Taylor Dayne life and biography

Taylor Dayne was born Leslie Wunderman before later adopting her current stage name. She is an American pop vocalist, songwriter, and dance artist.Taylor Dayne first came to many music fans' attention with her 1988 debut album on Arista, Tell It to My Heart. The title track rocketed to Top 10 status, and the album garnered her four New York Music Award nominations. Follow-up songs "Prove Your Love" and "I'll Always Love You" also received a fair amount of radio airplay, but Dayne's second album, Can't Fight Fate, has brought her another smash hit with the single, "With Every Beat of My Heart." Edwin Miller summed up the singer's powerful vocal style thus in Seventeen: "Personality she's got."

Dayne grew up in Long Island, New York. Her earliest ambition was to be a singer, and she was active in her elementary school choruses, often performing solos. She began listening to rock music when she was in junior high, and when she reached high school, Dayne sang with her boyfriend's band. She confided to Miller: "The other boys [in the band] didn't like me. They were intimidated because I sang better than they rocked." The group entertained at school dances, and performed songs made famous by the Allman Brothers, Joni Mitchell, and Joe Walsh.

When Dayne went to Nassau Community College to study philosophy, she hooked up with a band called Felony, where she sang duets with a male vocalist. Felony played its own compositions, and Dayne told Miller that she "loved getting away from singing somebody else's music.... That was my introduction to original music, learning how to write and interpret." Around the same time, she began taking classical vocal lessons. Though Dayne has made her mark in the pop genre, she offered this advice for aspiring singers, as quoted by Miller: "Never study with somebody who says they can teach you how to sing pop correctly. What's pop? Get to the fundamentals. Do the basics!"

After Felony broke up, Dayne had a stint with a pop group called the Next, and eventually decided to forsake philosophy, fearing that the only thing she could do in the field was teach. She started working harder on her music career, cutting a demo tape in Los Angeles, California, and sang in New York in front of record-company talent scouts, but with few results. Somewhere along the line she recorded two singles under the name Leslee; these also went nowhere. Dayne was performing in a Russian-American nightclub in Brighton Beach, New York, "belting bawdy Russian songs," in the words of People magazine, when she came to the attention of Arista Records. Anxious to distance herself from her previous unsuccessful recordings, she was aided in her search for a new stage name by friend Dee Snider of the rock group Twisted Sister, who suggested she use a male-sounding one and helped her come up with Taylor. Dayne found the last name in a baby book, according to Miller.

Once Dayne was under contract with Arista, things moved quickly. Tell It to My Heart was recorded in six weeks; as Miller reported, "songs were picked to spotlight [Dayne's] range and power, with its strong rhythm and blues influences." The title cut was described in People as a "catchy dance tune," and "Prove Your Love" is in a similar vein. "I'll Always Love You," according to People, "is an R & B-flavored ballad that Dayne hopes ... will establish her as the white soul singer she longs to be." Aside from the hit, "With Every Beat of My Heart," Can't Fight Fate also includes the ballad "Love Will Lead You Back."

As an actress, Dayne appeared in the 1997 Sci-fi television series Nightman as Carla Day, a singer who is also the leading character's love interest, performing many jazz songs alongside Marc Bonilla and Dragonchoir. Later on, she performed on Broadway in Elton John's Aida in 2001. She has had roles in independent films such as Fool's Paradise (1997), Stag (also in 1997) and Jesus the Driver (2004), as well as the Warren Beatty-produced 1994 remake of Love Affair. Dayne also had a recurring role on the Showtime series Rude Awakening.Taylor Dayne was featured in the VH1 series Remaking, which featured her close friends, Leah Remini and Michelle Reid (also referred to as the Don on VH1). The series documents Dayne's return to music after taking time off to have a family, (she has twins, Levi and Astaria via a surrogate mother), and premiered her newest song, "Right Now", a result of her collaboration with Rodney Jerkins.

Dayne also appeared as a guest duet partner on the Fox TV show Celebrity Duets which aired in August and September 2006. She was paired with contestant Jai Rodriguez on the 4th episode which aired September 14, 2006.
On December 11, 2007, Dayne released the first single, "Beautiful", from her studio album Satisfied. The song is written by Taylor Dayne and Hitesh Ceon of production-team 3Elementz. Dayne has been promoting the single on many radio stations, including top markets including New York's WKTU. "Beautiful" went to #1 on the Billboard Charts. She also appeared on The Today Show, Chelsea Lately, Wake Up With Whoopi and VH1. The music video for the single and the Satisfied album cover were shot by Tony Duran, who has also shot album covers for Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez.

She released her fifth album in February 2008 to positive reviews - her first recording studio album for over eight years. Producers on this record include Rick Nowels and Gregg Alexander. The album includes both new material and recreations of some of her favorite contemporary songs.Dayne appeared in the CMT series Gone Country during its third season. Gone Country season 3, aired on the CMT network January 24, 2009 and its finale aired on March 7, 2009. The chosen winner was Sheila E.

In July 2010, she released "Facing a Miracle", the official theme song to the 2010 Gay Games. Dayne performed the song to an audience of 50,000 fans on July 31, 2010 in Cologne, Germany. It ended the year at #9 on Perfect Beat's Top Worldwide Singles of 2010.Five years before, however, she replied to the question what her thoughts on gay marriage were: "In the eyes of the Kaballah, [gays] can't be 'married.' That requires actual male and female energy and DNA. In the bigger picture, I think that 'marriage' is about a certain circuitry. I'm as married to my business manager as I would be any husband."

Taylor Dayne is currently working on remastering her Greatest Hits album. She released a new single called "Floor on Fire" on 22 June 2011, which broke the Billboard Dance/Club Charts Top 10! which will also be included on the Greatest Hits album along with new tracks.

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