she's been through things.

And when she sings a song, it's like someone telling a story to you.

I like that about her singing.

# I am a muse

# Not a mistress

# Not a whore... #

Marianne Faithfull was never just a muse.

With Broken English she became an artist.

In the last 30 years she's continued to make critically acclaimed albums

with the rock elite.

'It just sort of slowly, slowly,'

like climbing a granite cliff,

'it started to get better.'

# I'm still sliding through life on charm... #

She is Marianne Faithfull and she's unique.

I've never met anybody else like her.

# I sit and watch As tears go by... #

'It's taken me a long time to understand that I have done it.

'I've had to take a breath and say,'

"Listen, you just calm down now.

"This is all fine. You can do anything you like". And I can.

# Da, da-ah. #

APPLAUSE

COUGHING

Oh, my God! Where are the nurses? Somebody must be doing something.

Hi, honey. The doctors tried to stop me, but I said,

"You give that chick anything she needs." I'm from Detroit

and I don't mess around. What do you need? Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll?

Rock'n'roll!

# So make a stand for your man, honey

# Try to can the can... #

Being brazen and bad wasn't the done thing for a nice English girl.

So enter the girl from Detroit. Our first rock'n'roll queen.

# Well, can the can. #

# You know I can be found Sitting all alone... #

It was January, 1956. I was five, nearly six.

And Elvis Presley was on.

# Don't be cruel To a heart that's true

And I was watching him, and my sister was screaming

and pulling her hair

and I was looking at her thinking, "What is she doing?"

As it was going on, my father came in.

He looked at the TV and he looked at us and he said, "Disgusting."

He switched it off. At that minute in time,

I decided I was going to be Elvis Presley.

And it didn't occur to me that he was a guy.

I just thought, "I'm going to be him."

Clearly a visionary, teenage Suzi formed a rock band with her sisters.

We were with guys all the time. We were the only females.

And, boy, you have to walk your course carefully.

To keep your femininity but to still be bossy enough to hold your own.

So to speak.

# Woo, what a way to die... #

When the band played a local gig, Suzi was determined to stand out.

Nancy did most of the singing then, and then, as I was in those days,

as I probably still am now, I very cockily came up to the mic,

and I said, "Here's one I wrote."

In the audience that night, was one of Britain's top record producers,

Mickie Most, who was after the next big thing.

There was a demand for a new girl singer in England.

We needed that. There was just a void there.

And whilst there's a void there's always a chance to make success.

He didn't know what I was. He said to his wife, "Oh, I found it!

"Finally!" She said, "What?"

and he said, "I don't know, but I've found it."

# All my life I wanted to be somebody and here I am

# I know what I got And there ain't nobody

# Gonna take it away from me... #

Suzi was a garage rocker but Mickie Most wanted to make her go pop.

OK, let's get on the piano. Let's get back on the piano.

'Mickie didn't know how to put me on record.'

And he was getting desperate.

He believed in me but didn't know what to do.

If you come up with one little idea.

Little, little one, telephone me

and, er, play it to me over the phone.

# Does anyone know the way To hear someone say... #

The British charts were sodden with glam,

and Mickie turned to the Lennon and McCartney of The Stack Heel,

Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman.

# ..Blockbuster! #

Once I had written the song and given it to Mickie,

his eyes lit up and he said, "This is fantastic!

"Now we can create the image. Boom!"

At the crucial moment of her rebirth, Suzi turned to the King.

I saw him on the comeback special and decided I would wear leather.

That was it. I was going to wear leather.

Mickie said, "No, no, no, no, no." I said, "Yes!"

He said, "No, no, no, no, no. It's been done."

I said, "Not by a woman," and he saw he was going to lose

and he said, "OK...

What about a jumpsuit?" I said, "Great."

# Well, you call your mamma Tiger And we know you ain't lying... #

Can The Can was a pretty exciting and raw-sounding record,

for those times. It had real energy and attitude to it.

I'd never seen a woman fronting a rock band before and playing bass.

It wasn't just like

four hairy-arsed dockers with someone to stick in front

to make it look a bit more presentable.

# Yeah, so make a stand for your man, honey

# Try to can the can... #

She took it to number one. I mean, OK, it was a great record,

but you need the package and Suzi sold the song

like, really, very few artists I've worked with.

# Oh, honey! Honey! Honey! Honey! Honey! #

She wasn't pretty-pretty, but men were quite attracted by that

and the women just thought, "Ooh, blimey,

"I don't just have to be the lead singer's girlfriend.

"I could be the lead singer, actually!

# Oh-h-h! Take a stand for your man, honey...! #

Everyone was keen to capitalise on the small girl with the big bass.

I remember Mickie actually saying to Mike and Nicky,

"We need another number one for Suzi."

-# Hey, you all wanna go down To Devil Gate Drive?

-Yeah!

# Well, come on...! #

'And so that's what they did. They wrote another number one.

'I mean, it's ridiculous if you say it like that. How flippant!'

Mickie knew that Quatro could do even more

and dreamt up their next plan of attack.

Mickie said, "Why don't we do a dance routine?"

The boys said, "Oh God, we can't dance!" I said, "Great! I can."

The boys look like West Side Story gone wrong.

-# ..So come alive!

-Yeah!

-Come alive!

-Yeah!

# Down in Devil Gate Drive... #

'There's Lenny looking at my feet the entire time,

'afraid to move wrong.

'You know, Alastair looks like a coat hanger.'

# ..Down in Devil Gate Down in Devil Gate.. #

It's brilliant, brilliant stuff. And it went straight to number one.

So there you go.

Suzi was now a polished act. But she was a knowing player.

Never did she looks as if she was under the cosh

or was playing to order.

I mean, she looked very much, always to me, and sounded as if,

she was her own woman, despite her songs being provided

by someone else. And Mickie produced the records.

She struck her own chord and moved to her own rhythm.

# You got the hands of a man

# And the face of a little boy blue...#

Mickie was accused of being a Svengali,

and controlling his artists. But there would certainly be times

when Mickie would listen to Suzi when she'd state in no uncertain fashion,

"This is what I want to do."

# 48 crash, 48 crash Come like a lightning flash

# A lightning flash And it's a silk sash bash... #

Four albums in, Suzi picked up her bass, spread her wings,

and turned her hand to acting.

Over here, Leather!

There she is now!

Hey, she is cool. Hubba, hubba, hubba.

'Now, Happy Days came along, and that was the number one show'

in America. And people to this day recognise me as Leather Tuscadero.

'That was 30 years ago. I still can't believe it.'

CANNED LAUGHTER

He's so glad to see me(!)

It was like a duck to water.

Everybody loved Suzi and she was

'magnificent in the series. I mean, if you watch it, you would not know'

that she'd never done it before.

What's this music con you're into?

It ain't no con. Ah, why bother? You won't listen.

Hey, I got ears. Try me.

'And I thought that she was spectacular.'

Her personality jumped off the screen.

Her personality came right through the camera.

Well, let's listen to this great talent that's put you on the road

to righteousness.

You got it!

# Well, I've seen you before On the discotheque floor

# You were driving me out of my mind... #

But music was Suzi's first love. And now it was all grown-up.

We were having rock'n'roll hit singles for quite some time.

You know, the image was intact.

We talked and Mike said, "How would you feel about a change of mood?"

# You can't give me love

# Lo-ove

# If you can't give me love

# Lo-ove

# If you can't give me... #

Suzi didn't go all soft. She was our first queen of rock,

and she's still a-rockin' and a-rollin' today.

When I look back at everything I've done...

yeah, I'm still sane.

I'm not a drug addict.

I'm still gigging.

I'm still normal.

So...yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself.

In the Top Of The Pops Studio in the mid '70s,

you'd be hard pushed to find somebody cool.

But then came the ice queen.

# Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance we are entranced...#

A human blade, a bird of prey.

Growing up in the suburbs,

you're always very aware of being different,

and you want desperately to just not stick out.

Thankfully, as I grew older,

I kind of appreciated the difference

and I guess accentuated it.

When I was growing up, a lot of girls

kind of had that cliche of finding someone to look after them,

you know, with a car, with a job.

And I just...found that really boring.

I wanted to be my own person.

I wanted to be...I dunno, an actress or an artist -

or anything that didn't have a 9-5 parameter to it.

# I'll find some

# Way of connection

# Hiding my intention... #

Music and attitude were the common ground binding together

what was to become known as the Bromley contingent.

It was just about being a bit of a peacock,

and having fun and meeting people

that you felt some kind of connection with.

They mentioned a band

that they'd just started seeing called Sex Pistols.

# I am an anti-Christ

# I am an anarchist... #

In the audience,

right from the start were Siouxsie, Billy Idol, Steve...

I discovered that they were all from Bromley.

And as the punk movement developed, I began to say

that if the Bromley contingent was at the gig, you know,

the gig was that important.

The Pistols were headlining a punk festival,

and their manager, Malcolm McLaren, needed to flesh out the bill.

Malcolm - literally, he needed a band for this festival he was organising.

And I just...without thinking, just..."I'll do it."

I do remember wanting to come across as...all-powerful

and I wanted to kind of make it painful for people!

I suppose, looking back at it, it took some balls,

not knowing what she was doing,

or what we were doing,

to stand on stage in front of, you know...

a pretty heavy audience

doing a song which wasn't even a song.

-You're singing?

-Yeah.

-Have you sung before?

-Not on stage, no.

Did you think that was important?

Um...no.

Siouxsie just appeared, fully made, fully in control, utterly confident.

It totally, totally blew me away.

There she was, doing something that I dared to dream,

but she took it and did it.

And it wiped the rest of the festival for me - that was it.

I can't even remember anything else about it,

except that one performance.

When punk had its decisive moment on The Today Show,

Siouxsie was in the centre of the scandal,

with Ziggy eyeliner, being leered at.

What about you girls behind?

-Are you worried, or just enjoying yourself?

-Enjoying myself.

-That's what I thought.

-I've always wanted to meet you.

-Did you?

We'll meet afterwards, shall we?

You dirty sod!

You dirty old man!

Having seen how easy it would be to blow people's minds,

Siouxsie got serious with her band,

and began to assert herself as a front woman.

I thought she was one of the mesmerising performers

I'd ever seen. She had this great stage presence and command.

She was unpredictable -

would she threaten somebody at the front of the stage?

She would sing in their faces,

she'd be giving this very, very kind of full-on performance.

She was overtly sexual

on a level, but not for anyone's pleasure but her own.

Some of the early shows I'm wearing the vinyl thigh boots -

they're actually stockings.

It was all, like, fetish underwear,

and I think wasn't really to be worn outside the bedroom,

or somebody's office...

She was opening the closet to male sexual fantasies...

and owning that sexual fantasy.

Although they were the only female-fronted band

from the original crop of punks,

Siouxsie And The Banshees were having trouble getting signed...

# Cracking up, up, up

# Face is cracking up My face is cracking up... #

Around a year ago, the entrance to almost every record company

in London was aerosoled with the command, "Sign the Banshees,

"Do it now." In fact, no-one did, for a long time,

but as soon as Siouxsie was committed to vinyl,

they've had more or less instant success.

# Harmful elements in the air

# Cymbals crashing everywhe-ere

# Reap the fields of rice and reeds

# While the population fades

# Junk boats on polluted... #

Looking like her own Warhol print,

Siouxsie was an instant gothic goddess

for any pop fan with a taste for the stronger, darker stuff.

I find it really difficult to describe,

but there just was nobody like her.

You know, she wasn't emulating anyone.

She seemed like somebody who just wouldn't be told how to do it.

It was very real and raw, there was nothing plastic -

no man marionetting up above her,

sort of... She was in charge, she was in charge of the band.

She's a very, very strong person,

so...that was very new.

# Hanging...hanging... #

She was a rebel, and I just identified with that.

Because I was a 13-year-old child at school, with red hair,

getting bullied every day,

and I felt completely disenfranchised

and disempowered.

I'd go home, put on my Siouxsie And The Banshees records

and feel like I could rule the world.

# Down on your knees... #

I like strong women, and I guess because I grew up

where my mother kind of was in control of the household,

and...because of the situation at home with my father,

who was an alcoholic,

she did everything. And she had to, she didn't really have a choice.

# This is the happy house

# We're happy here In the happy house... #

I grew up thinking it normal that women went out to work,

you know, mended fuses or mowed the lawn...

That's what my mother did.

She kept the family together.

# In the happy house... #

Strong women also influenced Siouxsie's image.

Siouxsie is like an old-time film star,

like a Marlene Dietrich or a Greta Garbo.

Someone who you never see, apart from being Siouxsie.

When she goes out, she's always Siouxsie,

when she makes a record, whatever styles she's using,

it's always Siouxsie.

I realised from a really early age that I wasn't going to be

what was on the covers of, you know, like the Jackie that I used to get -

like blonde, suntan and smiling and approachable.

# The sun is up

# The sky is blue

# It's beautiful

# And so are you Dear Prudence... #

The funny thing is that Siouxsie was not the girl next door.

You know, that she looked like a dominatrix and...

she was very cool and very inaccessible. But, actually,

she WAS the girl next door - she WAS Susan from Bromley.

Siouxsie rode the bone carriage of the Banshees for 20 years

before leaping off solo

and collaborating with cutting-edge musicians

and eye-liner.

Always eye-liner.

She ignites a passion in people that they never lose

and I think she's still doing it.

# It's not enough Must have all of it... #

I just think she is who she is, she does what she does

and she does it brilliantly. And she won't be swayed from it.

# You wanted life... #

I think at times she's often sacrificed more commercial success

to have more artistic success and do the things she wants

and that's what makes an artist last.

In a way, not getting the commercial attention she should get

but nevertheless will leave a longer legacy of work

that people will always rediscover as time goes on.

At the time, I was just doing what came naturally to me

and I didn't really think about it at all. I was having fun.

And I was doing what I wanted to do.

APPLAUSE

-And now...

-Whose dancing is amazing?

-And whose looks are amazing?

-Whose voice is amazing?

-Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a tree?

No. No, no. It's a bush.

Perhaps all our women led to our final star.

She lit up the late seventies and beyond.

Half carnal, half dream-time. And always under her own strict control.

# Wow, wow, wow

# Wow, wow, wow, ooh!

# Unbelievable... #

I can't think off anything before Kate Bush...that was like Kate Bush.

You know, she came out seemingly from another planet.

# Unbelievable... #

Her voice in general is just incredibly captivating, isn't it?

You're just sort of, "Eh? What is THAT?"

# Ooh, yeah, you're amazing

We think you're incredible... #

Kate Bush and her grand piano,

that's like John Wayne and his saddle. You know? Thank you.

A GP's daughter, the 11-year-old Kate

started writing songs in her childhood home in Welling, Kent.

I could never do it in front of people. I've never been able to.

And If I do, I automatically feel that...

the fact that it's a performance.

Because as soon as you have someone in the room with you,

I feel that you should give them the best, you should perform.

# I hear him before I go to sleep... #

They were very, very quirky at that age.

And then round about 13, 14 they started to take a structure,

musically and in the lyric content.

And so, something like Man With The Child In His Eyes

was showing the potential of her music.

# Oooh

# He's here again

# The man with the child in his eyes... #

A demo tape found its way to EMI.

I remember when I got into EMI

there was literally a mantra - "birds don't sell".

It struck me that she WAS so unusual.

The songs were unusual, the voice was unusual.

Everything was pretty well unique.

I signed the contract

and there was just...feelings that we weren't sure how to handle it.

I mean, I myself felt that I was very young at that time.

Signed at 16 and given 18 months to learn exactly how to be Kate Bush,

she released her first single in 1978.

# Out on the winding, windy moors

# We'd roll and fall in green... #

When I first heard

the finished version of Wuthering Heights,

I thought, "This has got to be a hit single."

And I remember at the time, she had some disagreements

with the people at EMI about which should be the first single.

She just put her foot down and I gave in.

# I hated you... #

I said, "We'll put Wuthering Heights out,

"it won't work and then you'll have learned a lesson."

And, of course...

I was 100% wrong and she was 100% right.

# Wuthering heights

# Heathcliff

# It's me, I'm Cathy I've come home

# I'm so cold Let me in to your window... #

The day after she'd been on Top Of The Pops,

everybody at school was saying, "Who was that girl?"

# I've come home now I'm so cold

# Let me in your... #

I remember my mum,

God rest her soul, when she first heard Kate Bush.

I played it for her at home, didn't I?

"Oh, Johnny, it sounds like a bag of cats!"

HE LAUGHS

# Your window, oh-oh-oh... #

At first it seemed absurd, "Heathcliff!" - way up there.

But it isn't at all. It FITS.

# ..soul away... #

Those shrieks and warbles are beauty beyond belief to me.

# Cathy. #

With success, Kate found herself on the old promotional treadmill.

Hello, I know it's back to school for a lot of you.

I hope you're not too excited about that to enjoy the programme.

-I'm very happy because my guest is Kate Bush. Welcome, Kate.

-Hello.

But Kate and light entertainment were at times a bizarre mix.

She'd turn up at a television station

expecting to be interviewed seriously,

only to find that they were

ready to talk to her about her boyfriends or something.

One last question from Jane

about your hair. What do you do to it? She loves it.

# All yours

# Babooshka, babooshka Babooshka, ya, ya... #

In 1979, Kate was to prove she was more than mime, music and song.

# Ooh-hoo. #

INAUDIBLE

There was this anticipation of everybody had seen the videos,

everybody had heard the music - could she actually do it live?

When she took the decision to go on tour,

no-one doubted how important it could prove to her career.

The show was epic, incorporating song, dance, mime and magic.

Stretch, stretch and down.

'When I told people I was working on the tour, my position...'

was elevated immediately, because this was really

THE big, big pop - it was more than pop -

event. It was the pop event - it was like a theatre event - of the year.

It was the pinnacle, at that time, anyway,

of the realisation of everything that she was working for,

visually, sound-wise, musically.

And it was an extraordinary achievement.

APPLAUSE

I'm knocked out. I can't believe that audience!

Worth that three months' hard work?

I'm just completely knocked out, really.

'When she went out and did it, it was, like,'

"Well there you go," you know, "I CAN do it."

You know, "And I can do it bloody well!"

Like Kate, her tour was a one-off and she retreated into the studio.

Don't you have a problem now? You're just over 21 and you've made it.

What IS there left to do now?

Everything!

Kate continued to create music that always had a sense of intrigue.

# Army dreamers

# Four men in uniform To carry home my little soldier

# What could he do? Should have been a rock star

# But he didn't have the money for a guitar... #

It's not always easy to read.

Again there's that sense of mystery.

She makes you work a little bit for it.

# But he never even made it to his 20s... #

I remember I couldn't figure out

what she was saying when I was younger.

It's only when I looked at lyric sheets and stuff.

Actually, not even lyric sheets, I Googled them. Showing my age!

She provides me with all the clues.

And it's up to me to put the answer together!

Well, that's the Koran of music.

And that surely is what we're all looking for.

No easy answers to anything.

Of course, she was taking quite a risk

cos in those days, lots of people thought

that girl pop singers shouldn't be involved in anything

to do with politics or philosophy or whatever.

'It's in the trees! It's coming!'

# When I was a child Running in the night... #

By 1985, with five albums under her belt,

Kate was now in complete control,

recording and producing her own music.

And the accompanying visuals.

# Do-do, do, do, do

# The hounds of love are hunting me... #

You're a very determined girl.

You went away on your own terms to make this album, didn't you?

What makes your studio special for you?

Well, it's got all the environmental things we want,

the right kind of sounding rooms,

and it's what we want, which is why we did it.

# Here I go... #

You say "we" all the time, it's very much, though, a solo thing.

You've produced and written the thing.

I'm in control, but there's no way I could do it by myself.

I rely on the people around me to advise me.

# And take my shoes off and throw them in the lake... #

I think she was one of the first female artists

that started a creative community around her

and controlled it and shaped it, really.

And was just unafraid to experiment, for better and for worse.

Stepping out of the public eye and into her own creative world

meant Kate made herself, unintentionally,

even more mysterious.

If there is a reluctance to get involved with the media,

it's because she doesn't want to play with the bullshit.

And through those years where people say she hid away from the world,

she was just making records.

Might take ten years to do it...

And if that's the way she works, that's the way she works.

She'd proved that there are no real rules.

If you want to do it this way,

do it absolutely in the personal way that you see it.

And I think that a lot of artists found that incredibly empowering.

# And if I only could

# I'd make a deal with God

# And I'd get him to swap our places... #

It's not about rolling in the money.

It's about the joy of knowing what you've done

really does touch people's hearts. Kate, you just can't beat that.

We take it for granted now

that women are going to produce themselves, write their own music,

be responsible for themselves, have their own management companies.

Back then, in 1978, that was all new.

So she is definitely a pioneer, a serious pioneer.

Kate Bush set a new standard of creativity and control.

The women who followed her

from the '80s onwards have also struggled to create and manage

their own destiny.

They've looked back into the past

and stared into the future to become our next Queens of British Pop.

# Who's that girl

# Running around with you?

# Tell me

# Who's that girl running around with you?

# Tell me Who's that girl? #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd