While ghost-writers struggle to eke out warts-and-all biographies from the vapid lives of reality-TV stars, footballers' wives and washed-up comedians, Angela Masson's memoirs read like the script of a Hollywood movie. But even though her 1982 album Jet Lady - under the name Tangela Tricoli - has been re-released due to unprecedented demand from collectors of strange, idiosyncratic sounds, you've probably never heard of her.

After quitting her first job as an Italian go-go dancer in 1969, Masson moved back to California to teach military cadets how to fly (she'd been taking flying lessons from the age of 15, and owned a plane since she was 21).