Anita Meyer

Dutch singer-songwriter and actress, born 29 October 1954 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
A member of Hans Vermeulen's Rainbow Train from 1976 until 1979, she was also a successful solo artist during the late 1970s and 1980s. Before joining Rainbow Train, she performed as part of a duo and was in different bands with her brother René (opens in a new tab), then gaining early fame as part of the supergroup Holland and also a backing vocal for various artists like Patricia Paay.
Her first successful single as a solo artist is her song The Alternative Way in 1976. After a change of record company in 1980, she was accompanied by a new musician and production team. The album Shades of Desire followed and later the single Why Tell Me Why (produced by Martin Duiser) topped the Dutch charts for weeks becoming the best-selling single of 1981.
It was the beginning of a period in which Meyer had many hits, including a cover of the song The One That You Love by the Australian-British rock band Air Supply. In 1983, she performed with another Dutch singer-songwriter Lee Towers for the first time.
More albums and performances followed but the success of the singles became more modest. In 1986, a live-recorded duet with Towers (opens in a new tab) titled Run To Me (a Bee Gees cover) became Meyer's last Dutch Top 10 hit.
Meyer decided to slow down in 1992 to spend more time with her family but return to the charts in 1994 with the title song of the RTL 4 program Het Spijt Me. In 2005, she acted in the music program Het Gevoel Van... and in the following year she participated in the Stage Entertainment production Musicals in Ahoy. In 2006, she played the role of the old glamor cat Grizabella in the musical Cats. In 2011 and 2017, Meyer participated in the television program De Beste Zangers van Nederland, in which she performed various songs by other singers. Following that, her #1 hit from 1981 Why Tell Me, Why was re-released in the special version with DJ Guilliano.
The song is not just popular in New Zealand (where it peaked at #49 there) but also popular in Sweden (although Meyer's original version did not chart there) where singer-songwriter Carola Häggkvist's cover version re-titled Säg Mig Var Du Står went viral in Swedish parties and Häggkvist (opens in a new tab) later re-recorded this cover version this time as a duet with another Swedish singer-songwriter Zara Larsson who known for her song Never Forget You (interestingly, both Häggkvist (opens in a new tab) and Zara (opens in a new tab) have Maria in their middle name).
In 2013, Meyer played the role of Maria in The Passion (EO-RKK). In 2013, the Dutch film Chez Nous was released, in which Meyer played the role of the main character Alex Klaasen. Meyer is known as one of the earliest cover singers from the Netherlands (before Davina Michelle).