Humble Beginnings : Sharleen Spiteri
By Asserta
Inchconnachan Avenue, Balloch, Dumbartonshire
Sharleen Spiteri is famous for having gone from Glasgow hairdresser to smouldering sex queen of British pop. But the fabled gritty background of the Texas lead singer more accurately has its roots on the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond.
Sharleen and her sister Corinne were born in suburban Glasgow, but spent their formative years in nearby Balloch, Dumbartonshire, a small town on the shores of the famous Loch. Here, violin-playing father Eddie, a merchant seaman of Italian-French extraction, and mother Vilma, a singer of German-Irish roots, spent much of their time taking tomboy Sharleen to hospital (her nose was broken four times in various outdoors adventures: fractures elsewhere were common).
School was the Vale of Leven Academy in neighbouring town Alexandria, where activities included mountaineering, climbing and abseiling. Sharleen became hooked on adrenaline. "When anyone looked for me I was always up high."
She planned to enrol in the Glasgow School of Art, but while still at school got a Saturday job cutting hair with the international hairdressing chain, Irvine Rush.
At 17 she moved to a one-bed rented flat in Glasgow for full-time hairdressing work; there she met Johnny McElhone, former member of Scots pop band Altered Images and Hipsway. He asked her to audition for his new band Texas. Their first song, I Don’t Want a Lover, leapt straight into the Top Ten in 1988.
After a lull, the band made a massive come-back in the late Nineties earning Sharleen, 33, a slavish following among women as well as men. As befits Scotland’s highest paid company director (pocketing a cool £1.6m last year) she now lives in more glamorous surroundings.
Her two homes include a house in south Glasgow, complete with conservatory and recording studio, and one in Primrose Hill, north London, belonging to long-term boyfriend Ashley Heath, editor of Arena magazine. Sharleen says her priority now is her home life. "We sit down, have our dinner and discuss things that we want to get done in the house. I love DIY. I love going to Do It All."
But Sharleen claims her heart is in the Highlands. She regularly goes mountain climbing around Loch Lomond, "to get away from ‘popstarbubbleland’. It’s my reality check".
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