Barbara Pennington

Barbara Pennington - On A Crowded Street (1985)

Barbara Pennington was born in 1950s Chicago and began her musical career when Hi-NRG and Soul record producer Ian Levine came to the United States in search of new talent for his record label. In terms of vocal exuberance, her voice may be compared to that of singer Chaka Khan, also a native of Chicago.

After a slow start, Pennington eventually scored music hits in the UK, the first of which, "Running In Another Direction", was followed by "Twenty-Four Hours a Day". By the early 1980s, she had scored several disco hits, then several more Hi-NRG hits across mainland Europe. Her Stateside success was more variable, but not a failure. "Twenty Four Hours a Day" also became a disco hit in the U.S., peaking at #4 on the Club Play Chart, and "You Are the Music in Me" which peaked at #20 in 1977.

Her single "On a Crowded Street", from the album Out of the Darkest Night, became popular on both sides of the Atlantic in 1985. Follow up singles such as "All American Boy", "Don't Stop the World", "Way Deep Down in My Soul", "Fan the Flame", and "Out of the Darkest Night" all became major European hits, while remaining relatively unknown in the U.S.
Barbara Pennington retreated from the public arena in the early 1990s. Her final release to date was the 1995 compilation The Very Best of Barbara Pennington. Wikipedia