Important Information

Early yearsRosemary Yuro was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1940, into an Italian-American family whose original name may have been Aurro.
By the time of her birth, however, the family used the spelling Yuro.
Young Rosemary moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1952.
There, she sang in her parents' Italian restaurant and, despite her family's opposition, in local nightclubs before catching the eye and ear of talent scout Sonny Knight.
Signed to Liberty Records in 1959, she had a U.S.
Billboard No.
4 single in 1961 with "Hurt", an R&B ballad that had been an early success for Roy Hamilton.
Yuro's recording was produced by Clyde Otis, who had previously worked with Brook Benton and Dinah Washington.
Later that year she recorded as a duo with Johnnie Ray.
She charted some further minor hits, including "Smile" (No.
42), and opened for Frank Sinatra on his 1962 tour of Australia.In 1962 Bob Johnston and Otis produced Yuro's single "What's a Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You?)", which went to No.
12 on the Billboard pop chart.
On both "Hurt" and "What's a Matter Baby", Yuro showed an emotional but elegant vocal style that owed a debt to Washington and other black jazz singers.
Many listeners in the early 1960s thought Yuro was black.
Her single "The Love of a Boy" reached No.
44 in 1962.
It was arranged and co-written by Burt Bacharach, but Yuro refused to record his suggested follow-up, "What the World Needs Now Is Love".In the following year, Liberty released Make the World Go Away, an album of country and blues standards.
The singer at her vocal peak, this recording includes the hit title song (later a bigger hit for Eddy Arnold, with whom the song is usually associated), a version of Willie Nelson's "Permanently Lonely", and two different blues takes of "I'm Movin' On".
Yuro was also known for soulful reworkings of popular American standards, such as "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", "Smile", and "I Apologize".
She toured Europe in 1963, and appeared on the British TV show Ready Steady Go!.
However, in the U.S.
her image became established as a cabaret performer rather than as a soul singer.By 1964, Yuro had moved to Mercury Records, but her first record for the label, "You Can Have Him", arranged by Jack Nitzsche, only just scraped into the chart and was her last hit.
Nevertheless, her album The Amazing Timi Yuro, produced by Quincy Jones, was an artistic success.
Subsequent records were unsuccessful, although a B-side, "Can't Stop Running Away," was later popular on the UK's Northern Soul circuit.
In the 1960s, Yuro made two TV appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and was a guest on American Bandstand, Where the Action Is, and The Lloyd Thaxton Show.
In 1967, she appeared in a black-and-white film in the Philippines as a guest star alongside Filipino comedians Dolphy and Panchito in a comedy titled Buhay Marino (Life of a Sailor), a film released by Wag-Wag Productions, Inc.
At that time, the singer was very popular in the Philippines.
She re-signed for Liberty Records in 1968, and recorded in London.By the late 1960s, Yuro had performed in venues from London to Las Vegas.
However, her career lost its early momentum, and she quit the music business altogether after her marriage in 1969.Later career and deathIn 1981, Yuro attempted a comeback in the Netherlands, performing as a guest of honor on Dutch national television.
She rerecorded a version of "Hurt" that reached No.
5 on the Dutch pop charts.
She also signed to the Dutch record label Dureco to record a new album, All Alone Am I; it went to No.
1 on the Dutch album charts and was eventually certified as a gold record.
With these successes, Yuro moved to the Netherlands and continued with a string of hit singles and albums.
After her record sales began to decline there in the mid-1980s, Yuro returned to the United States.
Her last recording was the vinyl album Today, which was released in 1982 by Ariola and produced by her old friend and collaborator Willie Nelson.
In 1990, the disc was reissued as a CD, remastered and remixed by Yuro herself on her own label Timi and titled Timi Yuro Sings Willie Nelson.In the mid-1980s, Yuro's American doctors detected throat cancer.
Her larynx was eventually removed, and in 2004 she died of cancer.InfluenceYuro's work is admired in the United States as well as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
According to the obituary in the Las Vegas Sun, her hometown paper, Yuro's most famous fan was probably Elvis Presley, who commanded his own table at the casino where Yuro headlined in the late 1960s.
(Presley had a Top 10 country hit, and Top 30 pop hit, with his 1976 version of "Hurt".) In April 2004, Morrissey announced Yuro's death on his official website, describing her as his "favorite singer".
(Morrissey also recorded a version of Yuro's "Interlude" with Siouxsie Sioux in 1994.) P.J.
Proby knew Timi Yuro from their time in Hollywood, and often mentions it during his performances of "Hurt".Elkie Brooks recorded a version of Yuro's classic "What's a Matter Baby" on her 1988 album Bookbinder's Kid.
Yuro was so impressed with the version, she contacted Brooks while she was on a UK tour, and the two kept in contact.Yuro found success on the dance floors of northern England in the 1970s and 1980s when Northern Soul DJs championed her up-tempo tracks of "It'll Never Be Over for Me" and "What's a Matter Baby".
The former has remained an important Northern Soul track; the latter was re-released on Kent Records in the 1980s.The Official Timi Yuro Association was founded by Timi Yuro and Andy Lensen in September 1981 for her fans worldwide.
Its current goals are to promote Yuro's music and legacy by sharing memories, stories, articles and photos, and exchanging information about her biography, discography, rare recordings, and live and recorded performances.
In 2008, a website managed by the Official Timi Yuro Association was set up.