Born on September 10: Carol Decker, the flamboyant voice of T’Pau

Carol Decker was born in 1957 in Liverpool and, alongside a musical career, also has some acting talent.

Always interested in singing (and not just in the shower), she didn't begin to pursue it professionally until 1986 when she founded the band T'Pau with guitarist Ron Rogers, her boyfriend at the time. For those unfamiliar with the world of Spock and the starship Enterprise, their name is borrowed from the Star Trek saga...

After a rather discreet first few steps, the band exploded onto the world stage with the single "Heart and Soul" (1987), which propelled them to the Top 5 in both the US and the UK. As is often the case with such dazzling success, a stroke of luck and a touch of fate proved very useful. Like Nick Kamen in 1985, it was also an advertisement for a jeans brand that acted as a booster; in this case, Pepe Jeans.

The following year, the admittedly somewhat syrupy ballad "China in Your Hand" confirmed the band's success and spent five weeks at the top of the UK charts. Their debut album, "Bridge of Spies," sold over four million copies in the UK alone! From "Rage" (1988) to "Red" (1998), a reference to her flamboyant red hair, none of the next three albums achieved the same success.

After splitting up in 1992, Carol Decker pursued a versatile career in which music was only one element among others. She branched out into acting and landed some notable television roles. She was notably seen on the small screen in "Just the Two of Us" and even appeared in "Black Mirror."

But the sweet demon of music regularly returns to haunt her, and she doesn't hesitate to relaunch the T'Pau adventure with a few anniversary tours, festivals that play on 80s nostalgia, and even a few new songs for "Pleasure & Pain" (2015), her latest album.

Like many artists of her generation, as she approaches 70, Carol Decker has also seen fit to write down her memories in an autobiographical book bearing the title of her first hit, "Heart and Soul."

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Carol Decker with her band T’Pau in Knokke (Belgium) on September 18, 1987