Photo: Jeanne-Paule Deckers | By Melanie Davis, American Songwriter | One month before the Beatles would take the Ed Sullivan stage in 1964, the Singing Nun appeared on the program, marking a momentous milestone of a flash-in-the-pan career that would end in a tragically ironic death on March 29, 1985. Jeanine Deckers was a Belgian nun who dominated the Billboard charts in 1963 with her Grammy Award-winning track, “Dominique.”
Religious conflicts, a shadowy personal life, poor mental health, and financial instability pockmarked Deckers’ too-short life. Her death would have been a tragedy regardless of the specific circumstances. But as fate would have it, the Singing Nun left the world just as the problems she was crumbling under were about to dissipate.
The Rising Star Of The Singing Nun
Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers grew up in Brussels, Belgium, where she joined a local chapter of Girl Guides and began playing guitar at the organization’s events. When she was in her mid-20s, Deckers joined the Missionary Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Fichermont and adopted the religious name Sister Luc Gabriel. The hobbyist musician regularly sang and played guitar to the delight of her religious colleagues. In 1962, her superiors pushed her to record an album at Philips Records in Brussels. The album she recorded included the song that would propel her to fame, “Dominique.”
The easy listening gospel song quickly ascended the charts, making history as the first No. 1 single in the U.S. by a Belgian artist. She appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show under the stage name Sœur Sourire, or Sister Smile, on January 5, 1964. (The Beatles would take the same stage nearly one month later on February 9.) Money from the song went back to Gabriel’s church, which dictated much of her creative output to remain optimistic, pleasant, and happy. The dissonance between her own failing mental health and the public image the church wanted her to maintain was a heavy burden.
Gabriel was never able to recreate the success of “Dominique,” slowly fading into obscurity as each subsequent release received less and less popularity. The shift in her career was unfortunate but a reasonable consequence of the global shift away from happy-go-lucky folk and toward rock ‘n’ roll. Gabriel’s increasing conflicts with the Catholic church led to her leaving the convent, which caused Philips Records to drop her from their roster and forbade her from using her original stage names Sœur Sourire and the Singing Nun. She would blame later failures on this restriction.
> > > > > > > > > >
Read more of this very sad story here:
https://americansongwriter.com/on-this-day-in-1985-the-tragically-ironic-death-of-the-singing-nun/
Photo: The Singing Nun: Jeannine Deckers
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=5968130689897252&set=pcb.5968147783228876