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#3255
Laura
Branigan
Born: 7-3-1957 Died: 8-26-2004....
of a brain aneurysm
Singer/actress Laura Branigan was born on July 3, 1957, in the upstate New York town of Brewster. Her childhood in a upper-middle income family was rather uneventful until her senior year in high school. While a student at Brewster High School Laura won the lead role in the school musical that year....it would change her life and eventually make her a footnote in disco history. Singing around the house was something she never gave much thought to, but after that musical she seriously began considering a career in the entertainment industry.
After graduation Laura, in pursuit of a new dream, moved to Manhattan and enrolled in The Academy Of Dramatic Arts. After several years there she landed a job as backing vocalist for Leonard Cohen. She toured the world with the renowned singer/songwriter throughout 1978-1979.
With a naturally talented voice and a resume with Mr. Cohen listed on it Laura landed an audition with Atlantic Records in 1980. This led to a contract that nearly destroyed her career before it began.
Laura began recording for Atlantic records and her actual first release was the 1981 12" single "Looking Out For Number One." The record bombed out at it's release and is a rare collector's item. During it's release and the subsequent recording sessions Laura decided a management change was needed to best suit her career. A breach-of-contract lawsuit resulted, which held up work commencing on her solo debut album.
In the interim it was decided that "Number One" would not be included on the album, perhaps because of it's poor chart showing? With all legal issues settled and new management in place, recording sessions resumed and the completed album hit the stores in early 1982.
Laura became an international name with the release of the 12" single "Gloria" from this album. That remake of an Italian pop hit entrenched itself in Billboard's Top Ten, peaking at number two and securing itself as a pop/disco classic.
Club music was set for a high-energy revival after the alleged death of disco two years earlier. Rap was in it's infancy and club music had taken a down tempo spiral in the last few years. "Gloria" with it's bright, crisp horns and whirling synthesizers was made-to-order for the dance hungry clubgoers. As a D.J. at the time I remember just a few years earlier playing long sets of music ranging from the 90's to over 200 b.p.m.'s. By the summer of 1982 there was just a handful of new songs above 130 b.p.m's and this climate insured that "Gloria" was played in heavy rotation.
The second 7" single release, "All Night With Me," almost put her back into obscurity, as America proved it wasn't ready for Laura to do ballads just yet. The rest of "Branigan" is less solid and more fluff and failed to produce another disco hit.
Laura's 1983 release, "Branigan 2," shows a more solid cohesive collecton of songs. The first and only 12" single from the album was a wise choice. "Solitaire" was obviously aimed at her disco-based following, particularly the gay male dancers. The high energy number starts out slowly and builds a theatrical crescendo that spotlights her vocals perfectly. Her remake of the Who classic "Squeeze Box" also received club play as did her version of "Deep In The Dark." Although After The Fire's version ("Der Komissar") is the version everyone remembers.
She does a far superior version of Michael Bolton's "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You," though his version was a much bigger hit years later. While Bolton went over the top with his vocals and production, Branigan's take is simpler, prettier, and shows shades of emotion at which Bolton could only hint. It received Adult Contemporary airplay and proved America was finally ready for Laura to do ballads.
With two hits under her belt Laura was urged to spread her creative wings. Her first professional acting gig was a small part on the t.v. show "CHiPs." She played Sarah on an episode entitled "Fox Trap" which aired early in 1983. Other notable television apperances throughout her career include: playing Jessie Cole on an episode of "Automan" entitled "Murder MTV" (1984) and an episode of "Monsters" entitled "A Face For Radio" (1991).
Her film affiliation began not with acting, but with the inclusion of songs on the soundtracks to the wildly successful fims "Flashdance" (1983) and "Ghostbusters" (1984). The songs "Imagination" and "Hot Night" are NOT featured on her own albums.
She did begin acting in movies in 1985. Her role as Monica in "Mugsy's Girls" (a.k.a. "Delta Pi") showed she had a great comedic talent. And she played Kate Lawrence in "Backstage" (1988). The latter was about a pop star that wants to be an actress.....ironic...Laura was a pop star that wanted to be an actress....what a stretch!
Her affiliation with movie soundtracks continued throughout the 1980's. Her songs: "Sharpshooter" from "Body Rock" (1984), "Your Love" from "Salsa" (1988) and "Come Into My Life" (a duet with Joe Espisito of "Brooklyn Dreams") from "Coming To America" (1988) are all available only on the soundtracks.
Her next album, 1984's "Self Control" is her most Euro-dance-pop effort to date. Producer Jack White uses heavy synthesizers to accentuate her gritty vocals to a stunning result. The first 12" single was the title track. A down tempo number about sex on the seedy side of town. The second 12" single was another masterpiece. "The Lucky One" cemented her club fan based thanks to an import remix that is far superior to the American release. "Ti Amo" is the album's theatrical ballad, which works well with breathy, dramatic vocals. And she even pulls off a graceful cover of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" that is clear and simple. However covering "Every Beat Of My Heart" is not as successful. Nor is "Silent Partners," both suffer from over production and seem to bog down. There are two more excellent dance tracks that could have been remixed into 12" singles, "Breaking Out" and "Take Me." All in all her most even album at that point.
Laura began to falter in her quest to be the white, 1980's Donna Summer with her fourth album, which failed to scale the sales heights of her first three, despite another clutch of dramatic, heavily produced Eurodisco tracks, three of which found their way onto the singles charts. The first 12" single was another down-tempo number that suffered from a rival recording. Menudo (featuring Ricky Martin) had more success with "Hold Me" than Gloria did, her version is more than adequate. The second 12" single was the smash hit from the album. "Spanish Eddie" was an uptempo number with an odd street-life lyric that made reference to Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row." For her power ballad single Laura again turned to singer/songwriter Michael Bolton for "I Found Someone," and as she had with "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You," did it much better than Bolton did. A decent album overall but her "sound" was starting to wear thin by this point as sales for the album showed. Dance music was morphing into yet another style and sound and her style of dance music was on it's way out.
By the time of her fifth release in 1987 dance music had shifted to the Stock-Aitken-Waterman "sound." With their mega-success with Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley, Hazel Dean, Mel & Kim and Bananarama to name a few, they had the "midas touch." Laura was wise to get them to produce two tracks for "Touch." They gave her the second biggest club song of her career with "Shattered Glass" and revitalized her sagging career. A trick they would do later for Donna Summer in 1989. They also recorded Laura on the Hazell Dean classic "Whatever I Do, Wherever I Go." Atlantic records missed the opportunity to have another hit with Branigan by not remixing and releasing her version.
Her big, boomy voice is perfect on the moody ballads on this collection, such as "Over Love," "Meaning Of The Word," and "Spirit Of Love," but there are so many of those successfully evocative cuts that the dance songs don't fit as seamlessly as they should. An all S.A.W. dance album would have been more sales successful.
In 1987 the name Branigan popped up a second time when Laura's baby brother jumped on the band wagon. Billy proves that musical talent certainly ran through the family. His 1987 release for Polygram is long out of print. On "Make A Move" the music is irresistibly catchy with its light AOR sound, solid vocals and huge choruses. If you haven't heard this album, you're missing out on one of the best melodic rock gems in the genre!
Though Billy would not have another solo album on his own he did produce tracks for his sister a few years later and can be heard on the soundtrack of "Jumping Jack Flash." Even if I hadn't told you you'd have guessed they were related by their similar looks.
Her 1990 release simply titled "Laura Branigan" was her sixth and least successful album ever. After a three-year hiatus Branigan sounded better than ever. The problem lies in the material and it's drum machine rhythm tracks. The album spawned two 12" singles. A dreadful remake of the Vicki Sue Robinson classic "Turn The Beat Around." Thankfully Gloria Estefan knew that in order to cover a classic disco hit you need to stay faithfull to it's original sound. The second single was "Moonlight On Water" another lackluster offering that never cracked the charts and quickly hit the cut-out bins. Another cover, of the Bryan Adams hit "The Best Was Yet To Come" goes unnoticed as well. Branigan sings with her usual gusto, but even slick producers like Richard Perry and Peter Wolf couldn't animate the material. When you hear this album it makes you wonder...what were they thinking?
Her seventh and final release of new material was 1993's "Over My Heart." A collection of soft rock/ adult contemporary numbers that revealed a more serious artist. No catchy dance numbers here, it's passion, pain and love that she sings strongly about. The album despite being very good failed to find a market and received little or no air-play.
In 1994, Branigan dueted with David Hasselhoff on the track "I Believe" for the Baywatch soundtrack, and a year later, the singer's first hits compilation, the 13-track "The Best Of Branigan," was issued. The 1995 compilation featured her best hit singles and album tracks plus one new number. The new number was a remake of the Donna Summer classic "Dim All The Lights." A 12" single of remixes was issued for it and it received mediocre club play.
In a People Magazine interview in April 2002 Laura finally talked about her marriage and the death of her husband. Branigan, at the time 44, quit the music business in 1994 when her husband, Larry Kruteck, was diagnosed with colon cancer. For two years she nursed him full-time until he died in 1996 at age 58. "That's what I lived for," she says. "It was not even a choice." Paralyzing grief kept her away from a music career for years. But now Branigan is dipping her toes back into the pop scene with a dance remake of ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All," a single that Billboard Magazine editor Chuck Taylor calls a "satisfying high-energy thumper."
While the new single may not stir the same kind of fervor "Gloria" did, Branigan sees her comeback attempt as an emergence from years of mourning. As a 24-year-old in 1981, when she met Kruteck at a Manhattan party, Branigan was on the way up. But Kruteck, a lawyer 20 years her senior, was "not at all threatened" by her career, she says. They married nine months later and, when she wasn't touring, hunkered down at their New York City apartment. "I'd cook. We'd rent movies," Branigan recalls. "We were just great friends."
Then, in 1994, doctors found a grapefruit-size tumor in Kruteck's colon. After surgery and chemotherapy, he was given two months to live -- a prognosis Branigan refused to accept. Branigan put him on herbal treatments; they began spending more time at a beach cottage in the Hamptons, and Kruteck survived for another two and a half years. Says close friend Vicki DePasquale, 52: "A piece of her died with Larry."
For the next five years Branigan did the occasional concert to supplement her royalty income but mostly spent time alone or with close friends, slowly coming to terms with her grief. "It's something you never really get over," she says, "but you put it in a place inside you and deal with it in the way you have to." In early 2001 she finally went back to the studio. But a freak accident in June of that year -- she broke both femurs when she fell 10 feet from a ladder while hanging wisteria outside her three-bedroom lakeside home in Westchester County, N.Y. -- landed her in physical therapy for six months. She still has rods and pins in both legs, but she's back in the studio, recording an album she hopes to release this summer -- and more confident of her talents than ever.
The taste for grunge in the early 1990's nearly derailed her career. But Branigan blames bad management for her decline in popularity. This time she's managing her own career and so far has dates booked through the summer. She's in no hurry, however, to date other men. For now at least, music is her elixir. "Everybody's been through love and pain in their lives," she says, "and that's what music is about."
In 2002 Laura hit the stage with her powerful voice in a New York production of the hit musical tribute to Janis Joplin. She received rave reviews for her performance in "Love, Janis."
Laura was back in the studio working on a new album and performing various concert dates at the time of her passing. The album which was unfinished may still be released. We're glad that someone who has given us so many fantastic disco hits will be forever remembered by millions of fans the world over. We are deeply saddened at the loss of another great talent that is gone too soon.