About Annabella Lwin
Annabella Lwin မြတ်မြတ်အေး; MLCTS: myat myat e:, 31 October 1966) is an English-Burmese singer, songwriter and record producer best known as the lead vocalist of Bow Wow Wow.
Lwin was born on 31 October 1966 in Rangoon, Burma to a Burmese father and an English mother.
After recording Dirk Wears White Sox as members of Adam and the Ants, Matthew Ashman and David Barbarossa plus new Ants bassist Leigh Gorman were persuaded by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren to leave Adam Ant to form a new band under his management. Liverpool session musician, music director and talent scout Dave Fishel heard thirteen year old Lwin singing along to the radio in a West Hampstead dry cleaners where she worked and convinced McLaren to audition her. Following her successful audition, he had her transfer from a mixed comprehensive school in London to the Sylvia Young Theatre School.
Bow Wow Wow signed a recording contract with EMI Records in July 1980, and released their first single, "C·30 C·60 C·90 Go!", shortly afterwards. Originally only released on cassette, it was the world's first-ever cassette single. EMI did not promote the cassingle due to lyrics that promoted home taping during an era when music piracy was a hot button issue and the use of cassette recorders to record music from the radio was still a controversial practice. The B-side, "Sun, Sea and Piracy", also promoted home taping, then lying on a beach and enjoying the fruits of this labour. Both tracks were on side 1 of the tape, making the second side blank, apparently so that the listener could follow Lwin's lead.
When Bow Wow Wow moved to RCA Records, controversy followed them over to their new label. The album cover of their debut studio album, See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! depicted the band recreating Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe , with a then fourteen-year-old Lwin posing nude. Photographed by Andy Earl, the cover caused outrage that led to an investigation by Scotland Yard, instigated by Lwin's mother. Undeterred, the band used the same photo on the cover of their follow-up extended play The Last of the Mohicans , and the sleeve of the "Go Wild in the Country" single. This picture is now part of the National Portrait Gallery collection.
Another nude photo of Lwin was used for the cover of I Want Candy less than a year later. The title track, a cover of the Strangeloves' 1965 hit originally on The Last of the Mohicans. The single reached No. 9 in the UK Singles Charts in June 1982.
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