Jackie Trent (born Yvonne Burgess on September 6, 1940 in Newcastle-under-Lyne)is a British singer, songwriter, and occasional actress.

Trent's first stage appearance was as a ten-year-old ingenue in the pantomime Babes In The Wood, but her primary interest was a career in pop music. Her first single, "Pick Up the Pieces," was released in 1962, but it wasn't until two record labels and three years later that she scored her first hit, "Where Are You Now?," by Tony Hatch, who at that time was involved in a highly successful professional collaboration with Petula Clark.

Clark disliked Trent, who clearly had romantic designs on the married Hatch, so when the duo began co-writing material for her they initially credited the work to Hatch alone. With "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love," (1966), inspired by their affair, they went public with their relationship. A year later, they were married in Kensington, London.

Although she recorded numerous singles and albums, both as a solo artist and in tandem with her husband, Trent was clearly a better songwriter than singer. (Her cover versions of several of Clark's recordings indicate she had no distinct style or sound to set her apart from the crowd). In addition to their compositions for Clark, over the years she and Hatch wrote a wealth of material for other artists, including Frank Sinatra, Nancy Wilson, Des O'Connor, Shirley Bassey, Vikki Carr, and Dean Martin.

In the late 1960s, Trent returned to the stage with a UK tour of the musical Nell with Hermione Baddeley.

The 1970s saw Hatch and Trent diversify into the world of musical theatre. The first of their projects, The Card, based on Arnold Bennett's novel, with book by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, ran in London's West End with Jim Dale and Millicent Martin in the starring roles. (Coincidentally, Clark had starred in the 1952 film version with Alec Guinness.) An original cast album was released in 1975. A rewritten version of the show, starring Peter Duncan and Hayley Mills, played the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in the 1990s and spawned a new cast album. The second Hatch/Trent musical was Rock Nativity, with book and lyrics by David Wood. Initiated and produced by Cameron Mackintosh, it first played in Newcastle. An updated version of the show toured nationally in 1976 and was broadcast nationally by Scottish TV. A full-length concert version was also recorded at the Cork Opera House for transmission by RTE.

In 1978, the couple left the UK for a four-year residency in Dublin, where they hosted their own TV series Words And Music and It's A Musical World, before moving to Australia in 1982. It was while down under that the couple wrote what might be their most famous composition, the theme for the TV soap opera Neighbours. They separated in 1995, and divorced in 2002.

Following the couple's initial separation, Trent made a hugely successful return to the British stage, touring the country in the musical High Society. After spending several years in semi-retirement, she toured Australia with a series of concerts in April and May 2004, and is working on material for a new album to be recorded in early 2005.

External link

• Official Website (http://www.jackie-trent.org.uk/index.html)