Petula Clark on Michael Ball’s Sunday Brunch
Petula Clark had a fun and breezy chat with English singer/showman Michael Ball on his Sunday Brunch Show last week.
Add comment June 28th, 2008
Posts filed under 'Radio'
Petula on Steve Wright’s The Big Show
Steve Wright on BBC Radio 2 promised back here that Petula Clark would be on his show, and indeed she was, last Monday. I missed Cilla Black’s appearance, unfortunately, and if you go back to my Cilla post, you’ll notice “Anyone Who Had A Heart” is almost conspicuous in its absence. That’s because Wright played it shortly before chatting with Petula, and I was saving it for now.
I let the recording run into the next song, to provide some flavor (excuse me, flavour) of the show. BBC Radio 2 is the only place I can go that gives me the same fun feeling I had as a kid listening to the legendary station Musicradio 77WABC in New York.
OK, so there’s Cilla Black’s cover of Dionne Warwick’s “Anyone Who Had A Heart,” produced by George Martin. That’s an excellent piece of work. Whether or not you consider this recording to be too close to the original, as a vocal it easily holds up in comparison to Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield. Clearly, based on this recording Cilla had the vocal chops, and with nothing else to go on I have to assume it was the way George Martin produced her that kept Cilla Black from greater popularity in America.
So let’s get to Petula’s chat with Steve Wright, shall we?
She doesn’t like being called “Pet”?? The last thing I said when I had my two minutes with her was, “Thank you, Pet.” Yikes! But… that was my one chance. Saying “Pet” isn’t supposed to convey to her that she’s thought of as a child star, because she never was one here. Well, what’s done is done, and there’s no taking it back. I’ll know better next time.
3 comments June 15th, 2008
BBC Radio 2
The most enjoyable radio listening, by far, that I do these days is over the Net, playing BBC Radio 2. I first got interested because of Jonathan Ross, who did In Search of Steve Ditko. He does a Saturday show, and it’s so much fun, with such a fantastic range of music. Then I started listening to Steve Wright, because he’s supposed to have Petula Clark on as a guest soon. Again, I found the show to be fun, and I was really taken with the song mix. I have no interest in Rap, but Europop has a sound that I enjoy quite a lot. For example, this was one of the songs on Steve Wright’s program today.
This is “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” by Spiller, with vocal by Sophie Ellis Bextor. I flip through Boston radio stations a lot, seeing if anything catches my ear, and almost nothing ever does, so it’s not as though I’m completely inattentive. So why is it I find so much on BBC Radio 2 I’ve never heard before that keeps me listening?
3 comments June 2nd, 2008
Pet Pitches For Coca-Cola
It’s already been over a year since the PBS program The British Beat, hosted by Petula Clark, first aired. Take a look at this video clip I posted, and you’ll see what Comcast analog cable TV looked like, and why I switched to Verizon FiOS digital.
That show wasn’t the first time Pet had been paired, in a sense, with legendary New York DJ Bruce Morrow, aka: Cousin Brucie. Pet did some radio spots for Coca-Cola in the sixties, with Cousin Brucie doing the intro.
Petula Clark, on the other hand, has a distinctive and immediately recognizable sound that’s all her own, whether she’s belting out a pop tune or a love song. She’s done it all, from small French cabaret performances to lavish Broadway productions. For myself, growing up when I did, Pet represents the same thing the Beatles do — the absolute finest in popular music.
3 comments April 27th, 2008
Alive On Departure, but…
This week, with thousands of American Airlines passengers inconvenienced by FAA mandated inspections of possibly defective wiring, it’s important to keep in mind how important airplane safety is, and how relatively common crashes once were…
This song was a huge cult hit in the first months of 1971, the same time that Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” from Love It To Death was on the charts. Alice was tongue-in-cheek enough that I could tell his macabre bent was all in fun, but D.O.A really gave me the creeps. It still does! I probably first heard it on WKBW, out of Buffalo, NY.
6 comments April 11th, 2008