Category: Petula Clark

The One and Only Miss Petula Clark!

Petula Clark on gay marriage

Here in Massachusetts, gay marriage is such a non-issue. The schizophrenic ruling by the California Supreme Court is bizarre. Just give gay people the right to marry and be done with it.

This very funny comedy sketch, with Dean Martin looking surprisingly Abe Lincoln-ish, has Petula Clark counseling an unintentionally married pair. Pet always seemed to loosen up when she was with Deano, and her appearances on his show are a lot of fun to watch. From the apparent ages of the stars, the racy dialog, and a fairly obvious reference to John Dean’s Watergate testimony, I’d say this is from 1973, and not 1965, as claimed.

Parlez-Vous Français — Petula Clark

David Moncour has sent this link to an interview with Petula Clark, in French, including the music clips. Thank you, Davie!

http://franckhermann.spaces.live.com/blog/

The audio is linked on Petula’s name, and it isn’t embedded, so depending on how your file associations are set up it will come up on one local player or another. How about I embed it here, so you don’t have to bother doing that?

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/MAR/PETULACLARK_FrenchInterview.mp3]

How about this pair of pictures? On the left is Petula with actor Michael Redgrave in 1942, and on the right they’re together again in 1968, filming Goodbye Mr. Chips.

Petula Clark and Michael Redgrave

For many years, Petula has been great pals with Redgrave’s daughter Lynn, who’s about 5’10” tall. As you can see, Pet is petite!

Lynn Redgrave, Petula Clark

I see that it’s time to renew my subscription to Petula & Company, published by the International Petula Clark Society. There’s all sorts of stuff in there about Pet, facts and photos, that you won’t find anywhere else. I particularly enjoy it for providing so much background about her early years in England. As I keep saying, as far as we were concerned in America, Petula appeared out of nowhere, polished and professional.

Petula Clark Rocks!

Petula Clark is my all-time reference for female Pop singing talent, professionalism and sexiness. Not only is there nobody better, there’s nobody as good. Having said that, what a great cover on the new Collector’s Choice Music catalog!

Petula Clark Rocks

It says see page 3, so here’s page 3.

Petula Clark CCMusic

I’ll be ordering both of these new items. Video of Petula is always a treat, so I’m looking forward to the DVD. Which reminds me. Goodbye, Mr. Chips will finally be released on DVD in a couple of weeks.

David Moncur, our correspondent in Scotland, wrote to say:

Here is the Dutch concert Max proms that she was involved in, in December. Her voice sounds a bit strained, but she’s looking great.

http://www.omroepmax.nl/?waxtrapp=pvfhfDsHnHUVGHwB#

Click on “Afspelen” to get the show. She’s towards the end of the first half, and in the middle of the second half. This is the televised show, so they have cut it, and it doesn’t show all her songs….. Double click on it to make it screen size.

Happy 2009

Dave

Thank you, Dave! She does indeed look great. I wish I could do more than provide the link here, but the video is in Real format, and there’s not a lot I can do with that.

I was poking around TheRadio.com recently and happened to catch this sweet and lovely tune by Petula. Enjoy!

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/JAN/TheRadioPetula.mp3]

Playing DJ with theRADIO.com

Thanks to my dad’s cousin Lawrie for tipping me off to (yet another) new online music service. This one is theRADIO.com. Type in a song or artist and it takes you to whichever category it belongs to. theRADIO.com is from some outfit called American Media Services Interactive, and at this point I feel almost overwhelmed by the choices available today for music, whether online on cable TV, and I don’t even have XM/Sirius or HD Radio.

What I’d really like is a free-form option — except no rap or hip-hop, thank you very much. I love playing DJ, so I played with theRadio.com for a while and skipped around genres while recording. The selection includes the Turtles, a Johnny Ramone instrumental (I checked the volume in the middle of it), Lucinda Williams (a fave of Carol’s), followed by my all-time #1 favorite Bob Dylan tune, and finishing with “Reason to Believe”, recorded while I was called away, so I’m not sure who it is. Some of the inflections almost sound like Petula, but it isn’t her. Marianne Faithfull, maybe?

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/DEC/RadioDotCom.mp3]

Speaking of lovely Petula, Dave Moncur sent a link with some photos of our favourite glamour girl, who was performing in Utreht, Netherlands (K3 country!) recently. Thanks, Dave. She looks even better than when I saw her in May!

Petula Clark MAX Proms

Petula Clark goes green?

Here’s a bit of Petula trivia I’ve never seen before. Maybe somebody can ask her if it’s true? At least the part about her ordering a Porche in an unusual shade of green.

There is a story that the singer Petula Clark ordered a car in a unique shade of green and Porsche ordered far too much of the paint and has been using up the stock ever since. I asked whether this green was that colour; but no reply was the reply.