Annie Lennox

Singer Annie Lennox was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. As a teenager Lennox was awarded a student grant to the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied piano, harpsichord and flute. Although a talented and competent musician, Lennox was unhappy at the Academy and was unsure of where to direct her efforts. She played music with a number of bands independent of her curricular work. Lennox played with a couple of bands including The Tourists, in which she collaborated with guitarist Dave Stewart. It was their second collaborative effort in the 1980s synth-pop band Eurythmics that brought Lennox her first dose of international fame. The duo had a number of pop hits in the '80s, most notably "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and the R&B-influenced "Would I Lie To You?". Lennox and Stewart never formally disbanded Eurythmics, but Lennox began to forge ahead with her own career in the '90s. Her 1992 solo album Diva was a tremendous success, and included singles "Walking on Broken Glass" and "Why." In the late '90s Lennox's public profile lowered, as she became devoted to raising her family, but she released 1995's Medusa, an album of covers, which yielded the single "No More I Love You's" which climbed to the number 2 position on the U.K. Singles chart, Lennox's highest-ever chart position. In 1997 Eurythmics released the track "Angel," for the Diana, Princess of Wales album made as a tribute after the Princess's death. In addition to her musical work Lennox was a political activist, championing causes related to the environment and AIDS activism. Lennox won the Oscar for Best Song for her track "Into the Woods" which appeared on the soundtrack to "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003).