Rowetta is a singer from Manchester, England, best known for her work with Happy Mondays and for her solo and guest vocal performances. She is associated with easy listening soundtracks and musicals, and her career combines club music, pop, television appearances and stage work.

Career with Happy Mondays

Rowetta is the female singer with Happy Mondays for 10 years, performing on the band’s hits and touring internationally with them. She is part of the group’s line-up and is identified with their later period. She also plays herself in Michael Winterbottom’s film 24 Hour Party People.

Dance and sampled vocals

Rowetta provides the voice on the 1989 track Reach Out, a recording that is widely sampled. Artists who use it include Black Eyed Peas on Boom Boom Pow, Cheryl Cole on Fight For This Love at the Brit Awards, Steve Angello and Robin S on Show Me Love, Todd Terry on Lime Life (Baby Can You Reach), and Steve Angello and Laidback Luke on BE. A later version of Reach Out featuring Rowetta and mixed by Mobin Master reaches number 1 in the Beatport charts for a period spanning Christmas 2008 and the start of 2009.

She also releases dance tracks including Lights Out with Tom Stephan (Superchumbo) and Pete Gleadell on Nervous Records, and No More Comin' Down with J Nitti. She writes material with Serbian producer Shomy Woodman, including Say What I See and Count The Days. Another collaboration with Tom Stephan, Everlasting, is set for Stealth Records.

Television, theatre and live appearances

Rowetta re-enters the public eye through The X Factor, where she is the last woman standing. She releases an album and appears on the BBC’s Children in Need with the BBC Orchestra, as well as on Celebrity Scissorhands. In 2006 she makes a cameo as herself in Footballer’s Wives: Extra Time.

Her stage work includes a musical theatre debut in The Best Of Broadway, and an appearance at indigO2 with Stephen Gately and Marti Webb in Christmas on Broadway. She also performs in The Songs Of Sister Act with Sheila Ferguson and later tours the UK with the London Community Gospel Choir in a new version of the show.

Broadcasting and collaborations

Rowetta presents The Terry & Ro Show on Gaydio with Terry Longden in August 2007. She tours Japan and appears at Manchester Evening News Arena in December 2009 for Manchester Versus Cancer, performing a duet with Tim Booth of James, Peter Hook on bass, and the BBC Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Joe Duddell. She also works with Peter Hook’s supergroup The Light, alongside Mani, Andy Rourke and Howard Marks, and writes with reggae musicians Sly & Robbie.