Annie Lennox

About Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish musician, vocalist, Academy Award-winning songwriter. She is both a solo artist and the lead singer of the musical duo Eurythmics, hailed as "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" by members of the rock industry on the VH1 show 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll in 1999. Both as a solo artist and with Eurythmics, Lennox has sold 80 million records. Her voice range is contralto.

She was born Ann Lennox on Christmas Day, 1954, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Her father worked at the shipyard, and her mother was a cook until she became a housewife. Lennox was an only child and the family lived in a small two-roomed apartment in a block of flats with communal laundry facilities. Her father and his family were musical and enjoyed singing, and also her father learned to play the bag pipes, which Lennox enjoyed listening to. Lennox had piano lessons at school from the age of seven years at the cost of £4.00 per term, which was a lot for the family to afford. She was interested in singing and, with plenty of time by herself, passed some of the time by singing along to the popular music of the time, including music by the The Beatles. She was an unhappy teenager, partly because of a struggle over boundaries for her independence with her father, who was protective of her. She attended Aberdeen High School for Girls, now Harlaw Academy.

Lennox won a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied the flute and classical music for three years. As a student she realised that her flute playing was mediocre in comparison to some of her talented peers; although, previously she had thought that she was a good flute player. She lived on a student grant and worked part-time jobs for extra money. Lennox was unhappy during her time at the Royal Academy partly because she was lonely and shy, and she missed many history of music lessons.