Category: Petula Clark

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I remember when the PBS music specials that were aired for fund-raisers featured Lawrence Welk. Later, it was Doo-Wop. Now it’s, sigh, the music of my generation. Here’s Petula Clark introducing the Zombies, performing “Time of the Season” on My Music: The British Beat.

There’s a PBS TV special that’s starting this week, called My Music: The British Beat. It’s hosted by none other than Petula Clark. No, I haven’t seen it yet! But I will. It sounds like a fun show, but I think it’s one of those specials that’s run in between pledge requests. Here’s a blurb about it:

In February 1964, a young English rock ‘n’ roll quartet called the Beatles arrived on U.S. shores, kicking off a musical explosion that took the country by storm – and reverberates to this day. PBS revisits the time when the nation’s airwaves grooved to the swinging sounds of London in MY MUSIC: THE BRITISH BEAT. Britain’s first lady of song, Petula Clark, hosts this all-star reunion of some of the best of the British Invasion and performs her #1 million-seller “Downtown.” Beloved duo Peter and Gordon reunite for the first time in nearly four decades to perform their hits “World Without Love” and “I Go to Pieces.” Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent of the Zombies bring back the British psychedelic pop sound with the Brit-rock anthems “Time of the Season” and “She’s Not There.”

THE BRITISH BEAT includes numerous #1 Billboard hits such as “Wild Thing” by the Troggs, “To Sir With Love” by Lulu and “Game of Love” by Wayne Fontana, original lead singer of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, who also reprises the favorite “A Groovy Kind of Love.” An archival performance of her 1966 worldwide smash “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” pays tribute to the late Dusty Springfield, while vintage clips from “The Ed Sullivan Show” provide era-defining moments from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

If 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 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]

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.

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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.