Helen Shapiro född 28 september 1946 i London, England, brittisk popsångerska med flera hits på 1960-talet.
Med sin mogna vibratofyllda röst fick Helen Shapiro ett snabbt genombrott i sitt hemland. Bara 14 år gammal slog hon igenom 1961 med You Don’t Know, som nådde förstaplatsen på den brittiska topplistan. Därefter kom efterföljaren, Walking Back to Happiness, som blivit hennes signaturmelodi. Också den blev listetta i Storbritannien. I Sverige nådde den sjätteplatsen på Tio i topp. När The Beatles gjorde sin första nationella turné i Storbritannien vårvintern 1963 var det som förband till Helen Shapiro. Svenska Wikipedia
Shapiro was born at Bethnal Green Hospital in the East End district of Bethnal Green, London.Her early childhood was spent in a Clapton council house in the London borough of Hackney, where she attended Clapton Park Comprehensive School until Christmas 1961. She is the granddaughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and her parents, who were piece-workers in the garment industry, attended Lea Bridge Road Synagogue. The family moved from Clapton to the Victoria Park area of Hackney, on the Parkside Estate, when she was nine. ”It was, and remains, a beautiful place,” she said in a 2006 interview.
Although too poor to own a record player, Shapiro’s parents encouraged music in their home (she had to borrow a neighbour’s player to hear her first single). Shapiro played banjolele as a child and sang with her brother Ron occasionally in his youth club jazz group. She had a deep timbre to her voice, unusual in a girl not yet in her teens: school friends gave her the nickname ”Foghorn”.
Aged ten, Shapiro was a singer with ”Susie and the Hula Hoops,” (with her cousin, 60s singer, Susan Singer) a school band which included Marc Bolan (then using his real name of Mark Feld) as guitarist. At 13 she started singing lessons at The Maurice Burman School of Modern Pop Singing, based in London’s Baker Street, after the school produced singing star Alma Cogan. ”I had always wanted to be a singer. I had no desire to slavishly follow Alma’s style, but chose the school merely because of Alma’s success”, she said in a 1962 interview. Burman’s connections eventually led her to a young Columbia Records A&R man named John Schroeder, who recorded a demo of Shapiro singing ”Birth of the Blues”.
In 1961, aged fourteen, she had a UK No. 3 hit with her first single, ”Don’t Treat Me Like a Child” and two number one hits in the UK, ”You Don’t Know”and ”Walkin’ Back to Happiness”. The latter did not top the UK chart until 19 October 1961, by which time Shapiro had reached 15, on 26 September. She had a No. 2 in 1962 with ”Tell Me What He Said”,achieving her first four single releases in the top three of the UK Singles Chart. Most of her recording sessions were at EMI’s studios at Abbey Road in north west London. Her mature voice made her an overnight sensation, as well as the youngest female chart topper in the UK. At a mere 14 years and 316 days old when ”You Don’t Know” hit the top, she was nevertheless a year older than Frankie Lymon had been when ”Why Do Fools Fall in Love” hit the UK number one slot in 1956.
Shapiro’s final UK Top Ten hit single was with the ballad ”Little Miss Lonely”, which peaked at No. 8 for two weeks in 1962. Shapiro’s recording manager at the time was Norrie Paramor.
Before she was sixteen years old, Shapiro had been voted Britain’s ”Top Female Singer”. The Beatles‘ first national tour of Britain, in the late winter/early spring of 1963, was as her supporting act. During the course of the tour, the Beatles had their first hit single and John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the song ”Misery” for her, but Shapiro did not record the composition. In 1995, during a This is Your Life highlighting her life and career, Shapiro revealed, ”It was actually turned down on my behalf before I ever heard it, actually. I never got to hear it or give an opinion. It’s a shame, really.” Shapiro lip-synched her then-current single, ”Look Who It Is”, with three of The Beatles (John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison) on the British television programme Ready Steady Go!
Det finns mer att läsa på engelska Wikipedia, hennes lysande men korta popmusikkarriär var nära slutet 1963. Men då väntade andra musikaliska områden som jazz, blues och musicals.
Helen Shapiro – Don’t Treat Me Like A Child 1961 No 3 UK
Helen Shapiro – You don´t know 1961 UK no 1
Helen Shapiro – Walking back to happiness 1961 No 1 UK
Här har du ditt liv Helen Shapiro del 1-4 del 2-4 i samma hög på baksidan av videon
Om ni inte vill eller orkar se det ca halvtimmeslånga TV-programmet, så vill jag bara informera om att hon sjunger en som jag tycker mycket bra jazz, till ackompanjemang av ett litet men naggande gott jazzband i slutet av programmet 3:20 minuter in på fjärde delen. Då hör man att hennes röst var minst lika bra i mitten på 1980-talet, som i början på 1960-talet. Men där finns också bilder från en film hon har haft en roll i, den är en stor del av första halvan av del 4, den kan också vara sevärd för sina tidstypiska bilder. Ha en bra dag önskar Olli.
PS hon sjunger fortfarande men numera sparsamt, åtminstone offentligt.
Jag hittade något ni kan ladda ner gratis och lagligt om ni vill. Helen Shapiro the pop years 1961- 66
Innan hon blev 16 år röstades hon fram till den populäraste sångerskan i UK.
