1979 An English Rose

This was the year I fell in love really seriously, and of course when that happens it influences your taste in music. The Jam were not appropriate for romantic candle-lit evenings. Judie Tzuke definitely was. I was surprised how entranced I was by her sugar-sweet hit single "Stay with me til Dawn", but her album "Welcome to the Cruise" was full of great songs. It accompanied me on my epic Inter Rail holiday, as I went north through Scandinavia and back down to Helsinki to stay with Jussi; then back to Amsterdam for the first time (some Golden Earring to accompany that segment of course), the night train south to Ventimiglia and back to Diano Marina where we met up with Jussi and Hexi again, and then on to the island of Rab, while Pete went further on, to Greece. 

Judie Tzuke was a favourite for several years afterwards. She was great live, her pure voice needing no enhancement. Everyone thought of her as the quintissential English rose; hardened male rock fans acted completely out of character by throwing red roses to her.

So it came as something of a shock to find, thanks to Wikipedia, that Judie is in fact of Slavic stock. Her parents emigrated from Poland, and Tzuke is her original Polish family name. With hindsight, as I watch these old clips of her now, I should have bloody guessed it ages ago...