Diane Luckey, who went by the stage name Q. Lazzarus, was born in Neptune, New Jersey on December 12th, 1960 to parents James and Willie-Mae Luckey. The second youngest of seven siblings, Diane grew up in Neptune and attended Neptune High School and Mount Pisgah Baptist Church.

Following in the footsteps of her parents and sisters, Diane loved music and singing from a very young age and ran the Mount Pisgah choir. After seeing the Broadway musical Bubbling Brown Sugar in New York City while on a class trip, Luckey decided she wanted to dedicate her life to singing. She moved to New York City when she was 18 and began working at Sigma Sounds studio as a backup singer and writing jingles for commercials. Shortly after this, she started writing songs, recording music and headlining concerts under the name Q Lazzarus. Diane was a multi-talented instrumentalist, writing lyrics and singing, playing guitar and piano, and producing as well.

While living in the East Village in New York City in the 1980s, Diane met songwriter Bill Garvey at a party and they recorded “Goodbye Horses” and “The Candle Goes Away” in his home studio. During this time, Diane also began driving a taxicab. It was during a snowstorm one night that she picked up a passenger who turned out to be Hollywood film director Jonathan Demme. She was listening to a tape of her music and he immediately fell in love with her voice, so much so that he put her music in his next four films: Something Wild, Married to the Mob, The Silence of the Lambs, and Philadelphia. Q. Lazzarus’ song “Goodbye Horses” is featured in both Married to the Mob and The Silence of the Lambs, becoming a cult classic and generating a large following. Q. Lazzarus also appeared in the film Philadelphia, during a party scene with actors Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, singing the Talking Heads song “Heaven.”

Diane spent several years in London, where she fronted the rock and roll band Q Lazzarus, who she wrote dozens of songs and toured the United Kingdom with. She also performed at and hosted parties at large clubs and arenas in London. In both London and the U.S. she collaborated with her friend Danny Z (Dan Agren) on house music tracks including “My Mistake,” “Love lust,” “The Time is Right (Dare)” and “Only You Can Light the Candle.”

Diane met her husband Bob in the East Village in the mid-1990s and they had their son James in 1998. The four of them eventually moved to Stapleton, Staten Island and Diane went back to driving cars and buses, stating that driving “gave her a sense of freedom and that she loved meeting people from all over the world and sharing stories with them.”

At the time of her unexpected death on July 19th, 2022, Diane was finishing work on the feature documentary Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus, centering on her life and music, with filmmaker and friend Eva Aridjis Fuentes. She had also been planning to release an album of songs, spanning her entire musical career.

The year 2025 sees the release of both the documentary and its soundtrack, both titled Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus – a celebration of her immense talent.

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