Wendy James

Wendy James is a singer-songwriter, best known for her lead singer role in the late 1980s pop band, Transvision Vamp. She is currently the singer in the band Racine.

Transvision Vamp

James was adopted soon after birth, and left home at the age of sixteen, moving to the English seaside resort town of Brighton. Whilst there, she studied drama and English literature at college. After a year, she began singing in a nightclub, where she mainly sang Patti Smith cover songs. There she met Nick Christian Sayer. James and Sayer collaborated on songs (although Sayer was the principal songwriter). Eventually Sayer and James moved to London where they teamed up with friends, Dave Parsons, Tex Axile and Pol Burton. The five formed the pop-punk band, Transvision Vamp and James was the lead singer and focal point of the group who attracted media attention with her sexually-charged and rebellious image.

The band was signed by MCA and released a cover single of the Holly and the Italians song "Tell That Girl To Shut Up" in April 1988 . A month later the follow-up single "I Want Your Love", with its pop/punk crossover appeal, entered the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart. The band went on to release the hit album Pop Art in October. 1989 was the band's most successful year, with the number 3 hit single "Baby I Don't Care" and hit album Velveteen which entered the charts at No.1 and was a hit worldwide. Their Top Ten hits were "I Want Your Love" (UK No.5), "Baby I Don't Care" (UK No.3)

The bands third album, entitled Little Magnets Versus The Bubble Of Babble, was a daring departure from the commercially safe pop/punk songs of their previous two albums. Little Magnets mixed New Wave and 60's sounds and threw in a Bob Dylan cover track. The bands record company MCA, were rumoured to have been unhappy with this new, less radio friendly sound. A single from the album was released, but did not chart very high on the UK charts. The album was never officially released and the band were dropped from their record company soon after.

Transvision Vamp released three albums in total before disbanding in 1993.

Solo career

When the decision had been made for Transvision Vamp to split Wendy wrote a letter to Elvis Costello, asking for guidance and in response Costello wrote a full album's worth of material for her. These songs became the tracks on her solo album entitled Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears (1993).

The album was a commercial failure and James took a hiatus from the music industry.

Racine

In her time away from the music business, James moved from England to New York and learned to write and perform music. In 2004 she returned to the music business as the singer, songwriter and producer of the band Racine.

Band members are Dee Dee Ross, Goldenboy, James Meynell and Ray Sullivan.

Following the release of their first album Racine No. 1, which was released on One Little Indian and Rough Trade Records in September 2006, the band played venues around the UK and in New York.

Racine's second album, titled Racine 2, initially released exclusively on iTunes will be released on Jungle Records January 28th 2008.

The band toured Europe in Spring 2007 playing Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Dublin and Madrid; and toured again in July 2007.

External links

• Racine official site.
• Racine My Space site.
• Fan site.
• VH1 site