Adele Bertei

Bertei has toured the world as a musician with her band, the Bloods – one of America’s first all-girl bands – and as backing singer with Tears for Fears. She has performed and recorded as a backing vocalist for artists such as Thomas Dolby, Culture Club, Whitney Houston, Sandra Bernhard, and Sophie B. Hawkins, among others. She was signed as a solo artist with both the Geffen and Chrysalis labels, had a Billboard dance hit with and has had international dance and pop hits with her song “Build Me A Bridge”, with Thomas Dolby’s (“Hyperactive!”) and Jellybean (“Just aMirage”). Bertei has written songs for artists as diverse as Peter Laughner, Thomas Dolby, Sheena Easton, Arthur Baker, Jamaladeen Tacuma, Matthew Sweet, Lydia Lunch, the Pointer Sisters, and Jellybean Benitez. MoMA recently acquired films of Bertei reading her poem The Ragazzi Manifesto in 1978, and The Offenders, directed by Scott and Beth B., in which Adele plays the lead. Adele's memoir Peter and the Wolves was published by Smog Veil Press in 2020, and Why Labelle Matters was published by the University of Texas Press in March of 2021. Her most recent performances: le Salò in Paris with Asia Argento, MoMA’s Club 57 exhibition in 2017, L.A.’s Bootleg Theater, Florence Italy’s Queer Festival, and club Berlin in NYC, 2021. “American Elegy” is Bertei’s first solo recording and release in 34 years. Her forthcoming LP, Fantomette the King, will be released in the spring of 2023.