Post 212 - Renee Geyer - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Renée Rebecca Geyer was born on 11th of September 1953, in Melbourne to a Hungarian Jewish father, Edward Geyer, and a Slovakian holocaust survivor mother, as the youngest of three children. Geyer was named Renée for another holocaust survivor who had helped her mother in Auschwitz after Josef Mengele had assigned the rest of her mother's family to death. At a young age, the Geyers moved to Sydney where her parents were managers of a migrant hostel. Geyer describes herself as a problem child, she attended various schools and was expelled from a private school, Methodist Ladies College, for petty stealing. Her first job was as a receptionist for the Australian Law Society. In 1970, at the age of 16, Geyer's singing career began as a vocalist with jazz blues band Dry Red, for her audition she sang The Bee Gees' hit "To Love Somebody." She left Dry Red for other bands including the more accomplished jazz rock group Sun. The group released one album, Sun 1972 in August 1972, Geyer had already departed in mid 1972 and later joined Mother Earth. RCA, who had released Sun's album,then signed Geyer to a solo contract; however, when it came time to record her first solo album, Geyer, already showing signs of her self proclaimed "Difficult Woman" tag, insisted that Mother Earth back her on the album. Here to download is Renee's Christmas song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" from 2002, she was backed on this by muso's Steve Hadley (bass), Bruce Hames (keyboards), Peter Luscombe (drums) and Shane O'Mara (guitar) who also produced the song.