Re Styles, the former singer of Tubes, died last week at the age of 72.
Styles, AKA Shirley Macleod, was born in the Netherlands and became a Playboy model before meeting Tubes drummer Prairie Prince in the mid-70s. She kicked off her time with the band initially as the Tubes’ costume designer. Styles was most known for performing the female lead in the Tubes’ hit “Prime Time.”
“’Prime Time’ was not originally a duet,” frontman Fee Waybill explained back in 2013. “Originally it was a song Re sang all by herself. The record company said, ‘We want that to be the single, but we can’t put out a single with a girl singer who’s not familiar to anybody who knows the Tubes. You’ve gotta put Fee on it.’ So we had to go back in after the record was done and re-record that song as a duet.”
Styles was no longer part of the band come 1980.
“The last tour Re did was in 1979 and at that point, she was in bad shape,” Waybill said in 2019. “She was drinking too much and she didn’t really want to tour anymore. So she kind of left the band at that point… She was really a talented girl. Really talented.”
Listen to Styles’ vocals on “Prime Time” below.
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