Annie Lennox - The Biography [Hardcover]

Lucy Ellis (Author), Bryony Sutherland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2001

The definitive biography of the Scottish singer who graduated from The Tourists to the Eurythmics and went on to international stardom as a solo artist. The book features more than 40 interviews including with childhood and family friends.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

As life-long fans of Annie Lennox we believed that an up-to-date biography of this most enigmatic figure was long overdue, and well-deserved. From the outset we realised that this would be a unique challenge, not least because she is very private and fiercely guards her personal life. Yet, presenting the perfect dichotomy, Annie freely concedes, “Everything I write is about myself.” So it is through chronological, track-by-track musical analysis that we can delve deep into the psyche of the woman behind the masks.

Most Annie fans are well-versed in the story of how she met Dave Stewart, formed Eurythmics and conquered the world, but we have also addressed areas of her life previously unaccounted for, devoting chapters to:
- Her formative years in the bracing town of Aberdeen, interviewing both family friends and childhood contemporaries
- The years she spent at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music, interviewing her teachers and classmates
- The years struggling for recognition pre-Tourists, where we unearth and detail her first ever demo recording in April 1977
- Her four-year on-off relationship with rock photographer Peter Ashworth
- Her solo career, semi-retirement to raise her family and the Eurythmics reunion for Peace

Although the biography is an entertaining and revealing read, we did not seek to go against Annie’s wish for privacy. It was not our aim to write a salacious book so we have dealt with all aspects of her personal life, from her acknowledged periods of depression and the stillbirth of her first child to her two marriages and divorce, with sensitivity and respect.

We hope you enjoy reading our book as much as we enjoyed writing it. If it makes you reach for your Eurythmics CDs, then we have fulfilled our goal!

About the Author

Lucy Ellis and Bryony Sutherland are co-authors of Tom Jones and Complete Guide to the Music of George Michael, both published by Omnibus Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 417 pages
• Publisher: Omnibus Press (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0711979863
• ISBN-13: 978-0711979864
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,602,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a hit-and-miss (and cut-and-paste) journalistic effort, July 1, 2001

By 

"littleghost" (Los Angeles, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Annie Lennox - The Biography (Hardcover)

This latest biography of Annie Lennox seems to be a cut-and-paste effort of quotes from previous AL biographies and magazine articles. Many passages repeat these other sources virtually verbatim.

As a longtime Annie Lennox fan, I concede that I already knew most of what this book "reveals" about her. And I praise the co-authors for being thorough. To their credit, they did uncover evidence of early demos and unreleased songs that had been held back from fans in the past.

But because Annie herself declined to be interviewed for this book, the authors relied heavily on culling extended quotes from previously published material. When this task got too tedious, they resorted to paraphrasing previously published material. But they lost the plot a few times in this book, by pasting these quotes out of chronological order -- i.e., they quoted Annie saying she likes "the tackiness of" the drag queen look to explain her costume on 1992's Diva album cover, when that exact quote was something Annie said (and other journalists published) in the early 1980's. Also, some of the "facts" reported failed to be caught by the proofreader (i.e., saying that Eurythmics recorded "Winter Wonderland" for "A Very Special Christmas" in 1989, after the "We Too Are One" album -- when actually the Christmas record was realeased in 1987, concurrenly with the "Savage" album).

This book is at its best during its analysis of Annie's music, covering everything from Annie's very first record with The Catch in 1977, through each and every Tourists and Eurythmics album in the late 1970's and 1980's, and all of Annie's 1990's output (both as a solo artist and with the recently-reunited Eurythmics). The authors break down each album song by song, and devote at least a paragraph to an analysis of each song -- in the order in which the songs appear on the album -- in terms of its musicality and its emotional impact on the listener. This is where the authors really shine.

Another one of this book's strengths is that the authors give A.L. fair treatment. A.L.'s legendary diva tantrums have been tabloid fodder for her entire career, but the authors of this book take care not to present the artist out of context; instead, they rather sympathetically explain Annie's side of each story while also allowing rebuttals from those who were on the receiving end. The authors interviewed several people close to Lennox. In particular, their interviews with Annie's ex-boyfriend Peter Ashworth were enlightening. These interview quotes provide the most original material in this book, although the ever-present cutting & pasting gets mixed in with the original interview quotes.

Annie Lennox is just as famous for her visuals as for her music, and to this end, the book contains many pictures. But even the photographs seem to be a retread of familiar material harkening back to previously published biography books. The few new pictures include outtakes from previously published photo sessions, and two invasive pictures of Annie in private moments with her children that the singer would not want published. And even though the book's cover picture is from Annie's "Diva" era circa 1992, the book's photo inserts contain little of Annie's solo era. In fact, in the third photo insert -- which was meant to cover the 1990's portion of Annie's career -- the authors insert a picture of Annie posing with her father, who died in 1986. And if this picture looks familiar, it's because it was published in previous biographies in the 80's... but by now that should come as no surprise!

Non-fans (and possibly even lukewarm fans) will still find a lot to enjoy in the book, and might not find the errors and redundancies to be as glaring as the diehard fans (like myself) most likely will. To its credit, this book is the only one to cover the entire scope of Annie's life and career. While the flurry of mid-80's Eurythmics biographies provided much recyclable material throughout the early chapters of this book, the fact that few biographies appeared later means that the authors of this book had to forge ahead on their own to cover the more recent years of A.L.'s life and career. They write well... theirs is a light and breezy style occasionally dripping with dry British humor (read their description of the video for "Do You Want To Break Up?" in particular... they're not afraid to admit when the quality of Annie's work falls below her usual high standards). And despite their annoying tendency to rely on cutting & pasting quotes without maintaining chronological order, and their way of paraphrasing to the point that they border on plagarism more than once, they manage to maintain an overall tone in the book that treats Annie Lennox respectfully. Even when talking about delicately sensitive matters like the death of Annie's son, or potentially tabloid-rich tales about her divorces, they maintain a non-sensationalistic approach.

Bottom line: this book covers it all, from Annie's birth in 1954 to the concerts she and Dave Stewart performed in the year 2000. But if you're an ardent fan, don't expect to find much new material here; instead enjoy the very full account of Annie's life and career pieced together in an unchallenging, familiar, and easy-to-digest format.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary book!, September 4, 2001

By 

damon devine (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Annie Lennox - The Biography (Hardcover)

This book is a MUST for anyone who has followed Annie Lennox throughout her entire career! With mind boggling research, some never before published photos and incredible insight, you find yourself unable to put it down. It leaves no question unanswered, and gives insight into this enigmatic woman, like no other biography has been able to. All holes in stories of the past are quickly filled in in this book. There are very intelligent commentaries on every song Annie has ever recorded, with and without Eurythmics. The authors talk to ex-lovers, friends and co-workers in Annie's life, and uncovers literally everything you could want to know. Highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good as a description of Annie's work, a Drag as a bio., January 27, 2003

By 

cesar (Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Annie Lennox - The Biography (Hardcover)

I found this book tedious, to say the least. I have followed Annie Lennox's career since the early eighties, and having read plenty of interviews all through these years, I expected to read a book that might shed new light on this wonderful performer. Instead I found a comprehensive body of work regarding the description of every single song and video performed by her. That is great for die-hard fans thirsty for details, but fails to grasp the reader's attention for long and should by no means be the final goal of any biography! Besides the authors failed to bear in mind that most A.L.'s fans are over their 30's and that the biography was Annie Lennox's and not Shakira's, for the use of storytelling-like idiomatic expressions (e.g. "...at the tender age of six...") and the lack of depth in the subject matter of the book is more suitable for a teenage pop idol biography! All in all, buy the book if you crave for the info, otherwise avoid it!