Helen Reddy - THE Woman I am

Helen Reddy

Born: 25 October 1941, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Died: 29 September 2020, Los Angeles, California, United States

For Jordan, Traci, and Lily my legacy so far

Published 2006

This ePub edited October 2020

From Wikipedia : Reddy announced her retirement from performing in 2002, giving her farewell performance with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. The same year, she moved from her longtime residence in Santa Monica, California, back to her native Australia to spend time with her family, living first on Norfolk Island before taking up residence in Sydney.

She also earned a degree in clinical hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming. She was a practicing clinical hypnotherapist and patron of the Australian Society of Clinical Hypnotherapists.

At a ceremony in August 2006, Reddy was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame by actress singer, Toni Collette, who described her song, "I Am Woman", as "timeless." The song was performed by fellow Australian, Vanessa Amorosi.

In April 2008, Reddy was reported to be living "simply and frugally off song royalties, pension funds, and social security...[renting] a 13th-floor apartment with a 180 view of Sydney Harbour." Her apartment had been recently appraised, causing Reddy concern over its future affordability; however, the New York-based landlord learned his tenant's identity and wrote her: "I had no idea it was the Helen Reddy who was living in my unit. Because of what you have done for millions of women all over the world, I will not sell or raise your rent. I hope you'll be very happy living there for years to come.

For several years, Reddy maintained that she would not return to the stage. In 2008, she stated, "It's not going to happen. I've moved on," and explained that her voice had deepened to a lower key and she wasn't sure if she would be able to sing some of her hits. She also said she had simply lost interest in performing. "I have very wide-ranging interests," she said. "So, singing 'Leave Me Alone' 43 times per song lost its charm a long time ago."

In 2011, she was interviewed by Australian television, and said she was very happy to be retired from show business.

In 2012, Reddy decided to return to performing after being buoyed by the warm reception she received when she sang at her sister's 80th birthday party. "I hadn't heard my voice in 10 years, and when I heard it coming over the speaker, it was like: 'Oh, thats not bad. Maybe I should do that again,'" Reddy explained in 2013.

Being more in control of her performances also appealed to Reddy, who said, "I have more leeway in the songs that I choose to sing. I'm not locked into what the record company wants." She explained, "One of the reasons that I'm coming back to singing is because I'm not doing the greatest hits. I'm doing the songs that I always loved. So many are album cuts that never got any airplay, and they're gorgeous songs." She also performed many of her best-known songs, including, "Angie Baby," "You and Me Against the World", a medley of "Delta Dawn"/"Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady," and "I Am Woman," reasoning on the latter that the audience "comes to hear" it.

She said she refused to sing "Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)" because she disliked the monotony of the repeated chorus. "They used to have a contest on the radio that you could get two free tickets to Helen Reddy's show if you could tell us how many times she sang "leave me alone". I think it was like 42 times," she said.

Reddy appeared in downtown Los Angeles at the 2017 Women's March on 21 January. The march for women's rights and unity following the inauguration of Donald Trump brought out 750,000 people. Reddy was introduced by actress Jamie Lee Curtis and sang an a cappella version of "I Am Woman".

In August 2015, unnamed sources revealed that Reddy was diagnosed with dementia and had moved into the Motion Picture and Television Fund's Samuel Goldwyn Center, where she was cared for by family and friends.

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1. In the Beginning

2, Dont Put Your Daughter on the Stage

3. Radio Days

4, All in the Family

5. Its Nice to Go Traveling

6. Sowing a Family Tree

7, The Korean War

3. The Awakening

9, Therell Be Some Changes Made

10. On the Road Again

11, I Could Go On Singing

12, If Its Magic

13, Melbourne to Sydney

14, Sydney to Melbourne

15. Melbourne to Sydney, Take Two

16. The Contest

17. Coming to America

18. New York, New York

19. Chicago

20. California, Here I Come

21. Capitol Gains

22. If at First You Dont Succeed

23. The Best of Times; the Worst of Times

24, Growing a Family Tree

25. Starry, Starry Nights

26. You Cant Go Home Again

27. Leaving Las Vegas

28. Is There a Doctor in the House?

29. Movin On Up

30. Family Ties

31. Royalty and Reincarnation

32. From London to Sydney

33. The AIDS Epidemic

34. Capitol Losses, Grosses, and Net

35. Back to Basics

36. Lets Go On with the Show

37. London to New York

38. A Weekend in Ireland

39. On Tour with Willy Russell

40. Mothers and Daughters

41, Diana

42. Toward the Millennium

43. Diagnosis Coming Up

44. Nancy

45. Christmas Angels

46. Hypnotherapy

47. Past, Present, and Future

48. Life Lines

Epilogue

I cant say I was born in a trunk although I have slept on top of one. My parents, Max Reddy and Stella Lamond, were vaudevillians and one night in Sydneys Kings Cross, the four of usmy parents, my big sister, and Iall had to share a room with only one bed. My mother pulled a chair up to one end of my fathers sturdy wardrobe trunk that was lying flat on the floor. Using the chair seat cushion as a pillow, the top of the trunk became my bed for the night. Dont get the idea that we were homeless, though, we were just on the road.

Before I was born Mum and Dad had rented an unfurnished two-bedroom flat on Riversdale Road in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne, for two guineas a week. Knowing Dads shopping style, Im sure that he and Mum went to a furniture store and bought the basics in one afternoon. There was the mandatory three-piece lounge suite; a dining table with chairs; and, for the master bedroom, a suite consisting of a double bed, a dresser with a large round mirror, and two matching maple wardrobes. However, their nesting instincts were no match for the smell of the grease paint and the roar of the crowd; my parents were gypsies to the end. Dads maple wardrobe, wedged into a corner and empty except for two ties, stood next to his trusty cabin trunk, upright and open, with drawers on one side and hangers on the other. That trunk would be used as Maxs wardrobe for as long as he lived. Although my parents would call the Hawthorn flat home for the rest of their lives, they never really moved in. It was more like a home base for two vaudevillians always waiting for their next show.

My earliest memory is of crawling from my bedroom into the bathroom of that flat; from the green floral-patterned linoleum of the room I shared with my big sister to the red-painted, cool stone floor of the bathroom. I guess even then I loved the smell of newsprint because I was after a page from the old telephone book that hung on a nail beside the toilet. Wartime rationing had made toilet paper a rare luxury. My mother was not happy to find me there, contentedly chewing away on the names, addresses, and phone numbers of Melbournes fair residents and, with a few harsh words, I was whisked back to my room.