Renée Geyer had a peerless voice and dogged tenacity — combined, they made her a force of nature

The 1970s gave us some of Australia’s most celebrated and enduring acts, like AC/DC, Cold Chisel, and The Saints to name a few.

But few artists broke ground in quite the same way as the great Renée Geyer.

Geyer, one of Australian music’s most celebrated singers, died this week from complications following hip surgery. She was 69.

“While in hospital, it was discovered that Renée also had inoperable lung cancer,” her family said in a statement released today.

“She was in no pain and died peacefully amongst family and friends.”

Geyer began her singing career as a teenager in 1970, released her eponymous debut solo album in 1973, and remained prolific through that decade, releasing six albums.

While her first couple of records comprised of soul classics that fit her smoky and expressive voice, Geyer and her band began writing their own material and looking closer to home for 1975 album Ready to Deal.

It featured enduring songs like ‘(I Give You) Sweet Love’ – which Geyer co-wrote – and ‘Heading in the Right Direction’, originally released by fellow Aussies Johnny Rocco Band earlier that year.

Following the success of that album, and given how Geyer’s voice and artistry were maturing, the singer decided to move to the United States to attempt to crack that difficult market. A move that resulted in some of Geyer’s finest work.

In 1976, Geyer worked with revered Motown producer Frank Wilson, who’d written and produced for Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Temptations and more.

With Wilson’s help, they enlisted musicians like bassist James Jamerson, guitarist Ray Parker Jr. and backing vocalist Venetta Fields, and made Geyer’s fourth album Moving Along.

“The whole thing was just awe-inspiring,” Geyer told Double J’s Tim Shiel in 2018.

“All my influences were black rhythm and blues artists and here I was with one of the greatest people who produced those people. Curtis Mayfield’s producer.

“It was a big thrill for me, and I was very lucky to be in that situation. I was just in awe the whole time and learned a real lot.

“That’s something that I’m very proud that I actually have that in my catalogue. You know, not many other people can say that they’ve been through that experience. Especially from Australia.”

Geyer was a pioneer. Few Australian soul artists had entertained the idea of mixing it with the legends of the game. But Geyer was no regular artist.

“A self-described ‘white Hungarian Jew with the voice of an old Alabama black man’, Geyer’s husky vocal was a unique and memorable force of nature,” Richard Kingsmill wrote in 2021 for Double J’s list of 50 game-changing women of Australian music.

“Never one to play the game, the game back then wasn’t quite ready for someone like Geyer either.”

Geyer’s unwillingness to blindly follow the whims of her label was exemplified on the front cover of Moving Along, which features a photo of her on its cover. That’s not what the powers that be were hoping for.

“Because I sounded black and was white, they wanted to sort of maybe obscure that whole thing so that people could not find out until they actually saw a picture of me [that] I was white,” she told Double J.

“They were going to put it out with the assumption that I was black.”

Geyer stuck to her guns, though in hindsight thinks she might have been better off following the label’s direction. 

“I should have gone along with it actually,” she said.

“I was just stupid in those days. ‘I should be honest and let them know what I am’. I should have just played the game like they were gonna do.

“They had a good idea, and it would have been good to run with it. I was just a bit stupid in those days.

“I know what they were talking about. It would have been good to sort of play along with it a little bit. I just didn’t have that sense of humour about it in those days.

“I should have looked at it as a publicity thing and not been so precious about it. I look back and know that I would have done it different now but that’s the way you learn as you come along.”

Fact is, Geyer wasn’t completely aware of just how incongruous her voice and look were.

“I shocked a lot of people with the sound of my voice, and I didn’t even know that I had that gift of sounding black and being white,” she said. “That was something that just happened by accident.”

Besides that peerless voice, Geyer’s determination to stick to her guns was one of her most defining attributes.

“Renée lived her life as she performed – on her own terms and to the fullest,” her family’s statement says.

“Beloved and respected, she was a force of nature and a national treasure, and her passing leaves a giant void in the Australian music industry.”

“When my father inducted Renée into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2005, he called her ‘the greatest female singer of my lifetime in Australia … yes, you’re a difficult woman, but you’re bloody fantastic’,” Mushroom Group Chief Executive Matt Gudinski said in a statement to the ABC.

“Renée always did things her own way and we loved her for that.”

“The queen is dead,” Kate Ceberano said today.

“Renée the powerful, the diva, the brutal, the original, the temperamental, the stellar, the shapeshifter, the original, the unforgettable, the irreplaceable Renee!

“I shall forever be indebted to you for carving the word ‘WOMAN’ into the psyche of the Australian music mentality!

“You strutted into our hearts and lives with your soul in your sleeve. And we were friends. Good friends. Even when you hated me you still loved me. I will miss you.”

More than anything though, Renee Geyer was one hell of a singer.

Marcia Hines remembered Geyer as “A game changer. A soul diva. My sister in song.”

Peter Garrett said hers was “One of the very best voices we ever had the privilege to hear”.

“Renée was a fiercely original talent who carved out a huge legacy in Australian music,” Hoodoo Gurus frontman Dave Faulkner wrote. “Renée changed all our lives – for the better.”

Geyer’s career continued right to the end, the singer playing her last show just weeks before her passing.

“Just last month, Renée sang to a full house and was looking forward to another busy year ahead doing what she loved most – performing for her loyal fans around the country,” her family wrote.

You’ll hear her brilliance on the 15 albums she made throughout her career, and in the countless brilliant performances that will emerge online in the coming days.

Just as importantly, you’ll hear the greatness of Renee Geyer in the voices of so many Australian soul singers – especially women – for whom she helped beat a path across her 50-year career.

“She was a trailblazer for women,” Gudinski says. “She was fierce, independent, strong and passionate.”