Bonnie Tyler Opened Up About Singer Who Inspired Her Stage Name and Vocal Surgery That Changed Her Voice in Autobiography

In 2023's Straight from the Heart, the Welsh singer wrote about her personal life, fame and the vocal cord surgery that resulted in her signature raspy sound.

By Sophie Dunne

Sophie Dunne

E-Commerce Writer

Straight from the Heart by Bonnie Tyler

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Born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, a small village in South Wales, Bonnie Tyler grew up in a council house before finding her voice singing with local bands.

The rocker was discovered by talent scout Roger Bell in a Swansea nightclub and signed with RCA Records in 1975, adopting the stage name Bonnie Tyler after combing through a newspaper for inspiration. As she detailed in her 2023 autobiography, “Steven Tyler from Aerosmith must have been in the paper that day because I named myself after him. I always loved the name Bonnie, and they seemed to fit together.”

The singer also wrote about how, after having surgery to treat nodules on her vocal cords in 1977, she was advised not to use her voice for six weeks. When visiting her brother in the hospital during her vocal rest, she let out a scream after remembering she’d forgotten to bring him strawberries and cream. “I was so frustrated that I’d have to drive all the way back home, I let out an ‘Oh no!’ scream,” the singer wrote in Straight from the Heart. The result? A permanently husky voice that would define her successful career.

Tyler detailed her professional ebbs and flows in her autobiography, writing that after a lull, she signed with CBS Records in 1982. The singer expressed interest to A&R head Muff Winwood in working with songwriter Jim Steinman, who wrote Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.” “[Muff] looked like someone had just told him aliens had landed on the roof of the record company,” Tyler wrote. However, after hearing her raspy singing to rock music, he defined her as “an ’80s voice that hadn’t been exploited.” In 1983, she reached global superstardom with the hit single “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. That was followed by “Holding Out for a Hero,” recorded for the soundtrack to 1984’s Footloose starring Kevin Bacon, which hit No. 34 on the Hot 100.

In Straight from the Heart, Tyler also wrote candidly about her personal life. The singer married Robert Sullivan, a British former Olympic judoka and cousin of Catherine Zeta-Jones, in July of 1973. Choosing to prioritize her career, the couple never had children. “My life would have been so different without Robert in it,” Tyler wrote in 2023. “To this day, I look at him and think how lucky am I that we got to live such a fabulous life together.”

As a book description teases, “Bonnie is at last sharing her fascinating journey, and she’s not holding back.” Straight From the Heart is “the incredible story of how a shy, music-loving teenager called Gaynor Hopkins became legendary international superstar Bonnie Tyler, and carved out an extraordinary career that is still going strong to this day.”

Amazon

Narrated by author

Straight from the Heart Audiobook by Bonnie Tyler

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In addition to the physical edition of Tyler’s audiobiography, you can also listen to an audiobook version, narrated by the author in her signature raspy tone, complete with genuine bursts of laughter. The 2023 unabridged Straight from the Heart audiobook has a run time of seven hours and 43 minutes and you can listen to it for just $0.99 right now as part of a new Audible deal onlin e.

Tyler’s health had been declining for months and the singer had been hospitalized since May for emergency surgery on a perforated bowel, after which she was placed in a medically induced coma, and briefly went into cardiac arrest when doctors attempted to bring her out of it.

The pop-rock singer died July 8, in a hospital in Portugal, exactly one month after her 75th birthday and four days after her 53rd wedding anniversary. “Bonnie’s family and team are heartbroken to announce that Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for,” her official Instagram reads. She is survived by her husband, Robert Sullivan.

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Bonnie Tyler Opened Up About Singer Who Inspired Her Stage Name and Vocal Surgery That Changed Her Voice in Autobiography

Sophie Dunne

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