June 8: Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler is 62-years-old today.

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Born Gaynor Hopkins on June 8, 1951 in Skewen, Wales, Bonnie Tyler began her musical carrier as a local singer in Swansea. She came to prominence with the release of her 1976 album The World Starts Tonight and its singles "Lost in France" and "More Than a Lover." Her 1978 single "It's a Heartache" was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching number one in several European countries and breaking the American charts.

After winning the 10th World Popular Song Festival with 1979 single “Sitting On the Edge of the Ocean,” Tyler converted from country music to rock music. Her career peaked in the 1980s with her Jim Steinman collaboration, releasing international hits "Total Eclipse of the Heart," "Holding Out for a Hero," "If You Were a Woman and I Was a Man" and "Here She Comes."

Tyler’s shift from rock to soft pop in the 1990s led to further success in continental Europe with singles "Bitterblue" and "Fools Lullaby." With German producer Dieter Bohlen, Tyler had continued success with three albums before releasing in the UK and America again, and her 1995 single "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" narrowly missed the UK Top 40.

Bonnie with Kareen Antonn à la Cigale

Making a comeback in 2004, Tyler released "Si demain... (Turn Around)" with Kareen Antonn, which was a number one in France for ten weeks, selling over 700,000 copies. On September 26, 2011, Sony Music released a compilation entitled Best of 3 CD, which featured two new tracks; a duet with French singer Laura Zen entitled "Amour Éternel (Eternal Flame)," and "Under One Sky," a song written by Paul D. Fitzgerald, the main songwriter on Tyler's 2005 album Wings. The compilation reached #36 in France and #48 in Belgium. It was first released to French radio stations on 29 August 2011.

In recent years Tyler has appeared on several UK TV shows, making a cameo appearance on Hollyoaks Later, toured with Robin Gibb in 2010 and Status Quo in 2012. Her latest album Rocks and Honey has had modest success in Europe, with her latest single "Believe in Me" being used as the UK’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013.

Tyler's latest compilation, All The Hits, is due to be released in June 2013, her first compilation in two years.

With a career spanning nearly four decades, she has won three Goldene Europa awards, an Echo Award, and has been nominated for three Brit Awards and three Grammy Awards.
Her distinctive husky voice as a result of an operation to remove vocal nodules has had her compared her to artists such as Rod Stewart and Kim Carnes, and in combination with her career success, has led to her being recognised as the British First Lady of Rock, with an estimated 80 million records sold in her career.

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For more about Bonnie, visit her Website at –

http://www.bonnietyler.com/

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