Biography
Born on 13 January 1944 in Cricklewood, London, England, Marti Webb entered the spotlight in 1963 when she was selected from the ensemble of the London staging of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s Stop the World - I Want To Get Off to play opposite Tommy Steele in the hit production Half A Sixpence. Although the 1967 screen adaptation did not feature her in the same part, she supplied the vocals for Julia Foster’s performance. In 1965 she portrayed Nancy during a nationwide tour of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, returning to the character for the substantial 1967 West End revival. Early in the following decade she joined the cast of the popular biblical show Godspell alongside Jeremy Irons, David Essex and Julie Covington. She also took part in a stage version of J.B. Priestley’s The Good Companions that featured music by André Previn and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Stronger still was The Card, whose score came from Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent; Webb stood out in the duet “Opposite Your Smile” with Jim Dale and in her solo “I Could Be The One.”
Webb achieved wider recognition in the 1980s once she succeeded Elaine Paige in Evita. During 1980 she performed in a private concert and a televised presentation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s song cycle Tell Me On A Sunday. Both a studio album and a television soundtrack resulted, and her recording of “Take That Look Off Your Face” reached the UK Top 5. When Tell Me On A Sunday was later expanded and paired with Variations to create the two-part theatrical concert Song And Dance in 1982, her fifty-minute solo segment earned praise as a remarkable tour de force. She subsequently assumed additional parts in other Lloyd Webber musicals, among them the long-running British production Cats. Her singles from this era included a charitable cover of Michael Jackson’s “Ben,” which entered the UK Top 5 in 1985, together with three television themes: “Always There” from Howard’s Way, which peaked in the UK Top 20 in 1986; “Someday Soon” from The Onedin Line; and the duet with Paul Jones on “I Could Be So Good For You” from Minder.
Early in the 1990s Webb toured the UK and the Channel Islands in The Magic Of The Musicals, sharing the stage with Opportunity Knocks winner Mark Rattray. Subsequent engagements encompassed a season of George Gershwin material at London’s Café Royal alongside broadcaster David Jacobs, the BBC Radio 2 presentation The Don Black Story, pantomime appearances, a summer season in Blackpool with Michael Barrymore, and extensive UK tours of Evita and the Neil Simon, Marvin Hamlisch and Don Black musical The Goodbye Girl in 1997/8 with Gary Wilmot. She continues to perform regularly in pantomime.
Webb achieved wider recognition in the 1980s once she succeeded Elaine Paige in Evita. During 1980 she performed in a private concert and a televised presentation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s song cycle Tell Me On A Sunday. Both a studio album and a television soundtrack resulted, and her recording of “Take That Look Off Your Face” reached the UK Top 5. When Tell Me On A Sunday was later expanded and paired with Variations to create the two-part theatrical concert Song And Dance in 1982, her fifty-minute solo segment earned praise as a remarkable tour de force. She subsequently assumed additional parts in other Lloyd Webber musicals, among them the long-running British production Cats. Her singles from this era included a charitable cover of Michael Jackson’s “Ben,” which entered the UK Top 5 in 1985, together with three television themes: “Always There” from Howard’s Way, which peaked in the UK Top 20 in 1986; “Someday Soon” from The Onedin Line; and the duet with Paul Jones on “I Could Be So Good For You” from Minder.
Early in the 1990s Webb toured the UK and the Channel Islands in The Magic Of The Musicals, sharing the stage with Opportunity Knocks winner Mark Rattray. Subsequent engagements encompassed a season of George Gershwin material at London’s Café Royal alongside broadcaster David Jacobs, the BBC Radio 2 presentation The Don Black Story, pantomime appearances, a summer season in Blackpool with Michael Barrymore, and extensive UK tours of Evita and the Neil Simon, Marvin Hamlisch and Don Black musical The Goodbye Girl in 1997/8 with Gary Wilmot. She continues to perform regularly in pantomime.
Albums
