Although they may not have known it at the time, budding stars Victoria Adams, Mel Brown, Mel Chisholm, Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell became arguably the biggest girl group of all time under the name from Spice Girls. However, things could have been very different as there could have been a Welsh Spice Girl in the mix with Lianne Morgan from Cardiff originally being part of the line-up in place of Mel C.
Lianne, who is now 53, was 22 when she almost broke into the all-girl band which went on to dominate the charts. But she doesn’t resent not having reached the top of the music industry alongside her future co-members and instead looks back with pride at what she accomplished then and since – even if the brutal way with which she was abandoned. of the group must always be intelligent.
After being adopted, Lianne grew up in a working-class family in Tremorfa in Cardiff. She always dreamed of singing and being creative, which continued throughout her life.
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She said: “I just wanted to sing since I was a kid. I have always been very creative. My father was an artist… It’s been in me for a very long time.” In 1993, when Lianne was 22, she was a singer in social clubs and wrote her own music when she auditioned for the Spice Girls.
She initially competed against 60 other girls before the group was whittled down where she then met and auditioned alongside Geri, Mel B and Victoria. She said: “I got on particularly well with Geri. Geri was adorable and Victoria was adorable and she was only 16 at the time… The audition was really, really fun.
“Geri arrived wearing platform sneakers. I had these really tight jeans on and I had a black crop top and a beret – she had her hair in pigtails. Mel B was pretty agitated.
“We were split into four groups of five and throughout the day they mixed people up and eventually I was with Geri, Mel B, Victoria and another girl and myself and they left everyone leave and they said, ‘You’re the band.’ .’”
Speaking about how it felt to find out she had made the cut, Lianne said: “I was really excited. My first thought though was, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to have to cancel all my shows.’ I had a house and I was going to have to cancel all my work. I’m going to have to move into this house in Maidenhead. I was really excited but I had been in the music industry for a while – I was at the level… ran one. “
Lianne also spoke about being one of the few Welsh women to audition for the group and what it was like being Welsh in the music industry in the 1990s. She said: “ I was so excited because the Welsh in the music scene, we had the shit taken away from us… In 1993, in the music industry, we were still classed as second citizens because we had this stupid accent.”
Lianne even tried to hide the fact that she was Welsh during the audition. She said: “I deliberately tried not to speak with too much of a Welsh accent, although when you’re Welsh you can’t hide the fact that you’re Welsh.” A Welsh Spice Girl would have brought an extra element to the group, she believes. “I’m quite feisty and the Welsh are quite frank and nothing gets past us. I think a lot of enthusiasm could have been brought to the group if I had still been there.”
After learning that she had made it in the group, Lianne did not hear from the record company again until receiving a letter informing her that she was no longer in the group. She said: “I then received a letter to say that they felt I looked much older than the other girls and that they had found a replacement for me.
“Well, at the time I didn’t really mind – it’s just another group of girls. You won’t realize that they are going to become the biggest girl group in the world. » You can keep up to date with the latest TV and showbiz news by signing up to the newsletter here.
Looking back on that time, Lianne describes it as a “dream.” She said: “Honestly, I wouldn’t want that much attention because the pressure must be immense… I’ve always had a hard time accepting the ‘Spice Girl’ label. Now I am 53 – I have done a lot of work on myself. You get to a certain age and you realize you have problems. I don’t want to bring them into my future life and I end up saying, ‘Well, this is part of my history and it’s something I did and I accept it with pride.’”
Life didn’t end there for Lianne who went on to work on cruise ships, run her own festival and work for youth services leading music projects, all while maintaining her passion for singing and performing concerts. She said: “I was always singing, I was always performing, I was doing my gigs just because I love the real action of singing.”
It was until 2008 that Lianne began to suffer serious health problems, including the loss of her voice and therefore her career, her work and her passion. She said: “It was painful, it was hoarse, I was out of breath and had difficulty getting my words out and felt dizzy when I spoke. I literally felt like someone was choking me when I spoke.
“I was devastated. I had a consultant sit there and he said, ‘You’ll never sing again, this is something you’re going to have for the rest of your life.’ That was my whole livelihood, singing and teaching, and my voice was at the center of it all.” Want fewer ads? Download the WalesOnline Premium App on Apple or Android.
After years of treatment and investigation, Lianne was diagnosed with an injury in 2011 where her spinal cord was compressed and had difficulty sending signals to the brain, causing not only speech problems, but also a loss of balance and vision. She said: “I had an MRI and they found out I was three millimeters away from being paralyzed from the neck down… I was happy I didn’t have multiple sclerosis and I was happy not to have a brain tumor, but it was still major.
Lianne didn’t stop there and although it severely limited her singing and performing, she continued to stay creative and pursued art. She said: “I thought I would never be the person who would sit and watch fucking paint dry if my voice didn’t work – I got into art.”
A student at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Lianne completed a BA Honors and Masters in Fine Art and now runs her own art studio in Cardiff Bay. She said: “I’m really proud to come from a working-class background and yes, it took me this long to get there, but now I have a master’s degree and now I can speak in the world about ‘art and be taken. seriously.”
Lianne is currently working on a project called No Word, alongside Cardiff University’s Brain Unit and the British Sign Language Community, which explores communication issues and is a cause close to her heart. She said: “Collaborating and exploring with people who have communication challenges is giving a voice to people who don’t have one. The art covers everything from alienation, to estrangement, to language problems, to neurological problems – everything that people feel. they are disconnected because of communication.
Lianne added: “For me, the creative arts have always been a means of expression – of communicating with the outside world. That’s really what I’m passionate about – giving people a stage, both others and me, to communicate with themselves. through any medium such as film, sound, poem, song or painting. »
