Digger talks to singer and performing legend Petula Clark,
CBE
Superlatives are too
often used for so-called stars, but Petula Clark's stardom and
international popularity is real and totally unique and her output
and career quite remarkable. She is the most successful British
female singer of all time, she is the only artist to have had hits
from the 1950s through to the 2000s, she has received and gained
awards, (world) records and accolades in abundance. A recording and
performing star as well as a truly international star of stage and
screen, unusually being equally as big a hit in the U.S.A. as well
as in Europe, particularly the French-speaking nations. Long before
David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Prince or Madonna decided that re-inventing
themselves was de rigueur, Petula was evolving many different
careers as a child star, a sixties icon, a star of film and stage
and a major live performer and multi-lingual recording star.
Petula
was born on November 15th, 1932. By 1944 she was such a successful
child star in Britain that she sang at the war victory celebrations
in London's Trafalgar Square, having been a mascot for the troops.
She appeared in many movies, mainly, though not exclusively musical,
both at home and in the States and carved-out a name for herself as
an actress and a singer of fine ditties such as Where Did My Snowman
Go, The Little Shoemaker and the less child-like recordings Sailor and Romeo.
She
went to France and sang in their tongue, much to the delight of that
nation and she was soon 'adopted' by the French having married a
Frenchman. Hits in German and Italian followed.
Come
the sixties, writer and producer Tony Hatch and his wife Jackie
Trent took a shine to 'Pet' & they joined to make many notable
and huge international hits (including two U.S. number ones.) The
trans-Atlantic lyrics of Downtown and Don't Sleep In The Subway as
well as other hits such as My Love, I Couldn't Live Without Your
Love & I Know A Place were all perfectly evocative of the
sixties mood and well-suited to Petula's, by now, more developed and
mature, pop voice. She had a hit with the Charlie Chaplin song This
Is My Song in 1967 and was the first UK female singer since Vera
Lynn in 1952 to have a number one in the States.
Pet
appeared in several movies in the sixties including Goodbye Mr.
Chips and Finian's Rainbow.
Many
musical collaborations followed, some of which can be heard on her
latest CD 'Duets', and Petula has consistently toured and recorded
to this day. She has appeared in Willy Russell's Blood Brothers and
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, breaking several records in
the process.
She
was recently awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) by
The Queen for her contributions to entertainment and as an
unofficial 'ambassadress' for Britain. There is a campaign by her
fans and friends (many in high places) to get her to be made a Dame,
a title that would seem totally appropriate given her considerable
achievements. Petula is as busy as ever but Digger managed to
catch-up with her after her recent Las Vegas concerts and here is that interview.
Petula
as child star and in the sixties
Petula now
Digger: What was it
like for a child in the war to be thrust into the limelight as a
child star? Were you aware of the important events going on around
you and also of your impact on the morale of the troops and
public?
Petula:
As a child I wasn't really aware of what a
star meant and it was a very different world then, of course.
Everything seemed to be in black and white. You know when I look
back on it now it was all rather grey.
Digger: When you
look back do you really see everything in black and white?
Petula: Funnily
enough, I do. When I see old movies in black and white I say
"Yeah, that's how it was." (Laughs) I was a very
musical child and loved to sing. I'm part Welsh and so the Welsh
... well they sing, they just sing! My mother was Welsh and
when the blitz got a bit too hard in London, and we were living
only just outside London, my sister and I we used to get sent to
spend some time with our grandparents near Merthr Tydfil and we
loved it. It was a different world altogether. We spoke Welsh
and that's where I first started singing.
Digger: Have you
ever sung in Welsh - I mean recorded?
Petula: No, I
haven't - I don't know if I could right now.
Digger: Just about
every other language but not Welsh.
Petula: (Laughs)
I'm sure it would come back to me if I had to because it's in
there somewhere... The impact on morale - I wasn't aware of
that kind of thing as I was very young.
Digger:
You were a kind of younger version of Vera
Lynn for the troops, weren't you?
Petula:
Oh, absolutely. Vera was the sweetheart of the forces and I
represented all the children who had been left behind when
their dad, or brothers or uncles had gone off to war. That's
what my image was.
Digger: It is
like a completely different world and difficult to imagine
these days.
Petula:
Well, it's almost like
talking about somebody else. It's something that I don't
talk about very much really. Only when people like you
....
Digger:
...Stupid people like me ask you question
about it! (Laughs) Where does your apparently boundless energy
and enthusiasm come from?
Petula:
I don't know if I can answer that (Thinks) .................
first of all, I enjoy life and I particularly enjoy
performing. You can be feeling grotty backstage and be
thinking "Oh God, I'm not going to be able to do this tonight."
There are nights like that but what happens is that you get on
stage, the music starts and the magic happens. Where does that
comes from?........ I think there's an energy coming from the audience
as well and it's a two-way traffic.
Digger: If it's a
good night?
Petula: Well,
they usually are!
Digger: Looking at
your career, it's quite superlative and exhaustive, with you
winning awards, world records and achieving numerous
milestones. What do you consider your biggest achivements to
date and what would you still like to accomplish?
Petula:
... Crikey!
Digger:
Sorry if that's a horrible question!
Petula: Well,
it's not a horrible one (thinks)....... but quite often it's
not so much the awards - the hardware, but it's the great
evenings. I mean, last night here in Las Vegas was incredible.
We had about 3,000 people and it was an amazing evening and I
wasn't quite expecting it. (Digger exclaims surprise!)
Well, I wasn't expecting it to be quite like that.
Digger:
They're particularly appreciative the
Americans, aren't they?
Petula:
Oh, they're all wonderful audiences, but that's not what I
mean. I don't know, it's just last night was a bit like the
Olympia in Paris when the place was just exploding. It's those
surprises when you're not quite expecting it that are the
wonderful moments.
Digger:
Are you nostalgic or do you tend to look forward?
Petula: I
have been somewhat criticised for not being nostalgic
enough.
Digger: If that's
the way you are, that's the way you are.
Petula: Yes....
but people DO get nostalgic about me. And expect me to feel
the same way. I'm far too into today and tomorrow to look
back.
Digger:
Why did the French take to you so well, do
you think?
Petula:
I think at the beginning... (Laughs) .... well, I didn't speak
French at all when I first went there. I went there because I
fell in love with a Frenchman and of all the places to go and
live I think France would have been the last place I thought
of. (Both laugh) I tell you, France is very different now and
it's much more open to the rest of the world. (Laughs) But
then, when I was first there in Paris and not being able to
speak the language it was kind of tricky.
Digger:
Daunting?
Petula:
Daunting. A good word. And then I did a
show at the Olympia and everybody went "Wahay" and
then the record company said I should record in French. I'm
sure you know that story and my first recordings in French
actually don't sound like French. (Both laugh) I realise that
NOW.
Digger:
Can you hear the English accent?
Petula:
It was more accent than anything else! And the French thought
it was very funny and quite charming. I think that was the
first appeal. And I looked different - they'd had several stars
who had come in from Italy and Egypt and these were dark
haired exotic-looking ladies and suddenly here I was little
and blonde and singing with this funny English accent and I
think I was a bit of a novelty. And little by little the
quality of the songs got better and I was able to sing in
French better and I became their number one seller.
Digger: They took
you under their wing, as it were.
Petula: They
DID. That too was a surprise and it certainly wasn't planned.
Digger:
There's supposed to be this rivalry between
the French and the British but sometimes things do cross over
quite well.
Petula:
In this case it did.
Digger: Coming
up-to-date a bit, can you tell us about your albums of the
songs of Rod McKuen and the Duets album?
Petula: Well,
yes, those are two very different albums, of course. The duets
are mostly live recordings that I've done over the years with
some really truly great artists and the one with Dusty we did
recently. It was a tape of Dusty that had not been quite
finished and she got some of the lyrics wrong and the notes
were off but she still sounded great. I heard this tape and
I'd always wanted to sing with Dusty and I always thought she
was the best of us British girls. And so we went into the
studio in LA and I recorded with her and it was an amazing
experience.
Digger:
An amazing voice, a soulful voice, a black voice really....
Petula: Very
much so, and we sound pretty good together I must say. I quite
like that duets album, there's really really some good stuff
on there.
Digger:
And the Rod songs that you've made your
own?
Petula:
Em, made them my own?... Some of them are really classics like Love's Been Good
To Me and the things that Sinatra did. I've know Rod for many
years and we've always said we'd do something together one day
and yet it was very difficult to do this album (Laughs) because I
was always somewhere else and we really needed to be in the
studio together to do this. We didn't do it sort of 'over the
'phone', kind of thing which you can pretty well do these
days. I'd say "Well, I'll be in LA on..." and we'd
do three songs and then I'd disappear and come back and do two
and a half songs some time later and so it went.
Digger: You're obviously
good friends so I'm sure it was nice to have a catch up.
Petula: Yes,
it was great fun doing it. Fans in general seem to think it's
a really good album, but it's not really for me to
judge.
Digger:
Do you consider yourself 'webby', as in the
Internet?
Petula:
I don't possess a computer and I think
the idea of putting my own 'web' on and reading it would be a
terrifying experience! I do know about the web sites though
and Bonnie in the US and Terry in England and the fan club and
they're lovely people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not turning my
nose up at it all but I'm not the kind of person that watches
their own movies and listens to their own records all day...
And I AM on the brink of getting a computer - teetering.
Digger: If
I talk to you in a year you'll be like an old hand.
Petula:
I don't know about that, I've got to learn to work the darn
thing.
Digger: Who do you
rate as the best songwriters and musicians?
Petula:
That's difficult! I do think Amy
Winehouse is pretty good, she's an amazing singer. I love
Annie Lennox. There are so many great singers around
today.
Digger: Are you
positive about the music scene today?
Petula:
Well, I am and I'm not. You know it depends on how you qualify
it. Longevity has always been something which has
been the kind of proof of somebody's talent but I don't
know if that's true these days.
Digger: That
probably leads onto a question I was going to ask later which
is what do you think about the reality show phenomenon where
people want to be famous for fame's sake and they want it
without having earned the right and done the work?
Petula:
I do know what you mean
but at the same time it's a great opportunity for young talent
to be seen and heard, when there is talent. Otherwise it's a
VERY tough business to get into.
Digger: More so
than it was when you were younger?
Petula:
Hmm, I don't think that you can compare and the whole world
has changed. But talent does come out, I think Will Young is
a wonderful talent. You can count them on one hand the ones
who have come along and really done something.
Digger: Are we
going to see you recording duets with Amy Winehouse, Annie
Lennox and Will Young?
Petula:
I'd love to, I'd love to.
Petula and Tony
Hatch
Digger: Can
you tell us about your musical collaborations with Tony Hatch?
Petula:
It was an
amazing thing. Tony was contributing to my French recordings
for quite a while - not choosing the songs and the material
but he was actually in the studio putting it together and then
he presented me with this song Downtown and we had no idea...
Digger: It was
just the melody wasn't it?
Petula: Well,
he had a title and one or two lines and the melody was so
strong I said that if he could write a lyric as strong as that
melody I would love to go in and record it. I hadn't recorded
in English for quite a while. I was recording in French and
German and Italian and so we went in and did this and we
recorded live with the orchestra and it was just a great
record. We knew we'd made a great record but we didn't know
we'd made a monster record and the wonderful thing about Tony
was that he just kept writing these songs. He'd sit down at
the piano and play Don't Sleep In The Subway and I would fall
in love with it and he would write I Couldn't Live Without
Your Love and I would fall in love with it (Both
laugh)
Digger: Did you
find yourself whistling or humming the tunes?
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Peter O'Toole |
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Jacques Brel |
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Dusty Springfield |
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Fred Astaire |
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Petula: Yes,
they were very catchy tunes as were his orchestrations and he
was producing too.
Digger:
I have been whistling the tunes over
the last couple of days while preparing for this interview and
it's been driving my girlfriend mad.
Petula:
(Laughs) Sorry
about that!
Digger:
It's only because when I whistle I
sound like an old builder.
Petula:
Yes, you don't hear many songs that builders can whistle today.
Digger:
You've had a number of different careers, as it were. Which has
given you the most satisfaction?
Petula:
They're all so different. You know I enjoy a lot of it.
Recording is such a technical thing these days with computers
and so on. There are advantages of course but I prefer live
performance best of all.
Digger:
The Tony Hatch live recordings generated something special.
Petula: Yes they
did. There's something joyful about
his songs, apart from the hits he wrote many other songs which I
think deserved to be hits but they were overshadowed by the other
songs but even his more thoughtful perhaps melancholic songs were
beautiful - he's just a great writer.
Digger:
You mention the joyful thing and one of my American friends asked me
to ask you if you see yourself as a positive person because your
music seems so positive?
Petula:
Yes, but how can I put this. I'm a Scorpio. I am a realist and I
know what's going on and the dangers and tragedies that can turn up
at the drop of a hat. My defence against all that stuff is to think
positive and ward it all off if possible.
Digger:
Does Britain recognise and appreciate its stars as much as the
Americans and Europeans do? I think the British are a bit apathetic
and blasé.
Petula:
Well, maybe. The Americans love success and they celebrate it. They
give you a standing ovation just for turning up. (Laughs) British
audiences..... they're a bit more difficult but it's kind of worth
the effort.
Digger:
Can I ask you a very specific question? You worked with producer Joe
Meek.
Petula:
Yes.
Digger:
Did you ever record at his Holloway Road flat? He recorded a lot of
his hits there with musicians crammed into the various rooms, such
as The Tornadoes.
Petula:
No, I recorded at the studios.
Digger:
Can you tell us about current and
future projects?
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Julie Andrews |
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Sacha Distel |
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Joe Meek |
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Petula:
I'm in Vegas as we speak and flying back to London tonight. There's
an anniversary of The Sound Of Music next week which I'm going to
attend which of course is not the performance but I think it's going
to be a lot of fun. And then I'm doing some concerts in ... where am I?
Canterbury and Chichester and Ipswich. Then I've got some more
concerts later in the year but I can't tell you what they are - best
to look at the website petulaclark.net
Digger:
Just one more question Petula. I have a list of people with whom you
have worked. Can you describe them each in a few words?
Petula:
I'll try...
Tony
Hatch. Love him. Respect him and we see each other from time to
time and he's just a superb songwriter.
Julie
Andrews: Yes. I see Julie from time to time and she remembers
those days very well when we were kids together back in WWII and she
reminds me about lots of stuff.
Tommy
Steele: I worked with Tommy on Finian's Rainbow and quite frankly
I haven't seen much of him since.
Fred
Astaire: Well, Fred!... I don't think you've got enough space.
Tony
Newley: My darling Tony. How I loved him. I had a big crush on
him when we were kids and we were sort of soul mates in a strange
way. We shared a lot together and we performed together in Vegas and
I'm very sad when I think he's not with us anymore. I can't quite
believe it.
Rod
McKuen: I've worked recently with Rod and got to know him a
lot better. When you're in a studio for hours on end you really get
to know someone and he's funny and intelligent and poetic and I adore
him.
Dusty
Springfield: Well Dusty and I we didn't really know each other
very well although we did share a dressing room once in San Remo in
Italy but we didn't really know each other at all. And because we
were, I suppose at the time, not exactly rivals but sort of treated
that way. So we never appeared
on the same show together apart from that Italian show. We moved in
different circles and I wish I had known Dusty better.
Andrew
Lloyd Webber: Yes, it's very interesting he's turned into a TV
star in the last few years which is kind of surprising. We have met
a lot of times and got along fine and I have great respect for what
he's done for the musical theatre and it always gives me pleasure to
do a song from Sunset Boulevard in my show.
Willy
Russell: He's deeply talented and Blood Brothers is one of those
shows that seems as if it's going to go on as long as The Mousetrap.
I still do something from Blood Brothers in my show and each time I
sing Tell Me It's Not True I can FEEL the character from Blood
Brothers really deeply.
Joe
Meek: I don't know what I can say but he was a very talented man.
Peter
O'Toole: Obviously he was a great actor but we had such fun doing
Goodbye Mr Chips. He LOVED archaeology like I do and when we were in
Italy in Pompeii we were just in heaven. And I have seen him a few
times since and we both had such wonderful memories of making that
movie.
Serge
Gainsbourg: Ah Serge! Well, I first met Serge in my living room
in Paris. He came over to play something to me. He wasn't yet the
sort of, as they say in French, 'Gasbar' - he changed, his whole personality
changed at one point but he was always a great songwriter and I
loved all his recordings. He was very very shy and it took him a
couple of beers actually to loosen up. He became a man with this kind of
unwashed and 'out of it' kind of look but he wasn't like that when I
first met him and he wrote three beautiful songs for me.
Digger:
Am I right that Jacques Brel wrote something for you as well?
Yes,
he did he wrote a song called Un Enfant which means a child and he
gave it to me as a gift for the birth of one of our children. And I
was on tour with Jacques in Belgium. So it was just the two of us and
I had this unique opportunity to see him and hear him every night.
And it was an education.
Sacha
Distel: Sacha was a real friend. We used to ski together. He had
a place in the French alps (Francine still does, of course) and used to come to dinner with us and we
did TV shows together and we were almost like a double act. Not just
singing but sketches and silly things and it was hugely popular with
French audiences and great fun.
Digger:
He seemed like an Anglophile.
Petula:
He spoke very good English.
Dean
Martin: Dean was.... (Thinks) it would be nice to have some
people who were still alive!! (Digger laughs and apologises) I
adored Dean. I did the show many times with Dean and I did it virtually
without rehearsal the way he did it and after a while the crew and
producer realised I was very fast and didn't need too much rehearsal
and a lot of people thought we were having a 'thing'. There was no
truth in it but there was a twinkle in his eye for me, let's put it
that way.
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Tommy Steele |
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Dean Martin |
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Andrew Lloyd Webber |
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Anthony Newley |
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Harry
Belafonte: Well, Harry and I went through that experience when he
was on my TV show in America which you probably know about.... (Editor's
note. Incredibly, in the sixties the sponsor for her show demanded
that part of the show be re-recorded before broadcast because Petula
had touched Harry Belafonte's arm affectionately. Petula and the
producers refused and the show was transmitted with the gesture
intact.)
Digger:
Funnily enough, you share something similar with Dusty there because
when she toured South Africa in the sixties she refused to sing to
segregated audiences and was thrown out.
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Serge Gainsbourg |
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Harry Belafonte |
Yes,
I went to South Africa at that time and my musical director was
black and we ran into some problems. You know that's the way I felt
about things and still do, so Harry and I we see each other from
time to time in New York and there's a very special connection
there.
Digger:
That's the final person on the list you'll be glad to hear. (Petula
laughs) It's been a real pleasure Petula and thank you for your time and
help. It was much appreciated and have a safe journey back to the
UK. You might even hear me shouting from the audience at the Ipswich
gig.
Petula:
Well as long as it's not rude.
Digger:
Many thanks again.
Petula:
It was a pleasure.
My big thanks to Petula Clark for the
interview and to Jim Pierson and Richard Harries for arranging it
for me/helping with information. October 2007.
For further reference:
www.petulaclark.net
www.imdb.com
