After Dinner Speakers: Beverley Craven, Sue Townsend, Kate Bush

Beverley Craven's mother is from Devonshire and her father from Leeds, but she was born on 28th July 1963 in Sri Lanka while her father was working there for Kodak. Two years later the family were back in Hertfordshire and Beverley began taking piano lessons at seven, encouraged by her mother, an accomplished classical violinist. At first, Beverley concentrated more on her swimming than her music and she swam in the Hertfordshire county championship. "I didn't buy my first pop record until I was 15" she admits. "It was 'Telephone Line' by ELO. A bit later I got into singer/songwriters like Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Kate Bush, people who made pop records that were very musical and very personal". After leaving school, Beverley moved up to London and began writing her own songs. Bobby Womack was so impressed by her demos that he offered to bring Beverley to the US and sign her to his own production company. She politely declined, but toured Europe as one of Bobby's backing vocalists for several month, including, a major AIDS benefit concert at London Wembley Arena. Beverley searched for the right people to guide her career and handed out cassettes to anyone she met. One such tape fell into the hands of John Glover (Manager of Go West) and he decided that he should be the one to sign her for management. Beverley's self-titled debut album was released in July 1990. By the end of her first tour, in February 1991, her album began to sell steadily and the single "Promise Me" reached number 3 in the U.K. singles chart on May 20th. Her album reached the 1 million sales mark in January 1992 and turned double platinum in the UK. It reached also Gold status in France and Ireland, and Silver in Holland. In February 1992, Beverley Craven performed at the Brits Award show. She was nominated in three categories (Best British Newcomer, Best Female Artist, Best British Album), and she wons the Best British Newcomer Award. Beverley was eight months pregnant when she sang at the Brits. She gave birth to her first child, Mollie Megan on the 7th March 1992 at 10:30 pm. Her second album "Love Scenes" was released in 1993 and reached number 4 in the UK album charts.