Lio (born Vanda Maria Ribeiro Furtado Tavares de Vasconcelos) is a Luso-Belgian singer and actress who was a pop icon in France and Belgium during the 1980s. In her teens she was determined to become a singer, and she was encouraged by singer-songwriter Jacques Duvall (né Eric Verwilghem), a family friend. She took her stage name, Lio, from a character in the Barbarella comic books by Jean-Claude Forest. In 1979, together with songwriter Jay Alanski, she and Duvall began working with Marc Moulin and Dan Lacksman from the electro-trio Telex. Her first single “Le Banana Split”, which has echoes of the early Beach Boys sold over 1 million copies.
“Amoureux Solitaires”, a song originally by punk rock band Stinky Toys had equal success. Both songs rose to the top of many pop charts in France, and Moulin and Lacksman also produced her self-titled first album. In 1982 the American music duo Ron and Russell Mael, of Sparks, worked with her on the album Suite Sixine, on which some of her previous songs were translated into English. Suite sixtine was compiled and art directed by Ralph Alfonso for Attic Records Canada, where it was originally released.
Her second album, Amour Toujours, was produced by Alain Chamfort and released in 1983. The same year, she first appeared on the screen in Chantal Akerman’s film Golden Eighties, a lighthearted, humorous French pop musical about the people who work together in a Parisian shopping center. Lio plays a carefree hairdresser in the movie.
In 1985, she met record company executive and producer Michael, of ZE Records. She continued to have hit singles in Europe, including “Les brunes comptent pas pour des prunes”, and travelled to Los Angeles with Esteban to record her next album Pop Model. Several of the tracks were co-produced by John Cale, formerly of the Velvet Underground, and the album produced the hits “Fallait pas commencer”, “Je casse tout ce que je touche”, and “Chauffeur”. In 1988, after she had given birth to a daughter with Esteban, she resumed her acting career, starring in Claude Lelouch’s film Itinéraire d’un enfant gâté. The Lio-Esteban partnership produced another album, Can can, recorded in Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro.
She appeared in three films in 1990 and 1991, Chambre à part, Sans un cri, and Après l’amour. Her 1991 album, Des Fleurs Pour Un Cameleon, was produced by Etienne Daho, she had already contributed vocals for one of Daho’s earliest and biggest hits, “Week-End À Rome”. Daho was given carte blanche in the studio because Lio was busy shooting a film; however, when his work was over, he showed no interest in promoting the album with her, limiting the success of the album. Her next album, Wandatta, presenting a more mature approach in contrast with her previous image was released in 1995. Since 2008, Lio has been a judge on the French pop idol show Nouvelle Star. In 2009, she returned to music with the rock band Phantom.
