26 Mar Susie Vanner: Roger Moore’s Bond Girl, actress, soul singer, and renaissance woman on beating the odds
Bond girl, Northern Soul pioneer, and smooth jazz singer-songwriter – Susie Vanner is a renaissance woman who in 2024 continues to defy the odds, much like she did at the start of her career; breaking glass ceilings and confounding conceptions.
She now announces her brand new album ‘That Kind of Love’ out May 17th and has shared new single ‘The Light’s Gone’.
‘That Kind of Love’ follows on from and expands upon her debut ‘In These Shoes’ from 2020, and features original, immensely personal songs that are lush, slick slices of Smooth Jazz and delicate, classy pop.
The album was recorded with Grammy Award-winning producer Kipper Eldridge, and alongside the original tracks written by Susie (and some co-written with Judi Tzuke), the LP features some choice covers (Feel, Robbie Williams ; Earned it, The Weeknd; Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones).
On the musical direction of the album, Susie says:
“With this album, I wanted to retain some of the Jazz flavours from my debut album, but add a more pop sensibility to it. We have some of the best musicians in London playing on this record but having them play on more simple creates a greater depth and musical meaning.”
The original tracks, including single ‘The Light’s Gone’, though are where Susie shines with deeply personal and heartfelt lyrics, as Susie says:
“The big leap for me on this record was writing songs and daring to release them. Some of the new songs are about my past and others about my imagined future. This album has really helped solidify me finding my own voice, building on the great experience I gained making ‘In These Shoes’ and finding my own voice musically.”
Recorded at Abbey Road, the band put together for ‘That Kind of Love’ is veritable menu of performers that have played with a who’s who of British music including Jamie Cullum, Sting, Amy Winehouse, Damon Albarn, Gary Barlow and Katie Melia. The orchestral arrangements were provided by Guy Barker MBE.
On the album, Kipper says: “This collection of songs charts the last 2 years of Susie’s life, the ups and downs the fun and the sadness. The title track of the album ‘The Light’s Gone’ is both heartbreaking and grateful, honest and reflective and is an amazing heartfelt overview of love and lost love.”
Following the release of ‘In These Shoes’ in 2020, Susie garnered a burgeoning audience of young fans on streaming services – something she could have never expected in her early career, achieving a fame that she was denied when she started her music career.
Susie signed a record deal with RCA at the age of 19 (under the name Sue Lynne), recording a handful of singles that became Northern Soul standards – though of course like many Northern Soul vocalists, she was never given the acclaim as a frontline artist she deserved for these hits.
Following this, Susie had a hugely successful acting career, including as a Bond Girl in the 1977 classic The Spy Who Loved Me (known affectionately as Log Cabin Girl), her stardom was cemented, with whirlwind promo tours and junkets – even to this day she is considered royalty in the Bond family.
However, the through line throughout Susie’s life has always brought her back to music, something that ‘That Kind of Love’ ruminates on both in the present; and its looking towards the future.
