Encores and Other Choices: Petula Clark, originally featured April 4, 2012 Petula Clark first stepped into the spotlight during World War II as a child star, when she entertained the troops, both on radio and in concert. She is estimated to have performed in over 200 shows throughout England before the age of nine. By the war’s end, Petula—the British “Shirley Temple” of the time—was so popular in England, she was asked to sing at a national victory celebration at Trafalgar Square. Throughout the forties and fifties, Petula was a regular guest on a wide number of radio shows, and became something of a television “pioneer” in England—first appearing on experimental TV in the forties, and later as host of several of her own television series during the very early years of British programming. Although she sang regularly in concert, on radio, and on television all through the forties, it wasn’t until 1949 that she recorded her first song- Music, Music, Music. Responding to the growth of rock and roll in the late fifties, she recorded Sailor, Romeo, and My Friend the Sea, putting her on the English charts. In 1957, she was invited to sing in France, where she was wildly accepted by French audiences…launching a new phase in her career. Asked to record in French, Petula initially declined; she was persuaded to change her mind by Frenchman Claude Wolff, whom she would later marry (the Wolffs now have three children and two grandchildren). By the early sixties, Clark found herself reinvented as a French chanteuse; she is still classified as a “French” singer in French and French-Canadian record stores. She also began to dabble with recording in German and Italian, and built a solid fan base in Europe. Interesting to note, each of her early European hits were with entirely different songs—not the same song rerecorded in differing languages. Urged by her friends in Britain to record something in English, Petula allowed Tony Hatch to visit her in Paris, where he presented his new song, Downtown. Her recording of the song quickly rose to the number one chart position in the US, launching a new phase in her career and earning her a 1964 Grammy Award. She quickly followed with I Know a Place, which went to number three and earned her a second Grammy (1965). She built on this American fan base, appearing in two Hollywood musicals (Finnian’s Rainbow and Goodbye, Mr. Chips) and establishing a strong Las Vegas following in the latter sixties. The 1970’s found her re-establishing her European fan base, and hosting two more television variety series in England (and winning the title of Most Popular TV Star from England’s TV Times). During the eighties and nineties, she turned her attention to the stage, with a number of successes in both England and the US. The new millennium saw her return to the concert stage, performing a number of retrospective concerts highlighting her vast career. Our original profile featured Petula’s 1965 hit, I Know a Place. As a follow-up, my original thought was to use Don’t Sleep In The Subway…but, in looking around YouTube, I decided I had to use this television performance of It’s a Sign of the Times--- with all of that festive, hip “white people dancing” in the background.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 11:26:25 +0000
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