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Artist
Alison Burns
12+ albums
smoothCanadiantorch songsella fitzgeraldPeggy Lee
about
Alison Burns is a Scottish-Canadian jazz singer. She began her recording career as a member of a Scottish three-part female harmony group called The Penny Dainties and more recently, as well as solo recordings, she has recorded as Alison Burns & Martin Taylor. For Burns, a lifelong love of music started at home, with an early education in the Great American Songbook from a father who played guitar and a mother who would carry the guitar case into his gigs. As a young girl in Dundee, an industrial city on the east coast of Scotland, the dreams were of singing and acting in Hollywood and the soundtrack was Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, and Bessie Smith among many others. The road to a recording career has been an inspiring one. From being the first female apprentice engineer in the famous Timex watch factory at the age of 16 (complete with curls and a full face of make up!) to being sacked from a bingo calling job, to the tragic circumstances which encouraged her to make a leap of faith into performing from a secure but unsatisfying job. The death of her brother Alan, who was serving in the Falklands brought home the reality of a life lived unfulfilled. While acting, singing and presenting, her band The Rainmates were offered two record deals but the time didn't feel right. Her heart took her back to the songs of the 1940s and the close harmony groups such as The Dinning Sisters. This led to the formation of a three-part female harmony group, The Penny Dainties. Not only did the Penn
