Adele Bertei was born in Cleveland, Ohio, daughter of an Italian immigrant and a ballroom dance instructor. She became a ward of the state in 1967, with the rest of her childhood years spent in foster homes and reformatories in the greater Cleveland area. Emancipated at 17, she worked a series of jobs including OT assistant at a Veteran’s Hospital, and as one of the first women to work on the assembly line at the Ford Motors plant in Lorain, Ohio in 1973.

Her career in music began as singer/guitarist in a rock band called Peter and the Wolves, performing at longshoremen and biker bars in Cleveland. The premature death of bandmate, the legendary Peter Laughner of Pere Ubu resulted in Bertei's move to New York in 1977, where she quickly became a pivotal figure in a counter-cultural movement of art, film, music, and literature. She was an original member of the critically lauded Contortions, produced by Brian Eno on the seminal No New York record. Reading prose and poetry, she opened for writers such as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Kathy Acker among many others. Bertei acted in several underground films, including a lead role in Born In Flames by Lizzie Borden, films by Scott & Beth B., and films by Irish filmmaker Vivienne Dick. She’s been the subject of artists and photographers Kiki Smith, Richard Prince, Nan Goldin, Zoe Leonard, and David La Chappelle.

Bertei has toured the world as a musician with her band, the Bloods – one of America’s first all-girl bands – and as backing singer with Tears for Fears. She has performed and recorded as a backing vocalist for artists such as Thomas Dolby, Culture Club, Whitney Houston, Sandra Bernhard, and Matthew Sweet among others. She released records as a solo artist with both the Geffen and Chrysalis labels and has had international dance and pop hits with Thomas Dolby (“Hyperactive!”) and Jellybean (“Just a Mirage”). Bertei has written songs for artists as diverse as Peter Laughner, Thomas Dolby, Scritti Politti, Sheena Easton, Arthur Baker, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Matthew Sweet, Lydia Lunch, the Pointer Sisters, Jellybean Benitez, and the Anubian Lights.

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Adele Bertei