Lisa Stansfield

British singer Lisa Stansfield was one of the brightest lights on the international dance and R&B scenes of the 1990s, scoring massive hits with singles like "All Around the World," "You Can't Deny It" and "All Woman" that showed her talent for interpreting classic soul in a modern context. She began her career as a television presenter during her teenaged years before teaming with future husband Ian Devaney and Andy Morris in the group Blue Zone. They subsequently repackaged themselves as a creative trio, with Stansfield as singer and Devaney and Morris as her writer-producers. She scored her first major success on a collaboration with dance act Coldcut called "People Hold On," which charted in the Top 20 in both England and America. Her solo debut, Affection (1993), showed her as a rightful heir to such U.K. R&B queens as Dusty Springfield and Annie Lennox with her passionate delivery on "All Around the World," which became the first of three singles to top the U.S. R&B charts. Additional hits like "You Can't Deny It" and "Never Never Gonna Give You Up," as well as forays into jazz like a cover of Cole Porter's "Down in the Depths," underscored her versatility, but changing tastes in R&B cooled her career in the new millennium. She subsequently proved a capable actress in films like "Swing" (1999) and "The Edge of Love" (2008), but Stansfield's early hits preserved her status as one of the most accomplished and popular R&B songstresses of the 1990s.