Biography

Renée Rebecca Geyer (11 September 1953 – 17 January 2023) was an Australian singer who was one of that country's finest jazz, soul and R&B musicians. She released 15 studio albums with Moving Along (1977) and Tenderland (2003) both reaching number 11 on the Australian charts. Geyer's singles success as a solo artist in Australia were with "It's a Man's Man's World", "Heading in the Right Direction" and "Stares and Whispers" in the 1970s and "Say I Love You" in the 1980s. The latter also reached number one in New Zealand. The singer was an internationally respected and sought-after backing vocalist, whose session credits include work with Sting, Chaka Khan, Toni Childs, Joe Cocker, Neil Diamond, Men at Work and Trouble Funk.

Geyer's autobiography, Confessions of a Difficult Woman (2000), co-written with music journalist Ed Nimmervoll detailed her drug addictions, sex life and career in music. She described herself as "a white Hungarian Jew from Australia sounding like a 65-year-old black man from Alabama." She spent more than 10 years based in the United States while working as a session vocalist, but had little chart success there under her own name. Geyer returned to Australia in the mid-1990s and her career continued into the 21st century. Rock historian Ian McFarlane described Geyer as having a "rich, soulful, passionate and husky vocal delivery". Her status in the Australian music industry was recognised when she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame on 14 July 2005. Geyer and fellow 1970s singer Marcia Hines are the subjects of Australian academic Jon Stratton's 2008 cultural studies article "A Jew Singing Like a Black Woman in Australia: Race, Renée Geyer, and Marcia Hines".