Lynsey de Paul

They were a Jewish family with a Dutch, Austrian and German background, and had one other child, John (b. 1944).

She studied classical music with a tutor from the Royal Academy of Music.

She attended South Hampstead High School followed by Hornsey College of Art, now part of Middlesex University.

De Paul later claimed that she and her brother suffered physical abuse at the hands of their father.

In one incident as a student aged 19, de Paul was concussed for two days following a fight with her violent father, prompting her to leave her comfortable family home for a two roomed flat above an Indian restaurant near her College.

Lynsey de Paul (born Lyndsey Monckton Rubin; 11 June 1948 – 1 October 2014) was an English singer-songwriter and producer.

After initially writing hits for others, she had her own chart hits in the UK and Europe in the 1970s, starting with UK top 10 single "Sugar Me", and became the first British female artist to achieve a number one with a self-written song (in 1972 in Belgium, Spain and The Netherlands).

Three of de Paul's earliest songs were co-written with Don Gould (formerly a member of The Applejacks) and recorded by Oliver! performer Jack Wild: "Takin' It Easy" and "Bring Yourself Back To Me" from the album Everything's Coming Up Roses, which was released in 1971.

"Bring Yourself Back To Me" was also the B-side to Wild's 1971 US single "(Holy Moses!) Everything's Coming Up Roses".

Another song co-penned by her, this time with Edward Adamberry, called "E.O.I.O.", was recorded by Wild as a track on his 1972 album A Beautiful World, and also released as a single by The Beads as well as an album track "Io...Aio (EEO-EIO)" by the Italian group Domodossola (band) on their album "D... Come Domodossola".

After these initial successes, she was contracted to ATV-Kirshner music publishing (now Sony Music Publishing) by Eddie Levy when she was 18 years old.

ATV Music was located above the Peter Robinson's store on Oxford Street, where she joined a group of professional songwriters that included Barry Blue (at that time known as Barry Green) and Ron Roker (later to become Barry's brother-in-law), resulting in revenues from songs recorded by other artists.

Her first major breakthrough came early in 1972 as the co-writer (with Ron Roker) of the Fortunes' Top 10 UK hit "Storm in a Teacup".

De Paul performed the song the same year on the BBC's The Two Ronnies.

Canadian singer Ginette Reno recorded a French language version of the song ("Dans la vie, tout s'arrange") which reached No. 2 on the French-Canadian Top 10.

Around this time, she also had chart success in Malaysia and the Netherlands as the writer of "On the Ride (You Do It Once, You Do It Twice)", a Top 30 hit by the Continental Uptight Band, and also "When You've Gotta Go", an Australian chart hit recorded and released by Solomon King.

All three songs credited her as 'L. Rubin'.

Other notable songs from this period included "Papa Do", which was released by Barry Green as a single, and made the lower reaches of the French singles chart, as well as "Crossword Puzzle", also co-penned with Barry Green and which led to an appearance on Top of the Pops and Saturday Variety for the Irish singer Dana.

"Crossword Puzzle" peaked at No. 2 on the Bangkok singles chart.

De Paul's own versions of both of these two songs would later be found as tracks on her debut album, Surprise.

"Boomerang", the B-side to "Papa Do" and another de Paul/Blue collaboration was released as a single in the UK by "The Young Generation", a group of dancers and singers recruited by Dougie Squires and they performed it on their BBC prime time TV show while a French version was also released by "Jane and Julie".

Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band recorded their version of "Boomerang" in 1972, which appeared on their 1998 compilation album and their 2016 album, Geno!.

In an interview with Cashbox in early 1972, Don Kirshner said "We are looking for another Carole King. We think we found her in Lynsey Rubin."

Although she had recorded demo versions of her songs.

De Paul was initially a reluctant performer.

She wrote the song "Sugar Me" for Peter Noone, but her boyfriend at the time, Dudley Moore, suggested that she take a demo version to Gordon Mills, who urged her to record it herself and release it on his MAM record label.

Explaining her change of name from Rubin, she said: "There had just been the massacre of Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympics and I was told that it would be better not to have an obviously Jewish name. For my stage name I took De from my mother's maiden name, De Groot, and my father's middle name was Paul”. Released as a single on the MAM Records label, "Sugar Me" rapidly reached the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart, as well as the top of the singles charts in the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium. The arrangement featured a distinctive piano counter-melody motif as well as Hammond organ backing, a violin solo and a distinctive whip-crack.

This was the start of de Paul's becoming a regular British chart and TV fixture over the next five years.

Her follow-up single to "Sugar Me" was "Getting a Drag", which reached the UK top 20, as well as being a hit in the official German singles chart.

She appeared on the first episode of the German music show Musikladen on 13 December 1972, where she performed her two German hit singles "Sugar Me" and "Getting a Drag", as well as a few weeks later performing "Doctor, Doctor", which would appear on her debut album a few months later.

She was listed as the best female artist of 1972 by Record Mirror, female performer of the year by Radio Luxembourg as well as the third best female singer in the 1973 New Musical Express (NME) music poll.

In March 1973, her first album, Surprise, was released on the MAM label.

As well as writing or co-writing all of the songs on Surprise, de Paul was also the producer for all of the tracks.

She represented the UK in the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest, scoring another chart-topping hit in Switzerland and had a successful career as a two-time Ivor Novello Award-winning composer, record producer, actress and television celebrity.

Lyndsey Monckton Rubin was born to Meta (née de Groot) and Herbert Rubin, a property developer.

One of their earliest songs (and the only song where all three collaborated) was "Sugarloaf Hill", recorded by the reggae artist, Del Davis and finally released on the CD "Trojan Carnival Box Set" in 2003 under the Trojan Box set series Trojan Box Set series

In his 2015 autobiography, label mate Tom Jones wrote: "We had Lynsey de Paul, a big star, though she fell out with Gordon (Mills) for wanting to produce her own records".

Later that year, after "All Night", her third single, co-written with Ron Roker and released on the MAM label, failed to chart in the UK, de Paul returned to the UK Top 20 with "Won't Somebody Dance With Me", which was also a hit in Ireland and the Netherlands and covered in the US.

According to an interview with Michael Robson, featured in the liner notes to "Sugar and Beyond", de Paul had to fight hard to get this single released - indeed she would have preferred it in place of "All Night" and also to keep the long closing instrumental part of the song.

She was vindicated since it was a chart hit and she was presented with an Ivor Novello Award for the song, the first woman to do so.