Miriam Stockley - Miriam (1999)

Miriam Stockley Bio

Miriam Stockley (born on 15 April 1962 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a British singer. Her work is influenced by the African music from her home country. She is married to Rod Houison. They have two children, Carly Houison and Leigh Brandon Houison.



At the age of eleven, Stockley and her older sister Avril formed a group, the Stockley Sisters and had a hit with a cover of Shocking Blue's "Venus" in 1976 on the South African Top 30, ten years before Bananarama's version. Later in her life, she moved to London to further pursue her musical career. There, she contributed vocals to several albums, and TV commercials.



During the late eighties and early nineties, Stockley worked as a session singer for the UK song writing and production trio Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Stockley featured on tracks by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Sonia. Alongside fellow session singer Mae McKenna, Stockley is credited with being partly responsible for the distinctive Stock, Aitken and Waterman sound of the eighties.  Stockley provided backing vocals for the United Kingdom's Eurovision Song Contest entry on several occasions, most notably with Emma in 1990 and for Katrina and the Waves when they won in Dublin in 1997.



In 1991, Stockley became a part of the dance group Praise whose single "Only You" reached number four on the UK charts. A year later, the band, with Stockley on vocals, released their second single "Dream On." This failed to have the same success as their previous single and the band decided to call it a day. Later, she was the vocalist for Adiemus with Karl Jenkins.



Stockley has been featured on several film soundtracks, including her cover of the Rose Royce song "Wishing on a Star", which appears on The 10th Kingdom soundtrack.  Her song, "Perfect Day", was the theme song for the BBC children's programme The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends which ran from 1992 to 1995. The song was written by Colin Towns, and has since become unofficially known as 'Theme for the Lake District' by enthusiasts of the show. She has also appeared as a singer on several BBC school's programs, most notably Look and Read. In 2004, Yamaha released Vocaloid software that allows you to synthetically create background vocals; one of the three available voices is based on material recorded by Miriam Stockley.  In December 2006 she contributed as a solo vocalist and as a co-vocalist with Mike Oldfield at the German Night of the Proms tour, consisting of 18 concerts. She also released her third solo album, a collection of rearranged classical standards entitled Eternal in 2006.