The Ravishing Beauties

Six months later, Virginia had roped in two girls from music colleges to form the Ravishing Beauties. These were Kate St. John and Nicola Holland, both of whom would later have solo careers in the 1990s at the time of Virginia's reemergence in Japan. The only Ravishing Beauties record release was a semi-official version of the Wilfred Owen World War I poem "Futilty," and the signs were already there that Virginia was interested more in poetry than rock music, in spite of Pete Townshend's being her brother-in-law.

The Ravishing Beauties did a few support slots, including one for The Teardrop Explodes, with Astley writing or arranging the songs herself and recording them as her first solo project.

It was only another six months before St. John would become a model and eventually a member of Dream Academy, while Holland did session work and joined Tears for Fears.

From Gardens Where We Feel Secure

Probably at this stage Virginia Astley wished to emulate her famous father by writing music for Channel 4 documentaries such as Isolation. She tried again, later in the decade, with music for a TV series called World Of Herbs and A way of Being Her plans to translate Thomas Hardy's novel The Woodlanders found a place on her next album, Had I The Heavens.

She also made a track, a duet with Vic Godard called "Spring Is Grey," and sessions for Richard Jobson for some of his poetry and the final Skids album Joy, which featured Astley on flute and as a backup singer along with Holland.

It would be years before some of this material came out, but her collaboration with Jobson and saxophone player Josephine Wells, ex-Kissing The Pink, was picked up by Bill Nelson and issued as "The Ballad Of Etiquette" on his Cocteau label. In late 1982 this became Astley's first entry onto the indie chart, which has separate lists for singles and albums.

A Bao A Qu

She signed with Why-Fi in mid-1981, cutting an EP called A Bao A Qu ( the title derived from a legend told by Jorge Luis Borges). However, it would be a good six months before the EP was released, by which time she had completed sessions for label mate Troy Tate and Townshend.

On this four-track EP, produced by her brother Jon, were examples of her predilection for setting other people's poetry to music. Already she was showing a staggering sense of melodic invention. The Ravishing Beauties, soon to come to a close, did a couple of radio sessions for the late John Walters, which included some of these songs.

Love's A Lonely Place To Be

Using a demo studio in Wapping called Elephant, Astley recorded the song that was to land her in the Indie top 5 in 1983: "Love's a Lonely Place to Be," a song of despair and anxiety in spite of its Christmas carol sound. The demo was so good it became the official release.

The album was released in August and was distributed by Rough Trade, who have since reissued it. The album made the top 5 of the indie chart, but neither single or album dented the so-called "proper charts". The LP was on her own label Happy Valley, named for a beauty spot in Llandudno and her 1990s CDs on the same label made this the longest-running indie one of all.

Astley was also unwittingly in competition with herself because of the Why-Fi label going bust and Crepescule's acquiring her masters, so out came an export album for the Belgian and Canadian markets called Promise Nothing. This had no fewer than three different sleeves and with only nine tracks was not very good value, especially as it repeated Garden's tracks. Available in the UK as an import and like most records by the artiste is extremely rare. Astley referred to it on a radio session she did with Audrey Riley and Kathy Seabrook, but she was not very happy about it, especially as it was issued without permission.

In 1983 Astley established a more permanent lineup with string players Audrey Riley, Jocelyn Pook and Anne Stephenson, with guests such as drummer Brian Nevill and composer Jeremy Peyton Jones. The magazine Zig Zag, named this group of string players and synths asVirginia Astley's Friends & Colleagues.

By the end of the year she began to work on a new song called "Melt the Snow," but it wouldn't be until 1985 that it came out as a 12" single, backed by one from her stage act called "Waiting to Fall." This would eventually be issued as a track on a Some Bizarre sampler, as well as the B-side of a promo single by The The.

Also in 1985, Astley joined Prefab Sprout, more as a favour, around the time of their first album. She also did sessions for their Kitchenware labelmates Martin Stephenson and the Daintees. The new single did no more than scrape the bottom of one of the indie charts; she did more sessions for The Simonics and Anne Clark, the London poet who created her own World of Chaos and became a big name in Germany. As this was the 80s the music press ran quite a few interviews with Indie stars and Virginia Astley was no exception

Influences

Astley's songs became an influence on the twee pop C86 generation.

Once Virginia Astley emerged into the music mainstream the music press published a number of articles about her. She named her influences as poetry and classical music and paid only lip service to rock. She was also interested in synthesisers since her father composer Edwin Astley had introduced her to them. Though her music was very original one can hear strands of Debussy, Elgar, Satie and Vaughan Williams in there. Benjamin Britten was another influence especially his use of the War Poets. Lyric wise, Virginia would seek out obscure poetry. One can clearly see her work as continuing the traditions of English romanticism and as operating in the traditions of the English underground.

Success in Japan

The odd sessions still took place: Both Virginia Astley and Dave Stewart (of the Eurhythmics) were asked for some music for the soundtrack of "Lily Was Here", a low-budget video re-make movie based on a French original. She also played keyboards on the hit single,the title instrumental by Dutch saxist Candy Dulfer though her own song "Second chance" was left on the cutting room floor and only appeared on the soundtrack album.

Japan was to be a major influence on Astley, via Riuchi Sakamoto, who produced her first all vocal album Hope In A Darkened Heart (1986) - after which she left the music business for personal reasons,namely to bring her child up. The single, a duet with David Sylvian called "Some small hope", was to become her final UK release.

She recorded with the Japanese rock star Hideaki Matsuoka. It was Japan, rather than the USA, that took to Virginia Astley in a major way. Her two albums were reissued there with extra tracks, and a further two brand-new CDs were issued there. Three of these were in turn reissued for the American market on a label called Rosebud without Virginia's permission and in turn distributed in England by Discovery of Wiltshire

Post 1998

Towards the end of the decade Virginia Astley guested on releases by Japanese dub outfit Silent Poets, providing vocals for the songs Don't Break The Silence and I will miss this Holy Garden.

In 2001, Virginia made a rare TV appearance for the documentary Astley's Way which served as a tribute to her father Edwin Astley (who had died in 1998).2 years earlier 6 members of the Astley family had appeared on a CD called "Symphonic Music of the Rolling Stones"

2003 saw the reissue of a remastered edition of Virginia's debut album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure via the Rough Trade label. This release helped Virginia find a new audience and also encouraged her to work on musical projects for the future, including a possible instrumental album in the style of From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. Virginia has also been keen to pursue her earlier pet project to turn Thomas Hardy's novel The Woodlanders into a musical but the closest she came was with her last album which was originally given the working title of "Woodlanders".

In 2005 her song "A Summer Long Since Passed" was used in the end credits of Me and You and Everyone We Know, a film by Miranda July.