Andrea True

Disco star Andrea True, whose biggest hit was

Andrea Marie Truden was born in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. She attended Saint Cecilia Academy, an all-girl Catholic school in Nashville, where she was a boarding student. She graduated in 1961.

True moved to New York City as a teenager, to seek fame as a mainstream film star. While she did manage to get some minor roles in mainstream movies, including The Way We Were, the fame she sought was fleeting. Desperate for work, she decided to pursue a career as a porn star. She appeared in more than 60 hardcore porn films throughout the 1970s and early to mid-1980s, and distinguished herself as one of the more recognizable porn stars in the early New York adult film industry.

During her heyday as a porn actress, True was hired by a real estate business in Jamaica to appear in their commercials. During her stay on Jamaica, a political crisis gripped the island, and no one was allowed to leave with any money. Not wanting to lose her pay, True asked her friend, record producer Gregg Diamond, to travel to the island and produce a track for her, which she would finance locally. Diamond arrived with a composition in hand, to which True added her vocals. The result of their collaboration was "More, More, More."

Ultimately remixed by producer Tom Moulton, "More, More, More" became a favorite in discos and nightclubs. It ultimately reached No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and a full album with the same title soon followed. The single also reached the charts in the United Kingdom (where it peaked at No. 5) and Germany (where it reached No. 9). In early 1977, True released the single "N.Y. You Got Me Dancing" from her follow-up album, White Witch. The single became True's second biggest hit, reaching No. 27 on Billboard's pop chart. In 1978, she had a second hit in the UK with "What's Your Name, What's Your Number," which peaked at No.34 in the UK. Both albums included studio musicians with a new band assembled for the tour, the second line-up which included future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick. In 1980, she released her third and final album, War Machine, a more hard rock-oriented album, which went virtually unnoticed & was released only in Europe.

True briefly returned to porn after the failure of her third album, but soon realized that there were significantly fewer opportunities in the porn industry for a woman in her late thirties. She was unable to return to music, because of a goiter that developed on her vocal cords requiring surgery, which in turn ended her singing ability. Thus, she went on to live a more private life working a psychic.

In 1999, True received some publicity when the Canadian group, Len, sampled the instrumental break from "More, More, More" in their own hit single, "Steal My Sunshine." She has since appeared on several VH1 specials including Where Are They Now in 1999, VH1's 100 Greatest Dance Songs in 2001 ("More, More, More" was the No. 45 greatest dance song), and VH1's 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders in 2003, in which she said she wants to be remembered as a person who "gave people pleasure" — then emphasized the words — "with my music." She also made an appearance in the 2005 documentary movie Inside Deep Throat.

True died on November 7, 2011, at a hospital in Kingston, New York, near her home in Woodstock. A longtime friend, Louise Marsello, said the cause was heart failure. In line with her wishes, she was cremated.

BBC, wikipedia