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Post by spiderwort on Nov 15, 2019 15:07:47 GMT
Petula Clark
Petula Clark was born on November 15, 1932 in Ewell, Surrey, England. She is a singer, actress and composer whose career spans nearly eight decades from the time she was 11.
Her professional career began as during World War II singing on BBC Radio. While performing at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1944 she was discovered by film director Maurice Elvey, who cast her at age of 12 in his film, Medal for the General (1944).
She continued to act in numerous films over the years, but in the sixties she achieved world renown as a popular singer of songs like "Downtown," "My Love" (her second U.S. No. 1 hit), "A Sign of the Times," "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love," "This Is My Song," and "Don't Sleep in the Subway." She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in Finian's Rainbow (1968), and was won two Grammy Awards for her songs, "Downtown," and "I Know a Place." Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Happy 87th Birthday to the wonderful Petula Clark, whose films and songs have brought much joy to the world. Many happy returns of the day, Ms. Clark. Thanks for the memories.  
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Post by msdemos on Nov 15, 2019 16:34:15 GMT
Finian's Rainbow (1968) I was all of 8 years old back in 1968 when I was told we were going to see some movie called "Finian's Rainbow", which was fine, up until the moment somebody made the mistake of mentioning the word "musical" to me. At that point it meant I had to dragged, kicking and screaming, since, as you might imagine, a long musical was not something that I (or most kids) automatically associated with having a good time..........flash-forward two-and-a-half hours later to the end of the film, and I was COMPLETELY smitten !! Not only with this entertaining movie, but even more so with the bewitching 'Pet', whom I suddenly discovered I had (and still have!) a MAD crush on!  SAVE FERRIS
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Post by teleadm on Nov 15, 2019 18:36:55 GMT
Happy Birthday Petula Clark! |
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Post by biker1 on Nov 15, 2019 20:01:06 GMT
when you're alone..and life is bringing you down..
you can always watch a movie. Fk downtown.
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Post by petrolino on Nov 15, 2019 23:35:31 GMT
Happy Birthday, Ms. Clark.
'Sitting in a penthouse suite in downtown Montreal last month, Petula Clark couldn’t help but recall another room in another hotel just a few blocks away, 48 years ago.
“I’d been coming here for years to perform in French,” said the 84-year-old English singer and actress, whose 1964 all-time classic Downtown is only the tip of a remarkable show-business iceberg. “So when I was invited back after having hits in English, I thought: ‘This is great. I can do a bilingual show.’ ”
The show in question — actually a series of them, at Place des Arts, straddling late May and early June of 1969 — didn’t go as Clark had hoped. This was a time when language in Quebec was an especially contentious issue. When Clark sang in French, the anglophone half of the audience would break out in catcalls; when she sang in English, the francophone half would do the same.
“It was like open war,” recalled Clark, still sounding a little bewildered by it all. “I couldn’t win. I was really heartbroken. I needed someone to talk to. I had never met John (Lennon), but I knew he was in town. I remember it was pouring with rain, and I walked over to the (Queen Elizabeth) hotel, a far enough walk to get drenched. I went up, no security whatsoever. The door was open and there John and Yoko were, sitting on the bed. I walked in looking like a drowned rat, crying.
“John was very sweet, very funny — he was from Liverpool, they’re all funny. I told him what had happened, and he said — can I say it? He said: ‘You know what, Pet? F— ’em!’ I said, ‘Oh! Thank you, John.’ Later they were passing around these sheets with lyrics, and we all started singing. Everything was being recorded.”
The song, as sharp readers may have guessed by now, was Give Peace a Chance. “I am on that record. I can’t hear my voice, but I’m there,” Clark laughed. The spur for this reminiscence, and the reason for her Montreal visit this spring, is that Clark has been soliciting songs from a range of contemporary Québécois artists (“I want them to write for me in the now — I’m not looking for nostalgia”) for a French-language album to be recorded here this year and released in time for an extensive Quebec tour announced for spring 2018. The album and tour have the potential to be something special — a perfect capper to a unique artist-audience relationship.
It’s a connection that goes back a long way. Clark performed regularly from the early 1960s at Gratien Gélinas’s old Comédie-Canadienne theatre on Ste-Catherine St. (It’s now the site of Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.) She was also here during Expo 67 as part of a Montreal-produced episode of the Ed Sullivan Show; for the aforementioned 1969 shows; and notably again in 2000 for a rapturously received autobiographical (and bilingual, this time without the catcalls) one-woman concert at Théâtre St-Denis.
“Quebec has been a very special place for me,” she said. “The idea of touring here again is wonderful.”
- Ian McGinnis, Montreal Gazzette
"In 1964, I was a huge star in France but the swinging 60s were starting to take hold in London and I wasn’t part of it. Tony Hatch, a junior producer at Pye Records, came to see me in Paris and told me I had to record again in English. I was in the kitchen making some tea when I first heard him playing the melody to Downtown. I ran in and said: “What’s that?”
At that point, it was just a melody and a title, but I said: “If you can write a lyric as good as that melody, I’d love to sing it.” Two weeks later, I was walking into a studio in London with 40 musicians. They were all top guys – the guitarist was Jimmy Page – and when I first heard the orchestration, it was so great I nearly fell over, even though Tony was still finishing the lyrics in the bathroom."
- Petula Clark, The Guardian
"You know, that album, 'Downtown'? That's John Paul Jones playing on some songs."
- Eddie Taylor, Classic Rock Files
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