Cilla Black

Our pick of the pops

With the backing of the top songwriters and producers of the day, Cilla Black became one of Britain’s top stars of the 1960s. After scoring a “lorra, lorra” hits, she went on to become Britain’s highest-paid female television presenter in the 1980s and 90s.

She was born Priscilla White on 27 May 1943 in Liverpool, on England’s north west coast. By 1963 she was working as an office typist and sending her lunch breaks as a coat check girl in the city’s famous Cavern Club. She made a name for herself locally by singing with a group called the Big Three or solo, billed as Swinging Cilla.

She was signed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein and offered a recording contract by Parlophone. Her first single, the storming Love of the loved, was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and issued in September 1963. Despite its impeccable pedigree it made only number 33 in the UK charts.

The follow up, however, was to make her a household name. Released in January 1964, Anyone who had a heart was a cover of an America hit by Dionne Warwick (who has still to forgive Cilla for her note-for-note copy) written by legendary songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Within three weeks it hit the number one spot in the UK charts and sold over a million copies worldwide.

Her next single marked the beginning of what

Cilla refers to as her “Italian period”, when she

recorded an English version of Umberto

Bindi’s Il mio mondo. Her You’re my world 

topped the charts for four weeks in the spring

of 1964.

She became a frequent guest on television and

finished the year by appearing in the Royal

Variety Performance singing her fourth hit, the

excellent jazz-tinged Lennon and McCartney

composition It’s for you.

Further hits ensued with You’ve lost that

loving feeling, which made number two in

the UK charts in 1965 while the Righteous

Brothers took the original to number one, and

I’ve been wrong before, which stalled at

number 17 despite Cilla having given one of

her best vocal performances.

She ended the year with another top five hit, Love’s just a broken heart.

Sandie Shaw’s manager is reported to have turned down Alfie for the Dagenham star, and Cilla took the Bacharach and David title track to the Michael Caine film into the UK top ten. The song has gone on to become Cilla’s theme tune.

In 1966, Cilla starred in a revue in London’s West End alongside Frankie Howerd, and scored another top ten hit with her second song of Italian origin, Don’t answer me, originally recorded by Donatella Moretti as Ti vedo uscire. She followed it with A fool am I, a cover of another Italian song, Dimmelo parlami, and took it to number 13 in the UK charts.

When 1967’s dramatic ballad What good am I and the gentle I only live to love you, another Italian cover (this time of Cosa si fa stasera), only made the top 30, it looked as though Cilla’s pop career might be going off the boil.

However, salvation came when the BBC offered her her own television series. Cilla, as the show was called, first aired in January 1968, and its theme tune, Step inside love, written especially for her by Paul McCartney, saw her return to the top ten. She also released an Italian version of the song in Italy.

I've been wrong before

1965

Surround yourself with sorrow

1969

It's for you

1964

Cilla Black on YouTube

Over my head

1967

Anyone who had a heart

1964

On a street called hope

1969

Love of the loved

1963

Conversations

1969

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The BBC offered her the chance to represent the UK at that year’s Eurovision song contest, but the singer turned it down, arguing that as Sandie Shaw had won the year before, a second win by a British female was unlikely. (Spanish girl singer Massiel won, as it happens.)

Her next single, another – albeit inferior – Italian song, Where is tomorrow (originally Non c’è domani) just scraped into the top 40. However, Cilla was too busy appearing in her first film, Peter Hall’s Work is a four letter word, to worry.

She rounded off the decade with a marriage to her long-term boyfriend and manager Bobby Willis and a return to chart form. The superb Surround yourself with sorrow made number three in the UK charts, the unusual Conversations made number seven and the gentle If I thought you’d ever change your mind made number 20. Interestingly, for the

B-side of this, her final single of the decade, she turned not to Italy but to Germany for material. Writers Werner Scharfenberger and Fini Busch, who between them had written dozens of hits for the likes of Petula Clark, Gitte and Siw Malmkvist were behind It feels so good.

Cover cuts

Cilla Black

The best of 1963-78

Amazon.co.uk

Cilla Black in Italian

Cilla Black online

With Cilla’s on-screen warmth and character, it was no, erm, surprise, surprise when she went on to host further TV series in the 1970s to the 90s and became Britain’s most popular female television light entertainment presenter.