Gale Garnett

Gale Zoë Garnett, born on 17 July 1942 in Auckland, New Zealand, is a Canadian singer, actress, and author. She relocated to Canada with her family at the age of 11 and began her public singing career in 1960, simultaneously pursuing acting through guest appearances on television programs including 77 Sunset Strip.

In 1963, Garnett made her New York nightclub debut at The Blue Angel Supper Club and signed with RCA Victor Records that same year. Her original composition "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" became a major commercial success in the fall of 1964, reaching number four on the pop charts, spending seven weeks at number one on Billboard's Adult Contemporary singles chart, and crossing into the Top 50 on the country chart. The song sold over one million copies and earned gold disc status. At the 1965 Grammy Awards, it won Best Folk Recording, and Garnett received an additional nomination for Best Vocal Performance Female. Her debut album, My Kind of Folk Songs, was released on RCA Victor during this period. Her follow-up single, "Lovin' Place," was the only other charting single she placed in the United States. During the peak of her popularity in the mid-1960s, she appeared twice on ABC's Shindig! and on The Lloyd Thaxton Show. She also provided voice work for KOIT-FM in San Francisco during the station's progressive rock era from 1968 to 1970.

Garnett continued recording through the remainder of the 1960s with her backing band the Gentle Reign, releasing two albums that reflected psychedelic influences. She also delivered a vocal performance in the Rankin-Bass animated feature Mad Monster Party?, contributing to songs including "Our Time to Shine" and "Never Was a Love Like Mine."

Her stage career brought her to Broadway in 1974, where she appeared in the play Ulysses in Nighttown. The following year, she participated in an off-off-Broadway production of Starfollowers in an Ancient Land, written and directed by H.M. Koutoukas and staged at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City's East Village. In addition to performing in the cast, Garnett co-wrote the music for that production alongside Tom O'Horgan.

By the 1980s, Garnett had stepped away from recording, though she continued to take on acting roles in film and television. She appeared in the 2002 film My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She also expanded her work into journalism, contributing essays, columns, and book reviews to newspapers and magazines, and wrote and performed two one-person theater pieces, Gale Garnett & Company and Life After Latex. Her published fiction includes the novel Visible Amazement (1999), Transient Dancing (2003), the novella Room Tone (2007), and Savage Adoration (2009).