Maxine Nightingale

Maxine Nightingale (born 2 November 1952) is a British R&B and soul music singer. She is best known for her hits in the 1970s, with the million seller "Right Back Where We Started From" (1975, UK & 1976, U.S.), "Love Hit Me" (1977), and "Lead Me On" (1979).

Early life/career

One of the three children of Guyanese-born comedian Benny Nightingale and his wife Iris (they also had daughter Rosalind and son Glen)¹, Maxine Nightingale first vocalized with her school band. At thirteen, she and a friend visited a neighborhood house where the band Unisound was rehearsing. They asked her to sing with them and she joined them in performing extensively on the British cabaret circuit. The manager of one of the clubs where they performed asked Nightingale to cut a demo and shipped it to Pye Records, for whom Nightingale made her first recordings. Despite being overseen by label A&R head Cyril Stapleton, Nightingale's three Pye single releases—issued in June and July 1969 and 26 March 1971—went unnoticed.

In 1969 Nightingale began a tenure of roughly 18 months in the West End production of Hair, playing a supporting role and understudying the female lead role of Sheila; she then relocated to Germany, having formed a relationship with an actor from the German production of Hair whom she had met when he visited the West End production. In Germany, Nightingale continued her stage musical career in Hair (as Sheila), Jesus Christ Superstar, and Godspell, and she began a relationship with Minoru Terada Domberger, the director of the German production of Hair, which led to marriage and a daughter, Langka Veva Domberger, born in 1973.

First hit

Nightingale returned to London with her husband and daughter and appeared in the West End production of Savages, after which she withdrew from professional performing. According to Nightingale, "I started doing session singing. I didn't do a lot but it was easy to go out in the evening when the baby was sleeping." Her vocalizing on the recording of Al Matthews' "Fool" caught the attention of the session's producer Pierre Tubbs, enough that he asked composer J. Vincent Edwards to write a song for her. Edwards, who had worked with Nightingale in the West End production of Hair, convinced her to record the song, "Right Back Where We Started From", overcoming Nightingale's initial refusal and disinterest in a second attempt at a recording career. She recorded "Right Back Where We Started From" with the understanding it would be issued under a pseudonym. (Nightingale also had to be convinced to take a royalty rather than a onetime $45 session fee.)

After being released on United Artists Records (in Nightingale's true name), "Right Back Where We Started From" reached #8 in the UK in the autumn of 1975. It was released in the US early 1976 to enthusiastic reaction, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1976. Nightingale, who had accompanied her husband to his native Japan, was motivated by her single's US success to return to London to complete a Right Back Where We Started From album. She then proceeded to the US, which has since remained her home base.

Later career

Nightingale's only significant hit in the period following the success of "Right Back Where We Started From" was in the UK with "Love Hit Me" the title cut from her second album. Promoted by Nightingale in a Top of the Pops appearance broadcast 17 March 1977, "Love Hit Me" peaked at #11 on the UK chart dated 9 April 1977.

Her third album Love Lines was a 1978 release in the UK and Europe with UK single releases "Lead Me On" and "(Bringing Out) The Girl in Me". Both were overlooked despite her promotion of the latter in another Top of the Pops appearance on 8 June 1978. The US release of "Lead Me On" early in 1979 met with a favorable reception, especially in the easy listening market, and the track reached #1 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart that July;² the track gradually accrued enough mainstream pop support to reach #5 on the Hot 100 that September. As with "Right Back Where We Started From", she was unable to follow up her US Top Ten success, the subsequent "(Bringing Out) The Girl in Me" marking her final Hot 100 appearance with a #73 peak. Lead Me On is a re-packaged and slightly remixed version of the previous European LP with the addition of a new song, the disco-styled "Hideaway". The songs "Lead Me On" and "Hideaway" were extended for a promotional 12-inch record.

Nightingale reached the Top 20 on Billboard's R&B chart for the first time in 1982 with "Turn to Me", a duet with Jimmy Ruffin. She then dropped out of the pop mainstream, working for some 20 years as a more jazz-oriented live performer. She has reportedly recorded an album of her live performance at B.B. King's Club at Universal Studios Hollywood although it remains unreleased. Since 2000, she has become active on the retro music circuit, appearing in the 2004 PBS music special Superstars of Seventies Soul: Live. In February 2008, she undertook a club tour of Australia.

Discography

Albums

• Right Back Where We Started From (1976) (US:#65), (US R&B:#38), (CAN:#59), (SWE:#47)
• Love Hit Me aka Night Life (1977)
• Love Lines (UK) (1978) aka Lead Me On (US) (1979) (US:#45), (US R&B:#35)
• Bittersweet (1980)
• It's a Beautiful Thing (1982) (US:#176), (US R&B:#35)
• Cry for Love (1986)

Singles

1969:

• "Talk to Me"/ "Spinning Wheel" Pye 7N.17739 (UK)
• "Don't Push Me Baby"/ "Thru' Loving You" Pye 7N.17798 (UK)

1971:

• "Love on Borrowed Time"/"It's That Hurtin' Thing" Pye N.45046 (UK)

1975:

• "Right Back Where We Started From"/ "Believe in What You Do" UP 36015 (UK)

1976:

• "Right Back Where We Started From"/ "Believe in What You Do" UA-XW752-Y (U.S.)
• "Gotta Be the One"/ "Can't Get Enough" UP36086 (UK)
• "Gotta Be the One"/ "One Last Ride" UA-XW820-Y (U.S.)
• "(I Think I Wanna) Possess You"/ "Life Has Just Begun" UP 36120 (UK), UA-XW865Y (U.S.)
• "I Wonder Who's Waiting Up for You Tonight"/ "Bless You" CM-63 (Japan)

1977:

• "Love Hit Me"/ "Life Has Just Begun" UP 36215 (UK)
• "Love Hit Me"/ "If I Ever Lose This Heaven" UA 944 (U.S.)
• "Will You Be My Lover"/ "How Much Love" UP 36283 (UK), UA 1015 (U.S.)
• "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)"/ "You Are Everything" UP 36320 (UK)
• "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)"/ "I Wonder Who's Waiting Up For You Tonight" UA 1086 (U.S.)
• "Right Now"/? UA#? (U.S.)

1978:

• "Lead Me On" / "No One Like My Baby" UP 36447 (UK)
• "(Bringin' Out) The Girl in Me"/ "You Are the Most Important Person in Your Life" UP 36395 (UK)

1979:

• Lead Me On/ "Love Me Like You Mean It" ("Forest For the Trees" on early pressings) Windsong CB-11530 (U.S.)
• "(Bringin' Out) The Girl in Me"/ "Hideaway" Windsong CB-11729 (U.S.)

1980:

• "All Night With Me"/ "Work On It" UA_BP 375 (UK)
• "All Night With Me"/ "Tight Spot" RCA 12117 (U.S.)
• "Take Your Heart"/ "Why Did You Turn Me On" Liberty BP384 (UK), RCA 12020 (U.S.)

1982:

• "Turn to Me" (with Jimmy Ruffin)/ "Give a Little Love (to Me)" Highrise 2004 (U.S.)
• "I Don't Miss You at All"/ ? Highrise #? (U.S.)

1986:

• "My Heart Knows"/ "Same Refrain" Mercury 884562 (France)