Diane Renay (born July 13, 1945), born Renee Diane Kushner, is an American pop

singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

, best known for her 1964 hit song, "

Navy Blue Navy blue is a very dark shade of the color blue. Navy blue got its name from the dark blue (contrasted with naval white) worn by officers in the Royal Navy since 1748 and subsequently adopted by other navies around the world. When this color ...

Early life

Renay was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

South Philadelphia South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south and the Schuylkill River to the west.Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. She started singing at an early age and took

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

lessons from Artie Singer, a voice teacher who also managed

Danny and the Juniors Danny & the Juniors are an American doo-wop and rock and roll vocal group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania originally consisting of Danny Rapp, Dave White, Frank Maffei and Joe Terranova. Formed in 1955, they are most widely recognized for thei ...

(of "

At the Hop "At the Hop" is a 1950s pop song written by Artie Singer, John Medora, and David White and originally released by Danny & the Juniors. The song was released in the fall of 1957 and reached number one on the US charts on January 6, 1958, becomi ...

" fame). Singer encouraged Renay to pursue a

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

career. Renay attended

Northeast High School (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Northeast High School is a high school located at 1601 Cottman Avenue (at Algon Avenue) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Northeast is one of the oldest high schools in Philadelphia, founded in 1890 as the Northeast Manual Training School. Before 1 ...

Career

Record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

Pete DeAngelis was a frequent customer at the Kushners' family jewelry store, and Renay's parents arranged for her to audition for him. DeAngelis, impressed with her talents, got Renay signed to the

Atco Records ATCO Records is an American record label founded in 1955. It is owned by Warner Music Group and operates as an imprint of Atlantic Records. After several decades of dormancy and infrequent activity under alternating Warner Music labels, the comp ...

label A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed ...

. Under the new stage name Diane Renay, she released her first

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

, " Little White Lies", in 1962, but it failed to chart nationally, as did the follow-up, "A Dime a Dozen", and Atco dropped her from the label. However, Bob Crewe, who had

written Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...

and produced material for Renay's second recording session, then signed her to a new recording contract whereby he would write and produce records for her. Under Crewe's guidance and signed to the 20th Century label, Renay, then 17 years old, released her biggest hit, "Navy Blue", in late 1963. The song told the story of a girl, lonely for her steady boyfriend away from home in the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

and anxious to see him again. "Navy Blue", composed by Crewe with Bud Rehak and

Eddie Rambeau Eddie Rambeau (born Edward Cletus Fluri; June 30, 1943) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. Career While performing in a high-school musical he had written, Rambeau met songwriter and musician Bud Rehak, who went on to become his ma ...

, became a national smash, reaching No. 6 on the Hot 100 on 14–21 March 1964, and soaring to No. 1 on the

Adult Contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

singles chart. The song was followed by Renay's debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...

, also titled ''

''. Renay's only other single release to crack the national ''Billboard'' chart was " Kiss Me Sailor", reaching number 29 later in 1964. Subsequent singles, including "Growin' Up Too Fast", "Watch Out Sally", "It's In Your Hands", and "Happy Birthday Broken Heart", were hits in certain local markets such as

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

and

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, but failed to break nationally. Renay moved to the Fontana label in 1969 and attempted a comeback with covers of " Yesterday" and "

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me" is a song written by Harry Noble and originally performed by Karen Chandler in 1952. It has been re-recorded several times since then, the most notable covers being by Mel Carter in 1965 and Gloria Estefan in 1994. ...

", but these also failed to chart. She did not record again until the early 1980s. Renay remains active as a performer today and in 2001 released ''Diane Renay Sings Some Things Old and Some Things New'', a double- CD compilation album of her work (including many previously unreleased tracks) from the 1960s through the 1990s.

Album

Singles

Bibliography

* Larkin, Colin. ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', 3rd edition, Macmillan, 1998. * Ruppli, Michel; Novitsky, Ed. ''The Mercury Labels. A Discography'', Vol. V., record and artist indexes, Greenwood Press, 1993. * Whitburn, Joel. ''The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits'', 5th edition, Watson-Guptill Publications, 1992.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Renay, Diane 1945 births American women pop singers Living people Musicians from Philadelphia 20th-century American Jews Jewish singers MGM Records artists 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American women 21st-century American women