Sheila B. Devotion

Sheila started her musical career in 1962, after being noticed by Claude Carrère, a French music producer and songwriter. This collaboration lasted more than 20 years but ended in 1995 with a lawsuit in which she won a royalties battle against her former producer. Sheila had numerous hits in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, playing the well-behaved young girl. The first was "L'école est finie" (School is over), in 1962 (1 million copies).[1] In the Eight Women movie, Ludivine Sagnier sang her 1963 "Papa t'es plus dans l'coup" (Daddy, you are not in on it anymore) hit. Sheila's music also features in the 1996 French film Une robe d'été (A Summer Dress). The character Sébastien is a fan of Sheila, and Sheila's version of Cher's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" is on the soundtrack. In 1977 she came back as Sheila and B. Devotion (in some countries records were under the name "Sheila B. Devotion"; in others, under "Sheila and Black Devotion") and changed her style to disco. She also started singing in English. She again enjoyed success, with hits like "Spacer" (from the album King of the World, produced by Chic), which was later sampled for the song "Crying at the Discothèque" by Swedish pop group Alcazar, "Love Me Baby" and a "Singin' in the Rain" cover. Having ended her collaboration with Carrère at the beginning of the 1980s, she took a new musical direction in 1983 when she met Yves Martin, a composer and producer who became her husband. Her new songs were critically acclaimed, but, becoming disillusioned with the music business, she abandoned her music career between 1989 and 1998. However she had a successful comeback in 1998 with a new CD of re-recordings of her hits and some new songs, which went gold within one month of release. Sheila is still popular, performing successful concerts in 1998 and 2002 at the Olympia, and in 2006 at the Cabaret Sauvage with an unplugged concert. It has been six years since her last studio album, Seulement Pour Toi, but her complete recordings were issued in an 18 CD box set in 2006, which included more than 400 songs, unknown tracks, alternative takes, duets, TV performances and German, Italian, Spanish and English versions of her hits.