Wendy Joan Matthews, born January 13, 1960 in Montreal, Canada, is a Canadian-born Australian pop singer and songwriter. After busking across North America and providing backing vocals for Australian acts such as Jimmy Barnes and Icehouse, she joined the band Models in 1985, contributing to Out of Mind, Out of Sight. Her breakthrough came in 1989 with the supergroup Absent Friends, whose single "I Don't Want to Be with Nobody but You" peaked at number 4 on the Australian charts and earned an ARIA Award for Single of the Year. She launched her solo career with the platinum-certified album Émigré (1990), followed by the double-platinum Lily (1992) and The Witness Tree (1994). Signature singles included "Token Angels" (1990), "Let's Kiss (Like Angels Do)" (1991), "The Day You Went Away" (1992), and "Friday's Child" (1993). She received 6 ARIA Awards, winning Best Female Artist in 1991, 1993, and 1994, and won an APRA Music Award for Most Performed Australian Work for "Standing Strong" in 1995. In 2010, she inducted Models into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Her later releases included Ghosts (1997), Beautiful View (2001), Café Naturale (2004), and She (2008).
