Category: Music

Petula Clark 2002 Interview

Petula Clark as Carmen MirandaIf you click here, there’s a great interview from 2002 with Petula. It’s from a BBC radio show called “Woman’s Hour”, and in a short 13 minutes, including musical breaks, it covers all of the personal stuff — her pushy father, her career setbacks, her marriage arrangement, and her daughter’s drug addiction.

The show starts with an excerpt from a hilarious archive recording of Pet at 10. She was imitating Carmen Miranda, as seen in the picture at left.

The audio quality sounds like a 60’s pocket transistor radio, and it’s in Real format. So go to the link, but you may find it’s easier to listen to the interview here.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/PetInterview2002.mp3]

Petula Clark in Wales

Petula in Wales

Petula Clark is half-Welsh, and she spent a goodly part of her childhood in Wales. A few weeks ago, before her San Francisco concert, Pet was in Wales, visiting her grammar school. A TV show about the visit was shown tonight in Wales. Maybe it will show up somewhere online.

In the meantime, you can click here to go to a BBC page with pictures and a 15-minute interview from Welsh radio. Petula is 74 now, as charming as ever, in fine form, and still singing beautifully.

The radio interview is in Real format, which is often a problem, so I’ll provide it here on the trusty MP3 player.

[audio:https://dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/Pet2007.mp3]

Petula Clark – 1942

Leslie and Pet Clark

Let’s backtrack — way back — to Petula as a child starlet in war-torn England. Here she is at 10 with her father, Leslie Clark. Open the audio player to hear a bit of her singing on the BBC for her uncle, a soldier stationed in, yes, Iraq.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/Petula1942.mp3]

This is how the English came to know Petula Clark, and she just couldn’t shake this image until she moved to France, nearly 20 years later.

Petula Clark – 1961

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/FEB07/sttropez.flv 400 300]

Here’s Pet on American TV for the first time, still with her old style and look, and still unknown in this country. Only one month before this she had married Claude Wolff.

Moving to France, close to 30, Pet transformed herself yet again. It was a change for the better, because she was seen as the woman she was, and not as the girl the English remembered.

Classical Music Scandal Admitted

Following up on my previous post about pianist Joyce Hatto, her husband now admits to the fraud.

Cherished music wasn’t hers
Husband admits to doctoring CDs

By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | February 27, 2007

An international classical music scandal that has built steadily over the past week and flared across the Internet broke open with a confession yesterday. Now it seems the remarkable story of pianist Joyce Hatto was, indeed, too good to be true.

While she was alive, Hatto’s recording career appeared to be nothing short of a miracle. In a tale that was equal parts “Shine” and “The Natural,” the reclusive pianist, who stopped performing concerts in the 1970s because of illness, became one of the most prolific classical recording artists of her time, with more than 100 CDs to her name.

In 2005, Richard Dyer, then a Boston Globe critic, wrote that Hatto “must be the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of.” Hatto died of cancer at 77 last year, having developed, late in life, an enthusiastic following of music buffs .

Click here for full article.

I was surprised to read that Richard Dyer is no longer with The Boston Globe. But now I recall, come to this of it, that he had retired. There was an announcement a year or so ago. Just as well, because he would have had to leave anyway, after this.

Petula Clark on DVD

Got something neat in the mail today. Yes, that’s an original autograph, guaranteed authentic.

Petula DVD

The DVD, just released, is of Petula Clark’s 1968 TV special. Same year as Elvis’ big comeback special, and in fact both shows were produced and directed by the same guy.