[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/MAR07/BigTrain.flv 400 300]
In the tradition of Monty Python and the other great British comedy troupes before them, Big Train have covered the kidnapping in Iraq and subsequent release of Beatles producer George Martin.
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.
Previously, I highlighted the fact that it was possible to register yourself with this Web site. It was this feature that provided the recent infestation a way in. The updated software should prevent it from happening again, but nevertheless I have disabled the feature.
I don’t want to go through another attack like that! After I realized what had happened, I sat stunned for five minutes, wanting to read “My Pet Goat”! 😉
[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.
