Amanda Lear

Lear, along with arrangers Rainer Pietsch and Charly Ricanek, wrote all the English lyrics. The musical backing was provided by the same international session musicians that played on contemporaneous recordings by best-selling Germany-based disco acts like Donna Summer, Boney M. and Silver Convention, among them drummers Martin Harrison and Curt Cress, bassists Gary Unwin, Dave King and Les Hurdle and guitarists Geoff Bastow and Mats Björklund.

But Lear's slow notes are simply an exaggeration of the whiskey-voiced sultriness created by Marlene Dietrich.

The album included Lear's first European hit "Blood and Honey", lyrically paraphrasing Dalí's 1941 painting La Miel Es Más Dulce que la Sangre (Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood), as well as the follow-up single "Tomorrow" and covers of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and Leroy Anderson's "Blue Tango", all of which became repertoire standards. I Am a Photographs mixture of lush disco, schlager, kitsch and camp, topped with Lear's deep half-spoken, half-sung vocals and her characteristic Franglais accent was a successful combination. Four singles reached the Top 10 in Italy and the album stayed on the West German charts for thirty-three weeks. The second edition of I Am a Photograph, which also contained German No. 2 hit "Queen of Chinatown", included a free pin-up poster with Lear posing topless, a photo originally featured in a Playboy spread. Read Less