Susanne Sulley
| Susan Ann Sulley | |
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Sulley in 2007
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Susan Ann Sulley |
| Also known as | Susanne Sulley Susan Ann Gayle |
| Born | 22 March 1963 |
| Origin | Sheffield, England, UK |
| Genres | Synthpop |
| Occupation(s) | Vocalist |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Labels | Virgin Records, A&M, EastWest, Papillon |
| Associated acts | The Human League |
| Past members | |
| Audio sample | |
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Sulley's highest profile vocal role. 1995 single "One Man in My Heart"
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Susan Ann Sulley (born 22 March 1963), formerly known as Susanne Sulley and Susan Ann Gayle, is a British singer and one of the two female vocalists of the synthpop group The Human League.
Born and raised in Sheffield, England, as a schoolgirl in 1980 Sulley (aged 17) and her friend Joanne Catherall were "discovered" in the Crazy Daisy Nightclub in Sheffield by Philip Oakey, the lead singer and a founding member of The Human League. The pair were invited to join the new line-up, initially as dancers and incidental vocalists (and, as Oakey puts it, "to provide some glamour") for a European tour. They soon were asked to provide full vocals by Oakey as an experiment. The girls' distinctive vocals rapidly became a signature of the new Human League, changing the band's style, its appeal to the mainstream public, and to its subsequent commercial success.
Recruited into The Human League at age 17, she is a joint business partner in the band which is recording and performing to this day. The Human League has dominated Sulley's life; she has been a singer all her adult life and has never had any other full-time job.
Joanne and I weren't ambitious; we didn't want to be in a pop group. We were just two girls at school who wanted to go to university.
Sulley was born in Sheffield, UK on 22 March 1963. She was raised and spent all her early years in the Gleadless suburb of the city. For her final education she attended the city's Frecheville Comprehensive School from the late 1970s until mid 1981. Her best friend from the age of 13 was fellow lifelong Sheffield resident and Frecheville student Joanne Catherall. By early 1981 she was calling herself 'Susanne Sulley', a familiar amalgamation of her two first names, a nickname by which she had been casually known at school. In 1980 while still at school she had a part-time job in a Sheffield hairdressing salon and a casual summer job selling ice cream at a Sheffield cinema, the only jobs she has had in her life apart from music.
The story of how Sulley and Joanne Catherall came to join The Human League, although verified by all involved, was questioned at the time in some quarters as a modern Cinderella story or a deliberate publicity stunt.
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Wikipedia