Sylvia McNeill
British pop and rock singer and songwriter
Sylvia McNeill (born 5 August 1947, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England) is a British pop and rock singer and songwriter.
She began her career singing and playing bass guitar with various groups and bands. She went abroad for several years, touring American bases on the continent. In 1969, she moved to London; since then she has appeared as a soloist in cabaret through the UK and as a band with husband/guitarist Mike McNeill and son, drummer Mark McNeill.
As well as a bass player for Leapy Lee, she recorded as a solo vocalist from 1968 to 1975, including RCA, Bell, and United Artists labels. McNeill recorded such titles as "That's Alright By Me" (composer Richard Kerr), "Ugly Man" (composer Jim Ford), "Chelsea Morning" (composer Joni Mitchell), "Be My Friend" (originally by Free), "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" (originally by Procol Harum) and "I Don't Know How To Love Him" (composers Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice). The latter was released on 11 August 1972, as by Sylvie McNeill, in time for the first UK stage musical of Jesus Christ Superstar; she had performed it on The Benny Hill Show (original air date: 23 February 1972). Her producers included Kenny Young, Jack Good, Tony Hall, Tony Macaulay, and Ed Welch. She recorded and toured with the band ZAC.
In one 18-month period, McNeill made over 30 appearances on television, including The Benny Hill Show, The Dave Allen Show, The Morecambe & Wise Show, The Simon Dee Show, The Dick Emery Show, Roger Whittaker's World Of Music, The Golden Shot, Anglia Television's Glamour '70 series (the search for Miss Anglia 1970, Heat 7 - staged in Grimsby, England), Ulster TV and her own eight-week series for Grampian Television.
In addition to her own recordings, she sang on the track "Anne Boleyn/The Day Thou Gavest Lord Hath Ended" for keyboardist Rick Wakeman's 1973 album, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and was session backing singer for Rod Stewart on his 1972 recording of "What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sylvia McNeill” is british pop and rock singer and songwriter. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sylvia, McNeill and British, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7660961. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947, 1969, 1968 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sylvia McNeill” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.