You wouldn't really exepect a R&B artist to appear on these pages. But Gabrielle was never a conventional pop star. She didn't only have R&B/Urban remixers for her work but also dance remixers. And she had 'that' eye patch.
She was something of an outsider at school, a gawky kid with a lazy eyelid (hence the later eye patch), but was inspired to starts writing lyrics and songs after writing poetry in her English lessons. She wrote her first song at the age of thirteen, and would put on lunchtime performances for friends 'until the dinner lady caught me and put a stop to it.'
Gabrielle kept up the music after leaving school, but in distinctly unglamorous circumstances. Doing temp work by day in the Lord Chancellor's office, she performed unpaid in various West End night clubs, until someone she knew lent her the money to record a demo. The resulting track, 'Dreams,' which relied on a sample of Tracy Chapman's 'Fast Car', gained attention from execs at Go! Beat, such that by 1992 Gabrielle put the ink on her first recording contract.
'Dreams' was rerecorded and released in the early summer of 1993, with the Chapman sample removed, and the girl with the eye-patch had a stunning debut single on her hands - the song broke the record at the time for highest chart debut, entering at number two and landing the number one shortly after.
Further single success followed in October that same year, in the shape of 'Going Nowhere', which again reached the UK top ten. Likewise, her debut album 'Find Your Way' was released that month, and reached number nine, selling a million copies globally. The deluge of good news was then capped with her winning the BRIT best newcomer award.
As the stellar successes of her career were only just starting to sink in, domestic life for the singer took a horrific turn for the worse.
Her ex-partner Tony Antoniou, the father of her son, went on trial in Nottingham for the murder of his step-father, just two days before Christmas in 1995 (stabbing him and then beheading him with a samurai sword). The resultant media coverage of the 1997 trial could not have been more unwelcome for the singer, not least because of the knowledge that her son would eventually need to know the full story. Gabrielle has stated that thanks largely to what happened, she has not been able to trust men since, and in fifteen years has not had a meaningful long-term relationship.
Her career faltered although she has continued to make music. From 1996 and 1999:
