Rachel Fuller | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1973-07-24)24 July 1973 (age 51) Ipswich, England |
| Genres | Rock, pop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, musician, composer |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, piano |
| Labels | Various |
| Spouse | |
| Website | myspace |
Rachel Fuller Townshend (born 24 July 1973) is a British musician. She is a pop music artist, a composer, and occasional collaborator with her husband rock musicianPete Townshend.
Born inIpswich, England, Fuller later moved with her family toSouthend-on-Sea. She started playing piano at the age of six and composing music at the age of ten, and her original ambition was to be a concert performer. She attended St. Michael's, a private school inLeigh, where her mother was the school deputy.
Rachel Fuller's teenage years were filled with numerous music competitions, songwriting with her best friendMikey Cuthbert and a lengthy stint as an organist in a funeral home,[1] where she performed up to eleven times a day.
As an in-demand orchestrator, with her works recorded by theLondon Chamber Orchestra, Fuller metThe Who'sPete Townshend in 1996, becoming the arranger for hisThe Lifehouse Chronicles album and subsequent concerts at London'sSadler's Wells Theatre.[1]
With Townshend she co-wrote a song titled "It's Not Enough" featured on The Who's studio albumEndless Wire, released in 2006.[2] This song also appeared in Pete Townshend's musicalThe Boy Who Heard Music, along with the song "I Can Fly," written solely by Fuller. Townshend later contributed material to Fuller's musicalAsh.
Cigarettes and Housework, her first album, was released in 2004 after she was signed toUniversal Records byDoug Morris.[3] The album includes musical contributions from Townshend,Pino Palladino andMark Brzezicki. The track "Around This Table" featured a spoken vocal from her friendJerry Hall, who invited Fuller in turn to appear as her sidekick onVH1's reality programKept. Fuller appeared as herself in the episode "Gamesmanship".
Fuller has collaborated withDelerium, performing her own track "Touched" on their 2003 Nettwerk releaseChimera. Her song "Wonderland" was picked for the soundtrack of the movieShall We Dance?, released in 2004[4] on the Casablanca label, starringRichard Gere andJennifer Lopez. In 2006 she released an EP of five songs, calledShine. The songs were partially or wholly reworked versions of ones she had previously released on her first blog, or added toher profile on theIndependent Artists Company website.
Fuller scored a classical adaptation of The Who'sQuadrophenia. The adaptation was issued on CD asClassic Quadrophenia featuring theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra andLondon Oriana Choir, along with tenorAlfie Boe. Pete Townshend andBilly Idol also recorded vocals. The two joined also appeared for the work's live concert premiere, on 5 July 2015 at London'sRoyal Albert Hall.[5]
Beginning in 2005, Fuller hosted the showIn the Attic, a live webcast of music and guests, includingThe Flaming Lips,E,The Raconteurs,Foy Vance,Adele andMartha Wainwright from Townshend's Oceanic studios in London and also from the road at UK summer music festivals.[6] Though casual in presentation, the broadcasts use state-of-the-art satellite broadcast technology and they are an attempt to change the way live performances of musical artists can be accessed.
In 2006 and 2007, Fuller went on tour with The Who, producing live webcasts ofIn the Attic and performing her own music live at various venues, includingSouth by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
In July 2008, feeling she had been neglecting her singer-songwriter side, Fuller embarked on an ambitious week-long journey to record a full album while staying in her flat inKew, west London,[7] limiting her excursions to its few local shops.
Fuller shared the flat with no one aside from Townshend's dog, Wistle (named afterJohn Entwistle), and online fans following each step of the process via a dedicated'Week In Kew' website. She crafted one song each day, writing lyrics on the walls of the flat and documenting the experience in the website blog.[7] Fuller also involved her fans by providing interactive services including a live chat room and forum where users could leave feedback and listen to song samples as they were produced.
At the close of her week in Kew, Fuller made the entire album available for free on the website. The songs are a reflection of the artistic process Fuller experienced, joining personal stories with observations and reflections on her time spent in Kew, as well as an homage to her chat room fans.
On 11 August 2008, a workshop performance of Fuller's musicalAsh was performed at theArcola Theatre in Dalston Kingsland, North-East London, as part of theGrimeborn Festival.[7] With a book byJack Shepherd,Ash revolves around the lives of and relationship between a teenager, Sarah, who works as an organist in a crematorium and feels caged, and her mother, Louise, who by contrast lives a life with even more abandon than that her daughter herself desires. The show examines themes of life and death and contemporary attitudes to both.
Fuller and Jack Shepherd had been introduced by a mutual friend who worked at theGlobe Theatre.Ash contains autobiographical elements of Fuller's life, and as part of research, she and Jack Shepherd visited Southend Crematorium[8] in early 2008.
She resides in theLondon Borough of Richmond upon Thames with her husbandPete Townshend, whom she married in 2016.[4] Rachel is a dog lover and is affiliated with PAAWS Antigua, a non-profit animal rescue shelter inAntigua and Barbuda.
