Athene Duncannon

Nightclub singer played by British pop star Sade in the 1986 film Absolute Beginners. On stage at the nightclub Chez Nobody she performs the song "Killer Blow", accompanied by a jazz band featuring trumpeter Cool. The song was also included on the Absolute Beginners soundtrack album, where it is credited to Sade.

The film is based on the novel Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes, but in the book Athene Duncannon sings with a different band (led by Dickie Hodfodder), in a different club, and is a different type of singer:

Miss A. Duncannon was quite okay, and the kids certainly enjoyed her, but I must say I do think it’s a mistake for young white English girls to try to give an exact imitation of Lady Day, since the best possible imitation that’s conceivable would come about two million miles from what Billie H., at her best, can do to you, which is turn you completely over, so that you can’t bear to hear any other singers, at any rate for an hour or so after. However, from Big Jill’s point of view, I could quite see the situation, because this Athene D. was a highly flexible creation, who wore her dress tighter than her skin beneath it, and glared at the assembly in that imitation-woman manner that’s getting to be fashionable among white US female vocalists, if you can judge from the poses on the LP sleeves.

See also

• Cool
• Dickie Hodfodder
• Cuthberto Watkyns
• Maria Bethlehem
• Czar Tusdie