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Q Lazzarus

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Q Lazzarus
Luckey's yearbook photo, 1978
Luckey's yearbook photo, 1978
Background information
Birth nameDiane Luckey
Also known asQ
Born(1960-12-12)December 12, 1960[1]
Neptune Township, New Jersey, U.S.
OriginNew York City, U.S.
DiedJuly 19, 2022(2022-07-19) (aged 61)[1]
OccupationSinger
Years active1978–1996
Formerly ofQ Lazzarus and the Resurrection
SpouseRobert Lange[2]

Diane Luckey (December 12, 1960 – July 19, 2022), known professionally as Q Lazzarus, was an American singer. She is best known for her 1988 song "Goodbye Horses", which became a cult classic after being prominently featured in a scene from Jonathan Demme's 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. Several of her songs were featured in other films directed by Demme before she disappeared from the public eye in the mid-1990s.

Life and career

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Diane Luckey was born on December 12, 1960,[1][3] in Neptune Township, New Jersey, the youngest of seven children.[4] While attending the Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Neptune as a child, she sang in the Mount Pisgah Youth Choir. She graduated from Neptune High School and, inspired by a production of Bubbling Brown Sugar on Broadway, moved to New York City at age 18 to pursue a music career. She soon started working as a backup singer and jingle writer at Sigma Sound Studios.[1][2]

In the 1980s, while making music as part of her band Q Lazzarus and the Resurrection, Lazzarus was working as a taxi driver in New York City to make a living. The band consisted of Lazzarus, songwriter William Garvey, backup singer Gloriana Galicia and Janice Bernstein. According to Galicia, by 1985, Lazzarus was working in Chelsea as a live-in housekeeper and au pair for an English businessman named Swan, and the band would record vocal harmonies on cassette at Swan's house; Lazzarus also had a number of other day jobs at the time.[5]

Lazzarus was repeatedly turned away by record companies, who insisted they could not market her because of her image which featured a dreadlocks hairstyle. After picking up filmmaker Jonathan Demme in her taxi during a blizzard and asking him if he was in the music business, she played him her demo tape, to which he replied, "Oh my God, what is this and who are you?" Her song "Candle Goes Away" was then included in Demme's 1986 film Something Wild. In the late 1980s, she moved to London to form an Aerosmith-style rock band and stayed there for five years.[3][5]

In 1988, Lazzarus's signature song, "Goodbye Horses", written and produced by Garvey, was released.[5] That same year, the song was included in Demme's film Married to the Mob. It later became a cult hit following its inclusion in a scene from Demme's 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs featuring the film's antagonist, serial killer Buffalo Bill.[6] She then appeared in Demme's next film, 1993's Philadelphia, in which she performed a cover of the Talking Heads song "Heaven".[7][8]

In 1996, Q Lazzarus disappeared from the public eye.[9] As of 2015, she had been working as a bus driver in Staten Island, and filed a lawsuit against a Hasidic bus company for not hiring female bus drivers.[3] In August 2019, filmmaker Eva Aridjis met her after getting picked up in her car service in New York City, and the two soon began working on a documentary about her life, Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus.[1] A Kickstarter campaign for the documentary was launched by Aridjis in anticipation of its release. The film will come out in 2025, and Sacred Bones Record will put out the soundtrack.

Q Lazzarus died on July 19, 2022 from an undisclosed illness.[10][11]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Blistein, Jon (August 18, 2022). "Q Lazzarus, Cult Favorite Behind 'Goodbye Horses' Who Disappeared for Decades, Dead at 61". Rolling Stone. The obituary misdated her date of birth as 1962. Luckey was born in 1960, Rolling Stone has confirmed.
  2. ^ a b Jones-Gorman, Jessica (August 20, 2022). "Q Lazzarus, famed musician who was later a Staten Islander, dies at 60". Staten Island Advance. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Darville, Jordan (August 18, 2022). "Q Lazzarus, elusive singer of 'Goodbye Horses,' has died". The Fader. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  4. ^ Kuperinsky, Amy (August 18, 2022). "Q Lazzarus, N.J. singer Diane Luckey, known for 'Goodbye Horses' in 'Silence of the Lambs,' dead at 59". NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. Retrieved August 21, 2022. The singer, Neptune native born Diane Luckey, died July 19, according to a short obituary notice announcing funeral arrangements in the Asbury Park Press.... Luckey, the youngest of seven children, was an alumna of Neptune High School and grew up singing at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Asbury Park, according to a longer obituary shared by Neptune's Jackson Funeral Home.
  5. ^ a b c Gorton, Thomas; Graham-Dixon, Charlie (April 17, 2018). "What happened to Q, who sang 'Goodbye Horses'?". Dazed. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  6. ^ Coscarelli, Joe (April 26, 2017). "Jonathan Demme's Finest Musical Moments". The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  7. ^ Cills, Hazel (August 4, 2015). "Something Wild: The Sounds of Jonathan Demme". Grantland. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  8. ^ Hellman, Peter (November 11, 2021). "Mysterious 'Goodbye Horses' Singer Q Lazzarus Breaks Her Silence 30 Years Later". StereoGum. Retrieved June 11, 2022.
  9. ^ Jenke, Tyler (November 11, 2021). "12 of the most intriguing mysteries in music history". Tone Deaf. Retrieved June 11, 2022.
  10. ^ "Diane Luckey Obituary". Asbury Park Press. July 30, 2022. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
  11. ^ Moreland, Quinn (August 18, 2022). "Q Lazzarus, Elusive 'Goodbye Horses' Musician, Dies at 61". Pitchfork. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
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