She's precocious, and she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush

Happy 80th birthday today to the multi-talented Miss Jackie DeShannon!

As I said way back in 2009:

Born the humbly-named Sharon Lee Myers, Miss De Shannon was a major collaborator over the years with such diverse artists as Ry Cooder, Randy Newman and Van Morrison, supported the Beatles on their first American tour in 1964, dated Elvis Presley AND Jimmy Page, and on the way wrote songs for Marianne Faithfull, The Byrds and Irma Thomas, had some hits of her own such as Bacharach and David's What The World Needs Now Is Love, and wrote When You Walk in the Room for The Searchers... Whew!

Let's celebrate the lady's songwriting talents, shall we? I featured her Grammy-winning Put a Little Love In Your Heart back in 2013, so we'll start this cavalcade of song instead with her own version of that Searchers hit:

Jackie DeShannon - When You Walk In The Room

Brenda Lee - Dum Dum

Tracey Ullman - Breakaway

Marianne Faithfull - Come And Stay With Me

Annie Lennox and Al Green - Put A Little Love In Your Heart

And finally, in my opinion, Miss DeShannon's magnum opus...

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

Talent, indeed.

And she'll tease you, she'll unease you

Having overslept this morning and had to rush across London to Waterloo Station, in order to catch the train booked by my sis and head to the South Coast to spend the day in Portsmouth visiting The Mother, I am quite understandably a bit knackered...

I also realise that among the "consecutive Diva birthdays" that occur at the time of year, I neglected one of the most important of our Patron Saints, the magnificent Miss Bette Davis - whose birthday it would have been yesterday.

Miss Kim Carnes had the perfect tribute - a song that never fails to lift the spirits, and just what I need to wind down as I head off to bed...

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

Faboo.

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (5th April 1908 – 6th October 1989)

She'll tease you, she'll unease you, all the better just to please you

Happy 65th birthday today to one of the lesser-known stalwarts of the music scene in the USA, Jackie DeShannon!

Born the humbly-named Sharon Lee Myers, Miss De Shannon was a major collaborator over the years with such diverse artists as Ry Cooder, Randy Newman and Van Morrison, supported the Beatles on their first American tour in 1964, dated Elvis Presley AND Jimmy Page, and on the way wrote songs for Marianne Faithfull, The Byrds and Irma Thomas, had some hits of her own such as Bacharach & David's What The World Needs Now Is Love, and wrote When You Walk in the Room for The Searchers... Whew!

As if that weren't exhausting enough, back in the 1980s it was with Miss DeShannon's song that Kim Carnes conquered the musical world...

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

Jackie DeShannon official website