Carlisle biography

American singer (born 1958)

Not to be confused with Brandi Carlile.

Belinda Jo Carlisle (KAR-lyle; born August 17, 1958) is an American singer and songwriter. She gained fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, one of the most successful all-female rock bands of all time, and went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist.

Raised in Southern California, Carlisle was the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, which she co-founded in 1978. With their chart-topping debut studio album Beauty and the Beat in 1981, the group helped popularize new wave music in the United States. The Go-Go's have sold over seven million records worldwide.

After the break-up of the Go-Go's in 1985, Carlisle went on to have a successful solo career with radio hits such as "Mad About You", "I Get Weak", "Circle in the Sand", "Leave a Light On", "Summer Rain", and "Heaven Is a Place on Earth". The Go-Go's reformed in 1999, and Carlisle performed with them until their disbandment in 2022, while also maintaining her solo career.

Carlisle's autobiography, Lips Unsealed, published in June 2010, was a New York Times Best Seller and received favorable reviews. In 1999, Carlisle was ranked No. 76 with the Go-Go's in VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll. In 2011, Carlisle, as a member of the Go-Go's, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, and the California Hall of Fame in 2024.

Early life and education

Belinda Jo Carlisle was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, on August 17, 1958, to Harold Carlisle, a gas station employee, and his wife, Joanne (née Thompson), a homemaker. Her mother met her father, who was 20 years her senior, at age 18, and Carlisle was born nine months later. She was named after her mother's favorite film, Johnny Belinda (1948). Carlisle was the first of seven s

Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher (1795–1881)

Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, philosopher, and a leading writer of the Victorian era. He strongly influenced 19th-century art, literature, and philosophy.

Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan, a village in Dumfriesshire, and attended the University of Edinburgh, where he excelled in mathematics, inventing the Carlyle circle. After finishing the arts course, he prepared to become a minister in the Burgher Church while working as a schoolmaster. He quit these and several other endeavours before settling on literature, writing for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia and working as a translator. He found initial success as a disseminator of German literature, then little-known to English readers, through his translations, his Life of Friedrich Schiller (1825), and his review essays for various journals. His first major work was a novel entitled Sartor Resartus (1833–34).

Carlyle relocated to London, where he became famous with his French Revolution (1837) which prompted the collection and reissue of his essays as Miscellanies. Each of his subsequent works was highly regarded throughout Europe and North America, including On Heroes (1841), Past and Present (1843), Cromwell's Letters (1845), Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), and History of Frederick the Great (1858–65). He founded the London Library, contributed significantly to the creation of the National Portrait Galleries in London and in Edinburgh, was elected Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh in 1865, and received the Pour le Mérite in 1874, amongst other honours.

Carlyle occupied a central position in Victorian culture, being considered the "undoubted head of English letters", and a "secular prophet". Posthumously, his reputation suffered as publications by his friend and disciple James Anthony Froude provoked controversy