Susan Fassbender

Susan Fassbender - who was born as Susan Kathryn Whincup, in Wibsey, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on April 30th, 1959 - was an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Fassbender was classically trained in piano, clarinet, and timpani, and later also played synthesizers.  In early adulthood, she teamed up with guitarist Kay Russell (later Kay Brown), who had been a member of Bradford-based New-Wave outfit Ulterior Motives; the two became songwriting partners for the rest of Fassbender's career.  After impressing their future manager Alan Brown at a record shop in Bradford, the duo signed up with the independent record label, Criminal Records, and released the single, Twilight Cafe, in 1980.  Following two appearances on Top of the Pops in January, 1981, the song climbed to No. 21 in the British Charts that February.  Despite appearing on various television programmes in Britain and Germany to promote two follow-up singles, Stay and Merry-Go-Round, they both failed to chart.  This disappointment led to the band's second manager to split up Fassbender-Russell, thinking Susan would be more successful as a solo act, with his own musicians as a backing band.  Demos were made, with a view to releasing them as an album at the time, but nothing came of it.  Fassbender and Russell then faded from the music industry, both marrying.  Fassbender married in 1983, raising three children, and taking on her new husband's surname, Baggio.  The two women wrote further songs, both together and apart, but they received no interest from the recording industry.  Tragically, Susan Fassbender committed suicide on May 2nd, 1991. She was just 32 years old.  A collection of early Fassbender-Russell songs - Twilight Cafe (The Demo Collection 1981-1985) - was finally released on Platform Records in 2012; with a follow-up collection - Building A Dream - issued on the same label in 2016.