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Though by her own admission reclusive and private, in person, Annie Lennox radiates warmth and intelligence and is all too modest about her musical contributions.
But that may be in part because she simply cannot remember a lot of them.
Reclining on a green sofa in the snug, cozy library at the Covent Garden Hotel here, shielded from a gray, rainy London fall day, she eyes the CD album covers strewn before her. Even with the visual prompters, she fears she will not be able to conjure the specifics of each project she created with Dave Stewart, first as members of the Tourists and then Eurythmics, and later as a solo artist.
"Dave and I used to make an album every year, so it was a very, very intense couple of decades. Looking back on it, I barely remember these records," Lennox says, turning the CD covers over in her hands.
"I don't live with this every day," she says. "I have a life, and I worked on that, you know." Because when the Eurythmics machine was running full-tilt, she's the first to admit, "I couldn't get a life."
She may not be able to remember, but the rest of us cannot forget the images of Lennox burnished in our collective musical memories.
Like David Bowie before her and Madonna after, Lennox has melded sound and vision and created frequently arresting new personas throughout a career in which she never compromised her musical ideals.
Consider the spiky, close-cropped red hair and black mask from the Touch era, the preening Elvis wannabe in the "Who's That Girl?" video, or the Regency diva in distress in "Walking on Broken Glass." All of these personas intersect with an unbreakably beautiful voice that can be angelic and menacing at the same time but is always melodic.
It is not just the stripped-bare voice that is extraordinary; it is her command of the written word and her ability to turn a phrase that can literally send chills down the spine or readily warm the heart that makes her such a remedy in a world of prepackaged pop.
Lennox is this year's recipient of the Billboard Century Award. The honor acknowledges the creative achievement of one artist's still-developing body of work.
Now in its 11th year, the inaugural award was bestowed in 1992 and was named for the imminent 100th anniversary of Billboard in 1994.
Lennox was the last Century Award honoree named by Billboard editor in chief Timothy White, in conjunction with publisher Howard Lander. White died June 27.
Like previous Century Award honorees, Lennox will receive a trophy designed by jeweler/sculptor Tina Marie Zippo-Evans, who custom-crafts the award for each recipient.
The only daughter of Tom and Dorothy Lennox, Annie Lennox was born on Christmas Day, 1954, in Aberdeen, Scotland.
She first showed her musical inclinations when she tinkered on a toy piano at the age of 3. Several years later, she switched to the flute and was accepted at London's prestigious Royal Academy of Music.
Disenchanted with her classical training, Lennox dropped out of school, began writing songs, and, while living in a series of tiny apartments-or bedsits-supported herself by working in book shops and waitressing.
It was in 1976, during her shift at Pippins-a health-food restaurant in Hampstead, North London-that she first met Dave Stewart. The two quickly became a romantic and musical duo. Along with Stewart's friend, Peet Coombes, the pair formed the Tourists (after shedding the initial name, the Catch). After some short-lived success, both the Tourists and the Lennox/Stewart love affair came to an end.
In 1980, Eurythmics-named after the art of performing bodily movements in rhythm accompanied by music-were born. Three years later, Lennox and Stewart were catapulted to stardom when the title track to their second album, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), became an international hit. (To this day, it remains the duo's only No. 1 in the U.S.)
Hit after hit followed, as did Grammy and Brit Awards. But by the late '80s, burned out by a seemingly endless cycle of recording and touring, Lennox stepped back. She re-emerged three years later with her stunning solo debut, Diva, which showed in no uncertain terms that this sister could definitely do it for herself.
That was followed in 1995 by Medusa, a beautifully nuanced album of well-selected cover songs. Her primary focus since then has been on raising her two daughters, Lola and Tali.
But Lennox stepped out publicly again in 1999, when she and Stewart-with whom she has remained close-reunited professionally for an album, Peace, and a short tour.
Lennox is now putting the finishing touches on her first solo album since Medusa. At the hotel, she previewed for Billboard material from the untitled new album.
The songs are gorgeously lush, elegant, and eloquent, and for someone who readily admits to having taken herself out of the current music scene to be a mom, it is startlingly contemporary.
There may still be a few rough edges on the recording-which she declares "a work in progress"-but what is immediately apparent is that Lennox's writing craft remains sharp and poignant and her voice as emotive and crystalline as ever.
Though physically she is still lean and angular, internally, it seems that some of her sharp edges have been softened. Instead of the anger that haunted much of Eurythmics' best work, there is a vulnerability that is informed by experience and wisdom.
The album is slated for worldwide release in the first half of 2003 on BMG.
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