Maxine Nightingale

Maxine Nightingale
Nightingale on the Dutch TV program The Eddy Go Round Show, 1976
Background information
Born	(1952-11-02) 2 November 1952 (age 64)
Origin	Wembley, London, England
Genres	R&B, soul, disco
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	1968–present
Labels	Pye Records, United Artists, Windsong Records
Website	Official Website

Maxine Nightingale (born 2 November 1952; Wembley, London) 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, U.K. & 1976, U.S.), "Love Hit Me" (1977), and "Lead Me On" (1979).

One of the three children of Guyanese-born comedian Benny Nightingale and his wife Iris (they also had daughter Rosalind and son Glen), 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 shopped 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.