A few thousand fans of British singer Bonnie Tyler, star of the 80s who died in July at the age of 75, gathered on Saturday in the streets of Mumbles, her village in Wales, applauding as her coffin passed, before her funeral on Monday.
Several people began singing the hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart” as they saw the coffin, covered with the Welsh flag, appear and threw flowers at the hearse.
Bonnie Tyler, singer with blonde mane and a gravelly voice, died on July 8 in Portugal, where she owned a house. She was admitted to Faro hospital at the beginning of May for an intestinal operation. She was then placed in an artificial coma.
“A true icon”
“When we heard of his death, we were devastated,” Carys Edwards, 18, told the British agency PA, in the streets of Mumbles, a suburb of Swansea. “His music touched a lot of people. (…) She was a true icon,” she added.
“She was a Swansea girl, and she never forgot that,” added Carys’ mother, Melanie Smith, 53.
The star was in fact born in 1951 not far from there, in Skewen, and was spotted in a nightclub in Swansea in 1975. She had retained the Welsh accent.
It is his rock ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, released in 1983, which remains his most famous song. Forty-three years after its release, it reached 1.2 billion plays on Spotify.
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” is Bonnie Tyler’s most famous song.
She was getting ready to go on tour
Bonnie Tyler, whose real name is Gaynor Hopkins, is also the singer of the hits “It’s a Heartache”, “Holding Out for a Hero”, on the “Footloose” soundtrack.
“We thought it would be nice to come and pay our respects,” said Michael Bone, 58, who came with his partner Alan Hawkins, 54, from Derby, in the north of England. “When I was a teenager, his music was everywhere,” he said.
Shortly before being hospitalized, the singer released a single, “Only Love”. She was preparing to go on tour in Europe for several months. His funeral will take place on Monday at Swansea Cathedral, before a private ceremony.
Bonnie Tyler was “a warm and generous artist whose music touched several generations and continues to rock dance floors and karaoke rooms around the world,” greets the obituary published by her family.
