NOOSHA FOX

 

Susan Traynor was born in Australia in 1944. She began her music career as a singer in Sydney-based folk rock band Wooden Horse, who moved to England in 1970 and released two LPs 'Wooden Horse' (1972) and 'II' (1973). After the band split up, she provided background vocals on American singer and songwriter Kenny Young's 1973 solo album, 'Last Stage For Silverworld'.

She then joined Fox, the band formed by Young and Northern Irish singer-songwriter Herbie Armstrong. She adopted the stage name Noosha, a corruption of an anagram of her first name (nussa), and in performances wore dresses and accessories in 1920s and 1930s style. With Fox, Noosha achieved three top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart: "Only You Can" and "Imagine Me, Imagine You" in 1975 and "S-S-S-Single Bed" in 1976. She left after their third album, 'Blue Hotel', to launch a solo career. Her first single, "Georgina Bailey", written and produced by Young, briefly entered the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart, reaching #31 in 1977.

In 1979, Noosha Fox tried to restart her solo career with a single, "The Heat Is On", written by Florrie Palmer and Tony Ashton, on Chrysalis Records. A later version of the song, by ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog, was a European hit four years later. In 1980, Fox provided guest vocals for the songs "Perfect Strangers" and "Havana Moon" on Tim Renwick's self-titled debut album. Fox recorded several singles in the early 1980s for the Earlobe label but none were successful, and she withdrew from the music industry. Although she did not write her own songs, her performance style has been credited with influencing Kate Bush and Alison Goldfrapp. It was reported in 2007 on BBC Radio 4's The Music Group that Fox was recording a solo album of electropop but it has not been released.

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