1. Early life

2. Career

3. Personal life

4. Death

5. Discography
    Singles  EP  Compilations 

6. See also

7. References

8. External links

Lynn Annette Ripley^[1] (15 July 1948 – 21 May 2015), better known by the stage name Twinkle, was an English singer-songwriter. She had chart successes in the 1960s with her best known songs, "Terry" and "Golden Lights".

Early life

Born in Surbiton, Surrey into a well-to-do family, Ripley was known to her family as "Twinkle". She attended Queen's Gate School with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and was the aunt of actress Fay Ripley.^[1]

Career

Twinkle owed her rapid entry into the recording studio at the age of 16 to her then-boyfriend, Dec Cluskey, of the popular vocal group The Bachelors, who was introduced to her by her sister, a music journalist, and who passed on to his manager a demo that Twinkle's father played to him.^[3] Her song "Terry" was a teenage tragedy song about the death of a boyfriend in a motorcycle crash. Big Jim Sullivan, Jimmy Page and Bobby Graham were among the high-profile star session musicians who played on the recording,^[2] which conjured up a dark mood with its doleful backing vocals, spooky organ, 12-string guitar and slow, emphatic rhythm arranged by Phil Coulter. The theme was of a common type for the era, it bore some similarities to the Shangri-Las' slightly earlier "Leader of the Pack" (1964), but the record caused a furore, accusations of bad taste leading to a ban from the BBC.^[2]

The follow-up, "Golden Lights", was also written by Twinkle, with a B-side again by producer Tommy Scott.^[3] By then Cluskey was her ex-boyfriend: Twinkle dated Peter Noone in 1965.^[4] The lyrics express disillusionment with the pop business: her EP track "A Lonely Singing Doll", the English-language version of France Gall's 1965 winning Eurovision Song Contest song for Luxembourg, "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", originally written by Serge Gainsbourg, returned to a theme similar to "Golden Lights". "Johnny" continued to explore dangerous territory, this time that of a childhood friend who becomes a criminal, but it seems the pressure to produce "another Terry" led her producers to pass over her own material, for "Tommy", a song written for Reparata and the Delrons and "The End of the World" a tune composed for Skeeter Davis. Twinkle made few live appearances but performed "Terry" at the annual New Musical Express hit concerts.^[5] After recording six singles for Decca Records she "retired" at the age of eighteen in 1966.^[2]

In 1969 she recorded a self-written single, the Tamla Motown-styled "Micky", backed by "Darby and Joan", both produced by Mike d'Abo (also among the relatively few pop musicians of a privileged background in that era) for the Immediate label.^[4] The single vanished, unpublicised. In the ensuing years, unsigned and working in music for advertising, she recorded a suite of songs inspired by her relationship with "Micky", the actor/model Michael Hannah, who was killed in an air-crash in 1974. These remained unreleased until they were included on CD compilations. Her later recordings appeared under the name Twinkle Ripley. She recorded a 1975 single, "Smoochie" with her father, Sidney Ripley as "Bill & Coo".^[6]

In the 1980s "Golden Lights" was covered by The Smiths and appeared on their compilation albums The World Won't Listen and Louder Than Bombs while in 1983 Cindy & The Saffrons covered "Terry".{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}

Photographic publicity portraits of Twinkle taken in the mid-1960s are exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery.^[7]

Personal life

In 1972, she married actor-model Graham Rogers,^[8] who starred in the Milk Tray chocolate adverts. They had two children, Michael and Amber.^[9]

Death

On 21 May 2015, Twinkle died at 66 on the Isle of Wight, after a five-year battle with cancer.^[10]

Discography

Singles

for

//Decca Records">Decca Records

• "Terry" (Twinkle) b/w "The Boy of My Dreams" (Tommy Scott) (1964) UK No. 4
• "Golden Lights" (Twinkle) b/w "Ain't Nobody Home But Me" (Tommy Scott) (1965) UK No. 21
• "Tommy" (Taylor, Bradtke, Daryll) b/w "So Sad" (Tommy Scott) (1965)^[11]
• "Poor Old Johnny" (Twinkle) b/w "I Need Your Hand in Mine" (Tommy Scott) (1965)^[12]
• "The End of the World" (Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee) b/w "Take Me to the Dance" (Tommy Scott) (1965)
• "What Am I Doing Here With You?" (Sloan, Barri) b/w "Now I Have You" (Tommy Scott) (1966)

for

//Instant Records">Instant Records

• "Micky" (Twinkle) b/w "Darby And Joan" (Twinkle) (1969)

for Bradleys Records, as Twinkle Ripley

• "Days" (Twinkle Ripley) b/w "Caroline" (Twinkle Ripley) (1974)

for Bradleys Records, as duo Bill & Coo

• "Smoochie" (Jim Jim) b/w "I Always Love You" (Jim Jim) (1975)

for

//EMI Records">EMI Records, as Twinkle

• "I'm a Believer" (Neil Diamond) b/w "For Sale" (Twinkle Ripley and Simon Darlow) (1982)

EP

• Lonely Singing Doll (Decca, 1965) "A Lonely Singing Doll", "Unhappy Boy", "Ain't Nobody Home But Me" and "Golden Lights"

Compilations

• Golden Lights (1993)
• Golden Lights:Special Edition (2001)
• Michael Hannah: The Lost Years (2003)^[14]

See also

• List of performers on Top of the Pops
• Beat-Club

References

External links

• Biography and discography at 45-rpm website
• {{YouTube|user=TwinkleRipley|title=Twinkle (singer)}}

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