SIOBHAN FAHEY, founding member of Bananarama, is to receive The Irish Post Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.
“I’m truly honoured to accept this award from my fellow Irish men and women. Growing up on English soil with Irish roots has shaped my journey and continues to inspire everything I do!” Siobhan said.
Bananarama in 1984 (image in public domain)FROM DUNSHAUGHLIN TO SUPERSTARDOM
From the beginning of the 1980s until mid-decade Bananarama were, quite simply, the greatest pop group of the age. They had great songs, great voices — but they also had attitude.
Fans loved them for that indefinable and very elusive aura: star quality.
Born in Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath, Siobhan has two younger sisters, Maire (who played Eileen in the video of the 1982 song Come On Eileen, (a Dexys hit) and Niamh, a producer and editor. Her parents came from Tipperary.
Siobhan lived in Ireland before the family moved to England, then to Germany, and back to England when she was nine years old. Aged 14, she and her family moved to Harpenden, Hertfordshire where she attended a Catholic boarding school
Aged 16 she left home for London to become immersed in the punk scene of the late 1970s.
She once declared: “I've always been an outsider; a displaced person." Siobhan later expounded on that by saying: “I never belonged anywhere. I just felt like a creature from another planet."
Siobhan performing in LA (Photo by Timothy Norris/Getty Images)ON THE ROAD
Although music has always played a big part in her life, it wasn’t Siobhan’s first calling. She studied fashion journalism at the London College of Journalism. But it wasn’t to her liking — music beckoned. London was the epicentre of the world music business,
She met Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward — and before long the band was on its way, rising, one might say, out of the ashes of punk.
Their influences ranged from ska to hi-NRG disco and even a spot of Swahili as in Aie A Mwana. The had ten top-10 hits including the US number one hit single Venus, also a number one in Australia — their biggest hit ever.
They sang petty much in unison — an unusual musical departure, but one that gave Bananarama powerful vocals, adding to their overall image as very strong women, in an industry dominated by men.
Siobhan left Bananarama in early 1988. She was replaced by Jacqui O’Sullivan, the lead singer of the Shillelagh Sisters.
In 2017 Siobhan rejoined the other original members of Bananarama for a UK tour, and, in 2018, a North America and Europe tour took place.
The genesis of the band was in the London College of fashion where Siobhan met Sara Dallin in 1980. Along with Keren Woodward, they founded Bananarama with the help of Sex Pistols musician Paul Cook and recorded their first demo Aie A Mwana.
Bananarama then worked with the male vocal trio Fun Boy Three, releasing two top-five singles with them in early 1982 before having their own top-five hit with Shy Boy later that year. Siobhan, with Dallin and Woodward, co-wrote many of the group's hits, including Cruel Summer, Robert De Niro's Waiting..., I Heard a Rumour, and Love in the First Degree.
Siobhan later formed the critically acclaimed and artier Shakespears Sister who had a UK number one hit with the 1992 single Stay. She said: “I have this massive love for the whole culture of pop music... It's my fascination, my on-going passion.”
Music superstar — Siobhan FaheyON THE SILVER SCREEN
* In 1994 Siobhan Fahey portrayed a fan-dancer in the art-house made-for-television film Jiggery Pokery directed by videographer/photographer Sophie Muller.
* In 1997 she appeared opposite Martin Dunne in the Irish short film Pinned directed by Ciaran Donnelly
SIOBHAN IN HER OWN WORDS
* Speaking about the 1980s she said: “What’s completely extraordinary now is that there were four women in the whole of the Band Aid gathering: me, Sarah and Keren from Bananarama, and Jody Watley. We were the only four women involved! That’s a reflection of how few women were actually making records at the time.” (quoted in Loud Women)
* "Pop music allows you to be who you are without having to wear a social uniform."
* "We were signed to a label that wanted us to remain little girls who appealed to other little girls, who were cute and non-threatening."
BANANARAMA BRIEF & FAHEY FACTS
* Siobhan Fahey is the first Irish-born woman to have written two number one singles on the Irish charts.
* Between Bananarama and Shakespears Sister, Siobhan has sold over 40 million records worldwide and achieved 24 hit singles
* Bananarama said no to a big money advert for curling tongs in the US, just after their first hit single over there. They said it was “so far removed from who we are”.
* Bananarama were the biggest girl group of the 80s, and one of the biggest pop bands of all time. They were undoubtedly the blueprint for the Spice Girls, although their beginnings were markedly different. Described by The Guardian as “the punks who became pop stars”, they espoused feminism.
* Bananarama got their name from two of their biggest influences: the Roxy Music song Pyjamarama and the children's TV show The Banana Splits.
* Bananarama’s Venus was a number one single both in America and Australia.
* Shakespears Sister’s Stay was a number one single in the UK for 8 weeks.
* Siobhan received a Brit and Ivor Novello Award for her work in Shakespears Sister.
* Siobhan has appeared on Top of The Pops over 20 times.
The Irish Post Awards take place on November 7
JW Marriott Grosvenor House London.
For more information visit the Awards website here
