A singer, writer, and producer since the mid ‘70s, Deirdre Cozier can claim an enviable résumé that begins with a stint as the Euro-disco diva who, affecting an outer-space persona and the pseudonym “Dee D. Jackson,” gave the world Cosmic Curves, which spawned the internationally successful singles “Automatic Lover” and “Meteor Man” (if the “meatier man” pun was intentional, bravo!), all before she’d even escaped her early ‘20s.

And like all amazing journeys, this one started when someone left home.

The British-born Cozier was only 19 in 1976 when she married a musician who absconded with all of their belongings after only three weeks. Justifiably livid at such an outrageous betrayal, Cozier set off to find her husband and retrieve her stuff by following the only lead she had—his association with Abi Ofarim, an Israeli musician living in Munich. Cozier graciously shared her story with Dangerous Minds:

I borrowed a little cash from a mutual friend and took off to Germany on a train and boat. I remember getting off the train in Munich with nothing but a little brown beaten up suitcase very empty purse because he took everything else. I walked into a record shop at the train station and asking them if they knew where Abi Ofarim lived—and they did! What are the chances of that, but he told me that I would probably find him working in Union Studios, which was a taxi ride out of Munich, so I spent more than half of what I had in my purse on the ride to Union Studios, and from there on my life totally changed.

When I walked into the studios the musicians and technicians were on a break and most of them were British expats—Keith Forsey, Harold Faltermyer, engineer Zeke Lund, and the bassist Gary Unwin. I kinda walked in sat down and all eyes were on me (I was also rather cute) I introduced myself, all shyness disappearing with the bat of my eyelashes, and they were all so curious as I told them my tales of woe, then next came the question of well what do you do for a living? Telling them I was a singer and song writer seemed like the right thing to say, I had written a few songs in my life and I had sung with a few bands, and I actually did play guitar and a little piano so it wasn’t exactly a huge fib, but definitely not what I thought to be my vocation in life.

Not a “huge fib,” perhaps, but blurting out that she was a singer was hugely transformative. She soon began to sing with a Turkish/German jazz band in strip clubs, and started writing music with Unwin, with whom she contrived the Dee D. Jackson alter-ego, mining that era’s vivid imaginings of futuristic fashion and sci-fi’s preoccupation with artificial/mechanical life. The collaborators landed a recording contract with Jupiter records, leading to a hit in Austria and Switzerland with the single “Man of a Man,” and so in 1978 Cosmic Curves was born, along with a persona that made for a WONDERFUL series of sexy sci-fi camp record sleeves.
 
Much more after the jump…