Petula Clark~ "This Is My Song" {Then and Now}

BladeSteve2007

Uploaded on Dec 5, 2007

 

This was a 1967 UK #1 hit for Petula.
Music and a few images of Petula.
The definitive version of a wonderful song written by Charlie Chaplin.

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Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned nine decades.

Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II. During the 1950s she started recording in French and having international success in both French and English, with such songs as "The Little Shoemaker", "Baby Lover", "With All My Heart" and "Prends Mon Cœur".

During the 1960s she became known globally for her popular upbeat hits, including "Downtown", "I Know a Place", "My Love", "Colour My World", "A Sign of the Times", and "Don't Sleep in the Subway".

She has sold more than 68 million records throughout her career.^[1]

Petula Clark CBE
Clark in April 2012
Background information
Birth name	Petula Sally Olwen Clark
Born	15 November 1932 (age 80) Epsom, Surrey England, United Kingdom
Genres	Popular music, theatre, film
Occupations	Actress, composer, vocalist
Years active	1939–present
Labels	Polygon Vogue Records Pye Imperial Decca EMI Warner Bros. MGM

Biography

Clark was born to English father Leslie Norman Clark and Welsh mother Doris (née Phillips), both nurses at Long Grove Hospital, in Epsom, Surrey, England. Her father Leslie coined her first name, and joked that it was a combination of the names of two former girlfriends, Pet and Ulla.

As a child, Clark sang in the chapel choir and showed a talent for mimicry, frequently impersonating Vera Lynn, Carmen Miranda and Sophie Tucker for the amusement of family and friends.^[2]

Her father introduced her to theater when he took her to see Flora Robson in a 1938 production of Mary Tudor; she later recalled that after the performance "I made up my mind then and there I was going to be an actress ... I wanted to be Ingrid Bergman more than anything else in the world."^[3]

However, her first public performances were as a singer, performing with an orchestra in the entrance hall of Bentall's Department Store in Kingston upon Thames for a tin of toffee and a gold wristwatch, in 1939.^[4]

 fritz5171

Uploaded on Jan 15, 2008

Petula Clark - This Is My Song 2001
Released 1967, 2 weeks at #1 - 14 weeks on charts in UK

Why is my heart so light
Why are the stars so bright
Why is the sky so blue
Since the hour I met you

Flowers are smiling bright
Smiling for our delight
Smiling so tenderly
For the world, you and me

I know why the world is smiling
Smiling so tenderly
It hears the same old story
Through all eternity

Love, this is my song
Here is a song, a serenade to you
The world cannot be wrong
If in this world there is you

I care not what the world may say
Without your love there is no day
So, love, this is my song
Here is a song, a serenade to you

(Instrumental)

I care not what the world may say
Without your love there is no day
So, love, this is my song
Here is a song, a serenade to you

 

 

Career start

From a chance beginning as a nine-year-old, Clark would appear on radio, film, print, television and recordings by the time she turned seventeen.

In October 1942, nine-year-old Clark made her radio debut while attending a BBC broadcast with her father. Attending in the hope of sending a message to an uncle stationed overseas, the broadcast was delayed by an air raid. During the bombing, the producer requested that someone perform to settle the jittery theater audience, and she volunteered a rendering of "Mighty Lak' a Rose" to an enthusiastic response.

She then repeated her performance for the broadcast audience, launching a series of some 500 appearances in programmes designed to entertain the troops.^[5]

In addition to radio work, Clark frequently toured the United Kingdom with fellow child performer Julie Andrews. The "Singing Sweetheart" heard by George VI, Winston Churchill and Bernard Montgomery. Clark became known as "Britain's Shirley Temple," and she was considered a mascot by the British Army, whose troops plastered her photos on their tanks for good luck as they advanced into battle.^[6]

In 1944, while performing at London's Royal Albert Hall, Clark was discovered by film director Maurice Elvey, who cast her as precocious orphaned waif Irma in his weepy war drama Medal for the General. In quick succession, she starred in Strawberry Roan, I Know Where I'm Going!, London Town, and Here Come the Huggetts, the first in a series of Huggett Family films based on a British radio series.

Although some of the films she made in the UK during the 1940s and 1950s were B-films,^{[citation needed]} she worked with Anthony Newley in Vice Versa (directed by Peter Ustinov) and Alec Guinness in The Card as well as the aforementioned I Know Where I'm Going! which is a Powell and Pressburger feature film now generally regarded as a masterpiece (Clark's part was small).

In 1945, Clark was featured in the comic strip Radio Fun, in which she was billed as "Radio's Merry Mimic".^[7]

In 1946, Clark launched her television career with an appearance on a BBC variety show, Cabaret Cartoons, which led to her being signed to host her own afternoon series, titled simply Petula Clark. A second, Pet's Parlour, followed in 1949.

In 1947 Clark met Joe "Mr Piano" Henderson at the Maurice Publishing Company. The two collaborated musically, and were linked romantically over the coming decade. In 1949, Henderson introduced Clark to Alan A. Freeman, who, together with her father Leslie, formed Polygon Records, for which she recorded her earliest hits.

Clark had recorded her first release that year, "Put Your Shoes On, Lucy," for EMI. Because neither EMI nor Decca, for whom she also had recorded, were keen to sign her to a long-term contract, her father, whose own theatrical ambitions had been thwarted by his parents, teamed with Freeman to form the Polygon record label in order to better control and facilitate her singing career.^{[citation needed]}

This project was financed with Clark's earnings. She scored a number of major hits in the UK during the 1950s, including "The Little Shoemaker" (1954), "Majorca" (1955), "Suddenly There's a Valley" (1955) and "With All My Heart" (1956).'The Little Shoemaker' was an international hit reaching the coveted No 1 position in Australia, giving her the first of many No 1 records in her career.

Although Clark released singles in the United States as early as 1951 (the first was "Tell Me Truly" b/w "Song Of The Mermaid" on the Coral label),^{[citation needed]} it would take thirteen years before the American record-buying public would discover her.^{[citation needed]}

Near the end of 1955, Polygon Records was sold to Nixa Records, then part of Pye Records, which led to the establishment of Pye Nixa Records (subsequently simply Pye).

This turn of events effectively signed Clark to the Pye label in the UK, for whom she would record for the remainder of the 1950s, throughout the 1960s, and early into the 1970s.^{[citation needed]}

During this period, Clark showed a keen interest for encouraging new talent. She suggested Henderson be allowed to record his own music, and he enjoyed five chart hits on Polygon/ Pye between 1955 and 1960.

European fame

 

In 1957, Clark was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia where, despite her misgivings and a bad cold, she was received with acclaim. The following day she was invited to the office of Vogue Records to discuss a contract. It was there that she met her longtime publicist, collaborator, and her future husband, Claude Wolff. Clark was attracted immediately, and when she was told that she would work with him if she signed up with the Vogue label, she agreed.^[8]

1962 EP

 

In 1960 she embarked on a concert tour of France and Belgium with Sacha Distel, who remained a close friend until his death in 2004.^{[citation needed]}

Gradually she moved further into the continent, recording in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and establishing herself as a multi-lingual performer.

While Clark focused on her new career in France, she continued to achieve hit records in the UK into the early 1960s, developing a parallel career on both sides of the Channel.

Her 1961 recording of Sailor became her first No.1 hit in the U.K., while such follow-up recordings as Romeo and My Friend the Sea landed her in the British Top Ten later that year. In France, Ya Ya Twist (a French language cover of the Lee Dorsey rhythm and blues song "Ya Ya" and the only successful recording of a twist song by a female) and "Chariot" (the original version of I Will Follow Him) became smash hits in 1962, while German and Italian versions of her English and French recordings charted as well.

Her recordings of several Serge Gainsbourg songs also were big sellers. She also at this time was made a present of 'Un Enfant' by Jacques Brel, with whom she toured. Clark is one of only a handful of performers to be given a song by Brel. A live recording of this song charted in Canada.

In 1964, Clark wrote the soundtrack for the French crime film A Couteaux Tirés (aka Daggers Drawn) and made a cameo appearance as herself in the film. Although it was only a mild success,^{[citation needed]} it added a new dimension — that of film composer — to her career. Additional film scores she composed include Animato (1969), La bande à Bebel (1966), and Pétain (1989). Six themes from the last were released on the CD In Her Own Write in 2007.^{[citation needed]}

International Fame - the "Downtown" era

By 1964, Clark's British recording career was foundering. The composer-arranger Tony Hatch, who had been assisting her with her work for Vogue Records in France and Pye Records in the UK, flew to her home in Paris with new song material he hoped would interest her, but she found none of it appealing.

^{[citation needed]} Desperate, he played for her a few chords of an incomplete song that had been inspired by his recent first trip to New York City, which he suggested might be offered to the Drifters. Upon hearing the melody, Clark told him that if he could write lyrics as good as the melody, she wanted to record the tune as her next single. Thus "Downtown" came into being.^[9]

Neither Clark, who was performing in Canada when the song first received major air-play,^[10] nor Hatch realised the impact the song would have on their respective careers. Released in four different languages in late 1964, "Downtown" was a success in the UK, France (in both the English and the French versions), the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Italy and also Rhodesia, Japan and India.

During a visit to London, Warner Bros. executive Joe Smith heard it and acquired the rights for the United States.^{[citation needed][11]} "Downtown" went to No. 1 on the American charts in January 1965, and three million copies were sold in America.

"Downtown" was the first of fifteen consecutive Top 40 hits Clark achieved in the United States, including "I Know a Place", "My Love", "A Sign of the Times", "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "This Is My Song" (from the Charles Chaplin film A Countess from Hong Kong), and "Don't Sleep in the Subway."

The American recording industry honoured her with Grammy Awards for "Best Rock & Roll Recording of 1964" for "Downtown" and for "Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance of 1965 - Female" for "I Know a Place". In 2004, her recording of "Downtown" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Ad for the NBC-TV special that sparked controversy even before it aired

 

Clark's recording successes led to frequent appearances on American variety programmes hosted by Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin, guest shots on Hullabaloo, Shindig!, The Kraft Music Hall and The Hollywood Palace, and inclusion in musical specials such as The Best on Record and Rodgers and Hart Today.

In 1968, NBC-TV invited Clark to host her own special in the U.S., and in doing so she inadvertently made television history. While singing a duet of "On the Path of Glory," an anti-war song that she had composed, with guest Harry Belafonte, she took hold of his arm, to the dismay of a representative from the Chrysler Corporation, the show's sponsor, who feared that the moment would incur the racist bigotry of Southern viewers.

When he insisted that they substitute a different take, with Clark and Belafonte standing well away from one another, Clark and the executive producer of the show — her husband, Wolff — refused, destroyed all other takes of the song and delivered the finished programme to NBC with the touch intact. The programme aired on 8 April 1968, with high ratings and critical acclaim.^[12]

 (To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original telecast, Clark and Wolff appeared at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan on 22 September 2008, to discuss the broadcast and its impact, following a broadcast of the programme.^[13])

Clark later was the hostess of two more specials, another one for NBC and one for ABC - one which served as a pilot for a projected weekly series. Clark declined the offer in order to please her children, who disliked living in Los Angeles.^{[citation needed]} Clark starred in the television series This is Petula Clark, which aired from mid-1966 though early 1968.

Clark revived her film career in the late 1960s, starring in two big musical films. In Finian's Rainbow (1968), she starred opposite Fred Astaire and she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her performance. With her role, she again made history by becoming Astaire's final on-screen dance partner.

The following year she was cast with Peter O'Toole in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), a musical adaptation of the classic James Hilton novella.

Throughout the late 1960s, Clark toured in concerts in the States, and she often appeared in supper clubs such as the Copacabana in New York City, the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where she consistently broke house attendance records.^{[citation needed]}

During this period, Clark continued her interest in encouraging new talent. These efforts also supported the launch of Herb Alpert and his A&M record label. In 1968, she brought French composer/arranger Michel Colombier to the States to work as her musical director and introduced him to Alpert.^{[citation needed]}

Colombier went on to co-write "Purple Rain" with Prince, composed the acclaimed pop symphony Wings and a number of soundtracks for American films. Richard Carpenter credited Clark with bringing him and his sister Karen to Alpert's attention when they performed at a premiere party for Clark's 1969 film Goodbye, Mr. Chips.^{[citation needed]}

Petula Clark~ "Sailor"

 Source: Wikipedia 

There is still more to be had at Wikipedia on Petula Clark

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Thanks for watching.

Donnie/ Sinbad the Sailor Man