Early Life
Tyler was born in Skewen, Neath, Wales to a family that included three sisters and two brothers. Her father, Glyn Hopkins, worked in a coal mine and her mother, Elsie Hopkins (an opera lover), shared her love for music with her children, and was known to have been part of the local church choir. Tyler grew up listening to Motown music and female artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. She concluded her education in the sixties and began working in the local grocery shop, then as a supermarket cashier.
In 1970, aged 19, she entered a talent contest, singing the Mary Hopkin hit "Those Were the Days", and finished in second place, winning £1. She then was chosen to sing in a band with front man Bobby Wayne, known as Bobby Wayne & The Dixies. Two years later, she formed her own band called Imagination (not related to the 1980s British dance band of the same name) and performed with them in pubs and clubs all over southern Wales. It was then that she decided to adopt the stage name of "Sherene Davis", taking the names from her niece's forename and favourite aunt's surname. Despite the two name changes, her family and friends still know her as Gaynor.
On July 4, 1973, she married Robert Sullivan, a real estate agent, Swansea night club manager and Olympic judoka. In 1975, she was discovered by Roger Bell who arranged a recording contract for her with RCA Records. Before signing, she was asked to choose a different stage name and settled on Bonnie Tyler.
Read more about this topic: Bonnie Tyler
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share
They charmed it with smiles and soap.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)