GILBERT
O'SULLIVAN Singer/songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan successfully combined a flair for Beatlesque popcraft with an old-fashioned music hall sensibility to emerge as one of the most distinctive and popular new performers of the early 1970s. Born Raymond O'Sullivan in Waterford, Ireland he went on to attend art school in Swindon, England, writing songs throughout his formative years and sending out demo tapes to little avail. After graduating he went to work in a London department store; one of his co-workers there was under contract with CBS, and soon O'Sullivan was signed to the label as well. The wit and craft of O'Sullivan's music aside, much of his early success was predicated on his unusual image - at the peak of the hippie movement, he resembled nothing so much as a Depression-era street urchin, complete with pudding-bowl haircut, short pants, and flat cap. As quickly as O'Sullivan ascended to fame, however, his star began to fall. Although singles like "Ooh Baby" and "Happiness Is Me and You" continued to chart, they sold increasingly fewer copies, and after 1973, his overseas popularity essentially ceased altogether. |
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