Bonnie Tyler Opened Up About Singer Who Inspired Her Stage Name and Vocal Surgery That Changed Her Voice in Autobiography
Categoria: Musica
In 2023's Straight from the Heart, the Welsh singer wrote about her personal life, fame and the vocal cord surgery that resulted in her signature raspy sound.
Por Billboard | 10/07/2026
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Three years before Bonnie Tyler died, the singer-songwriter released her autobiography, Straight from the Heart , chronicling her upbringing as a shy girl in a Welsh mining village who quickly rose to international fame, while detailing the moment she changed her voice — and life — forever. Related Lululemon's Rare Sale Is Live With Align Pants, ABC Trousers & Summer Styles From $19 Bonnie Tyler’s Billboard Chart Legacy: ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ & Beyond Opetaia Foa'i Calls Adding 'Authenticity' to 'Moana' Through Pacific Island Languages 'A Huge Win' The stories are compiled in a 240-page memoir released by Coronet Books in 2023. A hardcover version of the book is available now on Amazon , with a paperback edition scheduled to be released on July 21 . It appears as though the paperback release date had been set for some time, now made more poignant in light of the singer’s death. 2023 AUTOBIOGRAPHY Straight from the Heart by Bonnie Tyler $32.92 Buy Now On Amazon Born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, a small village in South Wales, Bonnie Tyler grew up in a council house before finding her voice singing with local bands. The rocker was discovered by talent scout Roger Bell in a Swansea nightclub and signed with RCA Records in 1975, adopting the stage name Bonnie Tyler after combing through a newspaper for inspiration. As she detailed in her 2023 autobiography, “Steven Tyler from Aerosmith must have been in the paper that day because I named myself after him. I always loved the name Bonnie, and they seemed to fit together.” The singer also wrote about how, after having surgery to treat nodules on her vocal cords in 1977, she was advised not to use her voice for six weeks. When visiting her brother in the hospital during her vocal rest, she let out a scream after remembering she’d forgotten to bring him strawberries and cream. “I was so frustrated that I’d have to drive all the way back home, I let out an ‘Oh no!’ scream,” the singer wrote in Straight from the Hear t. The result? A permanently husky voice that would define her successful career. Tyler detailed her professional ebbs and flows in her autobiography, writing that after a lull, she signed with CBS Records in 1982. The singer expressed interest to A&R head Muff Winwood in working with songwriter Jim Steinman, who wrote Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.” “[Muff] looked like someone had just told him aliens had landed on the roof of the record company,” Tyler wrote. However, after hearing her raspy singing to rock music, he defined her as “an ’80s voice that hadn’t been exploited.” In 1983, she reached global sup