Top Picture: Lulu and The Luvvers, a backing group she soon dropped.
Second Picture: The cast from ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’
Lulu
I cannot believe that I have been writing this blog for over ten years now and I have never done a page on Lulu, so I will rectify that right now.
Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, is known to us as ‘Lulu’, her name now is Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, was born on 3rd November 1948 in Glasgow. At the age of 13 she had started singing and had a manager who approached a band called the Bellrocks seeking a singer. She appeared with them every Saturday night and even then her voice was unbelievable.
At 15 she signed to Decca, it is then that her version of "Shout", reached the UK charts. Marion Massey, her manager, guided her career for more than 25 years, for most of which time they were partners in business. Massey's husband, Mark, wrote many of Lulu's hits. In 1966 Lulu toured Poland with The Hollies and she was the first British female singer to appear live behind the Iron Curtain. In the same year she recorded two German language tracks, "Wenn du da bist" and "So fing es an" for the Decca Germany label. All of Lulu's Decca recordings were made available in 2009 on a 2-CD entitled Shout!
She left Decca in 1966 and signed with Columbia to be produced by Mickie Most. In April 1967 Lulu returned to the Charts reaching number 6 with The Boat that I Row and all seven singles she made with Mickie Most made the UK Singles Chart. In 1967 she made her debut film in To Sir with Love with Sidney Poitier. She had a major hit with the title song reaching number one in the US. In the UK, it was released on the B Side of "Let's Pretend" and reached No 11 sold over a million copies and was awarded a gold disc. In the meantime she continued her pop career and had several television series of her own. After appearing on the BBC in the 1967 series Three Of A Kind, Lulu was given her own TV series in 1968, which ran annually until 1975 under various titles including Lulu's Back In Town, Happening For Lulu, Lulu and It's Lulu.
On 29 March 1969, she represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest performing "Boom Bang-a-Bang and won and in 1975 Lulu herself hosted the BBC's A Song for Europe in which The Shadows performed six short listed songs.
Weeks before her Eurovision appearance Lulu married Bee Gee Maurice Gibb, their Mexican honeymoon had to be postponed because of Lulu's Eurovision commitment. Their careers and his heavy drinking forced them apart and they divorced, childless, in 1973 but remained on good terms.
In 1970 Lulu scored a US Top 30 hit, "Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby)". She appeared on the highly rated review of the sixties music scene Pop go the Sixties performing "Boom Bang-A-Bang" live on BBC1 and she was one of the main artists invited to appear on the BBC's anniversary show Fifty Years of Music in 1972. The same year she starred in Peter Pan in Manchester and repeated her performance at the London Palladium in 1975, and returned to the same role in different London based productions from 1987 to early 1989. In 1974 she performed the title song of the James Bond movie The man with the Golden Gun.
In 1977 she married her hairdresser but they separated in 1991 and divorced in 1995. They had one son.
She was associated with Freemans fashion catalogue during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In late 1979 she was in a car accident that nearly took her life, colliding head-on with another car.
She won the Rear of the Year award in 1983 and re-recorded a number of her songs. These included "Shout," which reached the Top 10 in 1986 in the UK. In 1993 she made a recording comeback with the single "Independence" which reached number 11 in the UK charts. This was the title track from the Independence album, all four singles from this album reached the UK charts, as did two later singles released in 1994.
In 1999, she co-wrote and recorded a duet with UK pop singer Kavana entitled "Heart Like The Sun", but it was not released until Kavana's 2007 "greatest hits" collection.
Now known as Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, in 2000 she was awarded an OBE. In 2004, she released the album Back on Track and went on a UK-wide tour to celebrate 40 years in the business. In late 2004 she returned to radio as the host of a 2-hour radio show on BBC Radio 2, playing a blend of music from the 1950s to the 2000s. In 2005, Lulu released A Little Soul in Your Heart, a collection of soul classics.
Lulu has continued to act occasionally and she has more recently appeared in a BBC reality TV show in 2006 as a judge and in late June and early July 2006 appeared on Take That's UK tour to perform their song "Relight My Fire". In November 2008 Lulu was one of a number of Scottish celebrities that featured in the advertising campaign for Homecoming Scotland, a year-long event to encourage people around the world with Scottish heritage to return to Scotland.
In January 2009, she began a four week stint as an advisor/coach on the BBC show Eurovision: Your Country Needs You, helping to choose the singer to represent the UK at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.
After appearing at an Abba tribute concert in Hyde Park during September 2009, Lulu announced that she would be touring the UK and a second tour was announced in 2010. In early 2010, Lulu performed the theme "The Word Is Love" to the movie Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!! In November 2010 she hosted the BBC TV series "Rewind the 60s". Each episode focused on a year during the 1960s highlighting the social and political issues of the decade as well as music and interviews with personalities from the decade and on 26th February this year she appeared in the second heat in the third series of Let's Dance for Comic Relief.
So all that is left to say is ‘Weeeellllllll ………………’
Stay in touch,
Yours,
Peter
DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk
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No mail this week!!
News and Views:
Harry Fowler, 'Cheeky cockney' character actor has died aged 85, he never attained star status but created a gallery of characters, including minor villains, servicemen, reporters and tradesmen enriched by a cheeky smile and an authentic cockney accent. On television, he could be seen in Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars, but his big break came with three years in The Army Game (1959-61) and later as Harry Danvers in Our Man at St Mark's (1965-66). He accepted cameo roles in films, including Doctor in Clover (1966), recalling the advice that "each appearance was an advertisement for the next". He turned up as a milkman delivering to a home tyrannised by Bette Davis in The Nanny (1965), drove a cab in Lucky Jim (1957), and featured in the film of George and Mildred (1980), as he had in the TV series.
On this day 21st January 1960-1965.
On
21/01/1960the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was North by Northwest. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On
21/01/1961the number one single was Poetry in Motion - Johnny Tillotson and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On
21/01/1962the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On
21/01/1963the number one single was The Next Time/Bachelor Boy - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Out of the Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On
21/01/1964the number one single was Glad All Over - Dave Clark Five and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On
21/01/1965the number one single was Yeh Yeh - Georgie Fame and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
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