Virginia Astley (born 1959) is an English singer-songwriter active during the 1980s and 1990s. She remains a cult artiste.

Virginia was one of twin girls born to Hazel and Edwin Astley. From the start of her career in 1980, her composer father was her most direct influence. The other influences were classical music and poetry as Virginia refused to be pigeonholed with the pop music mass and went her own way. That way was to lead her eventually to fame in Japan while she was unknown in her own country.

Her family were from the Warrington area and lived in Grappenhall, where her elder sister Karen was born in 1947; Karen became the wife of Pete Townshend of The Who. They relocated to Stanmore in Middlesex because of Edwin Astley's work as a film and TV writer. In the early 1960s he was musical director at IBC in Boreham Wood, the company responsible for TV series such as The Saint and Danger Man.

In the 1970s Virginia's elder brother, Jon Astley , became a tape op for Eric Clapton and worked his way up to his current activities as a remasterer and producer.

Virginia's first appearance in public was as a busker outside Kensington Tube Station, where she, Anne Stephenson , and Caroline Lavelle would play baroque music. In 1980 she auditioned for a new band from Clapham, the Victims of Pleasure , formed from the ashes of the Monos together with ex-No Dice drummer Chris Wyles . Here was the blueprint for Astley's career, as she was unable to remain in one place for long. The VOP's first single, "When You're Young," was the only one with her name in the credits, as keyboard player.

Six months later, Virginia had roped in two girls from one of her music colleges to form the Ravishing Beauties . These were Kate St. John and Nicola Holland , both of whom had solo careers in the 1990s at the time of Virginia's reemergence in Japan. The only release was a semi-official version of the Wilfred Owen World War I poem "Futilty," and the signs were already there that Virginia was interested more in poetry than rock music, in spite of Pete Townshend's being her brother-in-law.

The Ravishing Beauties did a few support slots, including one for The Teardrop Explodes, with Astley writing or arranging the songs herself and recording them as her first solo project.

It was only another six months before St. John would become a model and eventually a member of Dream Academy , while Holland did session work and joined Tears for Fears.

Astley also had a separate existence as a session musician at the Crepescule label, where John Foxx produced some demos for what was to become the first album, an instrumental collection with sound effects called From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. She also made a track with Jean-Paule Gaude called "Helen's Song" for a proposed Crepescule album called From Brussels with Love, a duet with Vic Godard called "Spring Is Grey," and sessions for Richard Jobson for some of his poetry and the final Skids album Joy, which featured Astley on flute and as a backup singer along with Holland.

It would be years before some of this material came out, but her collaboration with Jobson and saxophone player Josephine Wells was picked up by Bill Nelson and issued as "The Ballad Of Etiquette" on his Cocteau label. In late 1982 this became Astley's first entry onto the indie chart, which has separate lists for singles and albums.

She signed with Why-Fi in mid-1982, cutting an EP called A Bao A Qu, possibly her approximation of "Jabberwocky," as she would prove there was more Alice In Wonderland to her than Alison Moyet. However, it would be a good six months before the disc was released, by which time she'd done sessions for label mate Troy Tate and Townshend.

On this four-tracker, produced by her brother Jon, were examples of her predilection for setting other people's poetry to music. Already she was showing a staggering sense of melodic invention. The Ravishing Beauties, soon to come to a close, did a couple of radio sessions for the late John Walters, which included some of these songs.

Using a demo studio in Wapping called Echantillion, Astley recorded the song that was to land her in the Indie top 5 in 1983: "Love's a Lonely Place to Be," a song of despair and anxiety in spite of its Christmas carol sound. The demo was so good it became the official release.

The album was released in August and was distributed by Rough Trade, who have since reissued it. The album made the top 5 of the indie chart, but neither single or album dented the so-called "proper charts". The LP was on her own label Happy Valley, named for a beauty spot in Cheshire and her 1990s CDs on the same label made this the longest-running indie one of all.

Astley was also unwittingly in competition with herself because of the Why-Fi label going bust and Crepescule's acquiring her masters, so out came an export album for the Belgian and Canadian markets called Promise Nothing. This had no fewer than three different sleeves and with only nine tracks was not very good value, especially as it repeated Garden's tracks. Available in the UK as an import, it has never been on CD other than custom ones, and like everything else by the artiste is extremely rare. Astley referred to it on a radio session she did with Audrey Riley and Kathy Seabrook , but she was not very happy about it, especially as it was issued without permission.

There were a lot of publicity and features in the music press, which found it fascinating that somebody could be in the pop business and remain untouched by hedonism. After all, the music business was not noted for her kind, and she would never really stray from this track other than to have a child out of wedlock, who was to have a profound impact on her 1990s career as she chose to remain a single parent. Many photos could be found at the time in the music press, usually showing her wearing dresses and looking innocent.

In 1983 Astley established a more permanent lineup with string players Audrey Riley, Jocelyn Pook and Anne Stephenson, with guests such as drummer Brian Nevill and composer Jeremy Peyton Jones . The magazine Zig Zag, then named Virginia Astley's Friends & Colleagues, found it quite amusing that her dad was making more money due to the residuals from reruns of Danger Man.

By the end of the year she began to work on a new song called "Melt the Snow," but it wouldn't be until 1985 that it came out as a 12" single, backed by one from her stage act called "Waiting to Fall." This would eventually be issued as a track on a Some Bizarre sampler, as well as the B side of a promo single by The The.

Also in 1985, Astley joined Prefab Sprout more as a favour around the time of their first album, and she also did sessions for their Kitchenware labelmates Martin Stephenson and the Daintees . The new single did no more than scrape the bottom of one of the indie charts, but in spite of what was the start of a career of failure, she did more sessions for The Simonics and Anne Clark, the London poet who created her own World of Chaos and became a big name in Germany.

Influences

Once Virginia Astley emerged into the music mainstream the music press published a number of articles about her. She named her influences as poetry and classical music and paid only lip service to rock. Her first appearance in public was as a busker outside Kensington Tube Station where she played baroque music on a flute together with string players Anne Stephenson and Carolyn Lavelle. She was also interested in synthesisers as her Dad composer Edwin Astley had introduced her to them. Though her music was totally original you can hear strands of Debussy, Elgar, Satie and Vaughan Williams in there. Benjamin Britten was another influence especially his use of the War Poets. Lyric wise Virginia would seek out obscure poetry,making some of her lyrics "difficult" but she kept well away from sex and lust. There was also a strong use of religious imagery amid lyrics which could equally apply to Alice In Wonderland

Japan was another major influence via Riuchi Sakamoto,who produced her first all vocal album "Hope In A Darkened Heart" and which was to see her out of the music business for personal reasons.The single,a duet with David Sylvian,was to become the final U K release. The odd sessions still took place,for Dave Stewart and a song for the soundtrack of "Lily Was Here",a cheapo video film based on a French one,and the Japanese rock star Hidaki Matsuoka.It was in fact Japan who took to Virginia Astley in a major way and not only were her 2 albums reissued with extra tracks but 2 brand new CDs which showed nothing had changed,her music in the same pastoral turf.Throughout the 90s these CDs were only available from importing businesses like Revolution before being licensed to a British distributor.In some of the bigger High Street stores you could actually find her music filed under Folk. Eventually Virginia herself secured a U S release under her Rosebud imprint but she was and always will be the ultimate Cult Artiste.

Virginia Astley actually appeared on British TV in the Joo,.s Holland tribute to her father Edwin Astley who had died in 1998. Following that came a one off privately issued single called "Sanctus 2000" and last year-2003-a British reissue of the Rough Trade album which was given a new sleeve but nothing else