The album alternated four energetic up-tempo songs with five ballads, including one of the few songs written solely by Branigan, "I Wish We Could Be Alone". 69 on the Billboard charts in early 1982. The first single from the album was "All Night With Me", which reached No. (Other bonus cuts include the 12" extended single versions of "Gloria" and "Looking Out For Number One", as well as a previously unreleased song intended as a B-side.) But by then the music fans were tiring of disco and wanted a new sound.īranigan's 9-track debut album, Branigan, was released in March 1982. None of these three singles (or the B-side, "When") were included on her first album, but all four songs were eventually released on CD over 30 years later in 2014 as bonus cuts on a U.S. Two other early Atlantic singles, "Tell Him" and "Fool's Affair", followed. The strength and range of her voice actually impeded her career for several years while the label went through the process of categorizing her as a pop singer, and her 1981 single "Looking Out for Number One", from her unreleased album Silver Dreams, made a brief appearance on the U.S. In 1979, after a chance meeting with manager Sid Bernstein on her return from Europe, Branigan was signed by Ahmet Ertegun to Atlantic Records. In December 1978 after meeting him at a party in Manhattan, New York earlier in the year, Branigan married Larry Ross Kruteck (1936–1996), a lawyer some years her senior, who died of colon cancer on June 15, 1996. Branigan preferred not to discuss her involvement with Meadow publicly.ĭuring the years after Meadow broke up, Branigan had various jobs, including a stint as one of Leonard Cohen's backup singers for his European tour in April–August 1976. The band broke up, after which Walker Daniels committed suicide. The record was not properly promoted and never re-released. In 1973 the group, with bass player Bob Valdez, released their debut album The Friend Ship, featuring the singles When You Were Young, and Cane and Able, which featured the hook line "Throw away your cane and you are able". In 1972 she met acoustic guitarist Walker Daniels and his future wife Sharon Storm, and acoustic guitarist Chris Van Cleave, forming the folk-rock band Meadow (named as a good place for Paul McCartney's band Wings to land in). Between 19 she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, and worked as a waitress. Conway and Mary Teresa McGuiness) all of them were Irish.īranigan attended Byram Hills High School in 1966 to 1970, starring in the high school musical The Pajama Game in her senior year.
O'Connor) and Mary Conway (daughter of Francis J. Branigan's maternal grandparents were William O'Hare, Jr. (1914–1984), an account executive and mutual funds broker they later separated. Branigan was born in the village of Brewster, New York, fourth of five children of Kathleen O'Hare Branigan (1921–2006) and James Branigan, Sr.