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For more than 50 years, the gravelly voice of Bonnie Tyler was one of pop and rock’s most distinctive.  Whether bringing to life the rootsy “It’s a Heartache” or the majestic theatrical drama of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Tyler sounded like nobody else.  The Welsh singer born Gaynor Hopkins in 1951 died earlier today at the age of 75, following a recent illness that left her hospitalized since May.

Bonnie decided to pursue singing as a career after performing in a talent competition in 1969.  Though she took second place to an accordionist, she was undeterred.  She found work as a backup singer before forming her own band Imagination and taking her first stage name as Sherene Davis.  In 1975, a talent scout saw her performing in Swansea and had her record a demo for RCA.  Impressed, the label signed her to a contract but requested a name change and provided her with a list of first and last names compiled from the newspaper.  Sherene Davis became Bonnie Tyler.  This time, it stuck.

Her first single did not chart, but her second, Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe’s “Lost in France,” hit No. 9 on the U.K. survey in late 1976.  Her debut album, appropriately entitled The World Starts Tonight, hit stores in February 1977.  It did not chart in the U.K. but went to No. 2 in Sweden.  Following the album’s release, Tyler had vocal cord surgery which gave her voice the husky quality for which it became known the world over.

Tyler’s biggest hit for RCA came with Scott and Wolfe’s “It’s A Heartache” in November 1977.  The song topped the charts in Australia and Canada and elsewhere.  It went No. 4 in the U.K. and hit No. 3 in the U.S., her first charting single in the country.  Bonnie recorded four albums in total for RCA through 1981 when she decided to part ways with the label.  Tyler signed with CBS/Columbia and began the search for a new producer.  Her first choice was Jim Steinman, the songwriter behind Meat Loaf’s massive Bat Out of Hell album.  After a falling out with Meat Loaf, Steinman had recorded his only solo album, Bad For Good, in 1981.  Tyler enjoyed the album but Steinman initially was resistant to working with her.  He changed his mind when she sent him a demo.  That decision changed both of their lives.

Steinman produced Tyler’s debut album for CBS, 1983’s Faster Than the Speed of Night.  It became a smash success due to its lead single which would become her defining anthem.  The timeless power ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart” topped the charts in multiple countries, including the U.K. and U.S., where it spent four weeks in the top spot.  Steinman described “Total Eclipse” as “an aria…a Wagnerian-like onslaught of sound and emotion” and though some elements had been poached from earlier compositions, the songwriter confirmed that he was inspired by Tyler’s voice to write it.  Supported by featured vocalist Rory Dodd and musicians including Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, and Rick Derringer, Tyler wrung every once of emotion out of the epic composition, and listeners the world over took to it.  The song went multi-platinum.

Although their careers and legacies will be forever intertwined by the success of “Total Eclipse,” Bonnie Tyler recorded relatively little of Steiman’s material.  The only other song of his on Faster is the title track.  They re-teamed in 1984 for a song which was featured on the Footloose soundtrack, the classic “Holding Out For a Hero,” which Steinman co-wrote with Dean Pitchford.  That tune was then included on 1986’s Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire (which Steinman executive-produced) where it was joined by three other Steinman songs: “Ravishing,” “Rebel Without A Clue,” and “Loving You’s A Dirty Job But Somebody’s Gotta Do It” (a quintessential Steinman duet with Bat Out of Hell producer Todd Rundgren).  Tyler and Steinman did not collaborate again until 1995 when Steinman produced two more songs of his for her Free Spirit album.  The first was an uptempo version of Bat Out of Hell’s ballad “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” and the second was a cover of the Air Supply hit “Making Love Out of Nothing At All,” the song which had been kept from the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983 by none other than “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Tyler returned to her signature song numerous times over the years, often with duet partners.  2003 saw her team with French singer Kareen Antonn for a bilingual version entitled “Si demain (Turn Around)” which topped the charts in France.  Other newly recorded versions of
“Total Eclipse” appeared in 2004 (a duet with Peter Blackhurst which Tyler released in a solo version the next year), 2007 (with BabyPinkStar), 2009 (with Only Men Aloud!), 2011, 2013, and 2021 (as a classical-dance version).  In addition, she recorded live versions of “Total Eclipse” and her other Steinman songs over the years.

In the 1990s, Tyler shifted her recording focus to mainland Europe where she continued to have several hit singles and albums, including Bitterblue, which topped the charts in Austria and Sweden in 1991.  The early 2000s saw her have several hits in France.  In total, Bonnie Tyler recorded 18 studio albums in career (the last being 2021’s The Best Is Yet To Come) together with several live album and EPs.  Her final album released in her lifetime was 2024’s Live In Berlin.  In addition, she has had dozen of compilations released over the years (including Cherry Red box sets dedicated to her RCA and EastWest eras) which have kept her musical legacy in the public eye.  Earlier this year, she released her final single, “One World One Home,” for the documentary Homeless.

Over the course of her impressive career, Bonnie Tyler gave off more than her share of sparks.  Those electrifying musical moments will continue to endure.