Between 1986 and 1989 the American singer and songwriter Joyce Sims, who has died suddenly aged 63, was among the most exciting new voices in popular music. Her biggest hits, All and All (1985) and Come Into My Life (1988), were pioneering recordings that merged R&B with electro, and proved to be widely influential.
Immediately recognised as club classics and reissued and remixed many times over the succeeding decades, those hits defined how electronic dance music producers and female vocalists could work together. And while Sims failed to enjoy further chart success, she retained a particularly loyal British audience, regularly performing across the UK.
