Name: Lisa Stansfield; Occupation: Rochdale's other singer besides Gracie Fields

Born: Rochdale, Lancashire, April 11, 1966

Lives in: Dublin

Musical education: "One of the first things I remember is my mum doing the housework to the Supremes. When you hear music like that when you're young, it stays with you"

First influence: Barry White. "He was the sexiest thing," she says. Lisa later recorded a version of All Around The World with him

First musical success: Aged 14, winning talent contest sponsored by Manchester Evening News. Recruited as teen presenter of ITV children's show, Razzmatazz

First band: Formed pop-soul outfit Blue Zone with former classmates Andy Morris and Ian Devaney in 1983. No hits, several singles, one album, the ironically tiled Big Thing, in 1986. Devaney remains her co-writer and producer and is her husband too

Breakthrough: Asked to sing guest vocals on Coldcut's People Hold On. Number 11 hit, March 1989

First solo single: This Is The Right Time, number 13, September 1989

First number one: All around The World, for two weeks, November 1989. Also topped US pop and R&B charts, making her only the second white artist to do so. Won Ivor Novello Award for best contemporary song; Stansfield won BRIT award for best newcomer

Lisa on All Around The World: "I think of this song as almost a person, in a way. There are times when I've felt I just can't sing it ever again because I must have done it a million times before. Then I think that if it wasn't for that song, I wouldn't be here now. It was the catalyst that gave me the opportunity to do everything else"

First album: Affection, reached number two in GB, number nine in USA, sold 4.5 million copies. Spawned further hits Live Together, What Did I Do To You? and, in America, You Can't Deny It

Charity records: Band Aid 2 remake of Do They Know It's Christmas? and cover of Cole Porter's Down In The Depths for Red Hot + Blue album for AIDS charities

Second BRIT: 1991. Spoke out against Gulf War at awards ceremony; later appeared at benefit show for Kurdish refugees

Second album: Real Love, 1991, again co-written with Devaney and Morris. Hit singles were Change, All Woman, Time To Make You Mine and Set Your Loving Free

Queen connection: Sang I Want To Break Free with vacuum cleaner and hair curlers, and These Are The Days of Our Lives with George Michael at Concert For Life tribute to Freddie Mercury at Wembley, 1992. Stansfield-Michael duet featured on chart-topping Five Live EP, 1993

The Bodyguard connection: Sang Someday (I'm Coming Back), Top Ten hit. "When I was asked I seriously wondered if we had time to do it. In the end, it was written and recorded in the space of two or three hours - and it ended up on the biggest-selling soundtrack album of all time. But the funny thing is, we might just as easily have said we couldn't be bothered and gone down the pub instead"

Third album: So Natural, 1993. First to be recorded away from Rochdale, in Dublin. More hits with title track, Little Bit Of Heaven and In All The Right Places, co-written with York-born composer John Barry

Fourth album: After sabbatical, re-emerged in 1997 with 'Lisa Stansfield'. Hits with The Real Thing and her Barry White cover, Never, Never Gonna Give You Up

Fifth album: After another four-year-gap, returned in 2001 with Face Up and another single on the theme of love, Let's Just Call It Love

Why the gap? Busy making film debut in Nick Mead's romantic comedy, Swing, in 1999

Not a lot of people know, part one: Lisa tested for Robert Redford-Demi Moore movie Indecent Proposal but didn't land part

Not a lot of people know, part two:She once punched The Pogues' Shane MacGowan in an argument over poetry

West End stage debut: 2002, The Vagina Monologues. Further acting projects are lined up for 2003. "I'm keen to do more acting and I've been looking at scripts. But if anything, I love singing more than ever," Lisa says

Jazz appointment: Autumn 2002, week-long residency at Ronnie Scott's club in Soho, London

Latest album: Biography, released by BMG Commercial on February 3, compilation that features Down In The Depths and Someday (I'm Coming Back) for the first time on a Stansfield album. Also brought out Biography DVD and video

Total album sales: 13 million

Where, when and why in York: Sold-out show at Barbican Centre, April 10, part of ten-date tour of UK and Ireland. For returns only, ring 01904 656688.

Updated: 10:25 Friday, April 04, 2003