Bonnie Tyler

United Kingdom, 1975–2026

Welsh singer whose rasping voice, the result of vocal-nodule surgery, was set against Jim Steinman's large-scale rock production on 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' and 'It's a Heartache'.

MusicRoots documents 6 artists who influenced Bonnie Tyler and 0 artists Bonnie Tyler influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Bonnie Tyler?

• Tina Turner — Tina Turner was one of Tyler's two biggest influences from a young age — 'River Deep – Mountain High' was her all-time favourite song, and Turner's raw power shaped Tyler's belting style.
• Janis Joplin — Janis Joplin was Tyler's other great early idol — the bluesy, rasping abandon behind Tyler's gravel-voiced rock delivery.
• Aretha Franklin — Aretha Franklin was among the soul voices Tyler absorbed in her youth, feeding the gospel-soul grit in her singing.
• Wilson Pickett — Wilson Pickett's scream-and-sweat soul was another of the youthful influences Tyler named, part of the R&B fire under her rock ballads.
• Jim Steinman — Steinman wrote and produced 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' and 'Holding Out for a Hero', and it is his operatic scale, not her earlier soft rock, that Tyler's rasp is remembered inside.
• Dusty Springfield — Among the singers who shaped Tyler in her youth, with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Joe Cocker.