Favorite Artists: Petula Clark

The still-fabulous Petula Clark

One of my all-time favorite female vocalists, Petula Clark probably THE female vocallist of the “Swinging Sixties” sound with hits like “Downtown” and “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”, among others!

Growing up, my favorite song from Ms. Clark, or “Pet” as they called her occasionally, was the super-positive, horn blaring single A SIGN OF THE TIMES. I always turned this one up whenever it came on the radio, Petula’s voice always seemed so sincere and happy as she sang the lines “You’ve changed a lot somehow from the one I used to know, ‘cause when you hold me now, it feels like you never wanna let me go!”.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t until I fell in love with ANOTHER one of her singles that I finally decided I’d better pick up an album from her: One day we were all riding down to drop someone off at the Denver Airport, and Pet’s song MY LOVE came on the radio. With its simplistic lyrics, it was one of those songs that everybody knew the words to, and everyone in the car started singing at the tops of their lungs, “MY LOVE IS WARMER THAN THE WARMEST SUNSHINE SOFTER THAN A SIGH MY LOVE IS DEEPER THAN THE DEEPEST OCEAN WIDER THAN THE SKY MY LOVE IS BRIGHTER THAN THE BRIGHTEST STAR THAT SHINES EVERY NIGHT ABOVE, AND THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD THAN CAN EVER CHANGE MY LOVEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” After the song ended, we all sat around grinning like idiots, that song made us so happy! I said, “Ah, I really must pick up this song the next time I’m a a record store!”

Well, when I finally got down to the record store, I was PLEASANTLY surprised to find that the album “My Love”ALSO featured my old favorite, “A Sign Of The Times”!! I couldn’t believe it! How did I ever miss picking this album up originally?! For a very modest $6.99 I was able to purchase that album and take it home!

Well, for weeks and weeks, that album was my main disc to play almost every track was just pure pop perfection. Arranged and Conducted by Tony Hatch, the sound of Pet’s recordings really had that Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” aura about it, the tunes just blared out with droning horns, banging drums and riffin’ guitars!

Nowadays, young people cannot imagine having to change sides to hear a complete album, but that’s how it was, and sometimes it would happen that you’d get attached to one side more than the other…that’s what happened to me with the My Love album! I had to hear MORE!

This purchase was soon followed by what would become my OTHER favorite album from Pet, “Petula Sings The International Hits” but these were only the beginning of a long and lasting love of all things Petula Clark and I was probably the happiest guy at Tower Records when, years later, they FINALLY got around to re-releasing all of Pet’s albums on CD! 

Thus began my collecting of Petula Clark's immense catalog with GREAT earnest, and it seemed like EVERY new purchase I got from Ms. Clark became YET another hUGE favorite! From her 60's output to her 70's and 80s output an even her early 50's stuff, it was ALL golden and I loved 'em ALL!

My Petula Clark CDs

My Petula Clark Albums, Video

Even into the 2000's with new releases from Petula like "From Now On" and "Lost In You",  there were still songs to captivate me and make those albums a must have as well! Yes, seems even today Petula is still going strong!

And there is HAPPY news for all of us Petula Clark fans as Pet has announced her very own AUTOBIOGRAPHY "Is That You, Petula?" out this coming OCTOBER! 

Already put in my order over at Amazon UK! Ooooh, CAN'T WAIT!

Favorite Albums: Petula Clark / My Love

One of my all-time favorite female vocallists, Petula Clark probably THE female vocallist of the “Swinging Sixites” sound with hits like “Downtown” and “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”, among others!

Growing up, my favorite song from Ms. Clark, or “Pet” as they called her occasionally, was the super-positive, horn blaring single A SIGN OF THE TIMES. I always turned this one up whenver it came on the radio, Petula’s voice always seemed so sincere and happy as she sang the lines “You’ve changed a lot somehow from the one I used to know, ‘cause when you hold me now, it feels like you never wanna let me go!”.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t until I fell in love with ANOTHER one of her singles that I finally decided I’d better pick up an album from her: One day we were all riding down to drop someone off at the Denver Airport, and Pet’s song MY LOVE came on the radio. With its simplistic lyrics, it was one of those songs that everybody knew the words to, and everyone in the car started singing at the tops of their lungs, “MY LOVE IS WARMER THAN THE WARMEST SUNSHINE SOFTER THAN A SIGH MY LOVE IS DEEPER THAN THE DEEPEST OCEAN WIDER THAN THE SKY MY LOVE IS BRIGHTER THAN THE BRIGHTEST STAR THAT SHINES EVERY NIGHT ABOVE, AND THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD THAN CAN EVER CHANGE MY LOVEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” After the song ended, we all sat around grinning like idiots, that song made us so happy! I said, “Ah, I really must pick up this song the next time I’m a a record store!”

Well, when I finally got down to the record store, I was PLEASANTLY surprised to find that the album “My Love”ALSO featured my old favorite, “A Sign Of The Times”!! I couldn’t believe it! How did I ever miss picking this album up originally?! For a very modest $6.99 I was able to purchase that album and take it home!

Well, for weeks and weeks, that album was my main disc to play almost every track was just pure pop perfection. Arranged and Conducted by Tony Hatch, the sound of Pet’s recordings really had that Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” aura about it, the tunes just blared out with droning horns, banging drums and riffin’ guitars!

Nowadays, young people cannot imagine having to change sides to hear a complete album, but that’s how it was, and sometimes it would happen that you’d get attatched to one side more than the other…that’s what happened to me with the My Love album!

For some reason, even though side A started with “My Love”, all of my favorite songs form the album were on side B, so it may seem like I have a LOT more to say about the tracks on the second side!!

After  “My Love” starts Side One, next we had “Hold Onto What You’ve Got” and “We Can Work It Out”, and  although only the latter was penned by Mssrs. Lennon and McCartney, both are really Beatlesy in flavor, at least as far as THESE ears are concerned!

“Time for Love” is the song I called the “Downtown” of this album, It really sounds like a song recorded during THAT session with its bright keyboards chirping away!

An emotional Pet on “Just Say Goodbye”, my fave line’s when she sings “It’s sad that you must go, you loved me once, I know, this much I can’t deny”…

“Life and Soul of the Party”-I don’t know if it’s the fact that the song’s about being at a PARTY, but I’ve always thought of this as Pet singing a  LESLEY GORE song, really “Judy’s Turn to Cry” in feeling!

And THAT ends Side One…

 Side Two:

First off, “A Sign of The Times”, followed by a GREAT rendition of  the standard “The Thirty-First of June”, a song that Petula made her own, as she did on so many other tunes!

I think this is Pet singing at her heart-wrenching best, with its “darling” hook, and especially when the song swells up and she sings the lines “Even so, deep inside the fire of love still burns, so please return and love me now!” Powerful!

“I Can’t Remember Ever Loving You” has that tinkly piano that I always thought sounded like “Precious and Few” by Climax, a song that was almost the exact OPPOSITE of Pet’s sad song that ‘s more akin to Barry Manilow’s “Trying To Get That Feeling Again”!

“Dance with Me” features a VERY “Soundtrack-y” orchestration behind her vocals, even slightly reminiscent of the intro to “The Age Of Aquarius” and even a bit of  “My Hawaii” by the Young Rascals!

And closing the album with one of my very, very favorite Petula Clark tracks, Pet’s take on the Guys and Dolls standard “If I Were a Bell”…folks, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, it just doesn’t get better than this! The horns, drums, Pet’s solid vocals, WOW, this had all the aura of Las Vegas in the 60’s, when everything was “Cool, Baby!”

Why, Pet even throw in a few “Ring-a-Dings” just in case you didn’t catch that one!

This pourchase was soon followed by what would become my OTHER favorite album from Pet, “Petula Sings The International Hits” but these were only the beginning of a long and lasting love of all things Petula Clark and I was probably the happiest guy at Tower Records when, years later, they FINALLYgot around to re-releasing all of Pet’s albums on CD! What they’d done was , each CD combined TWO of Pet’s albums, in the case of MY LOVE, it was on the same CD with  I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOUR LOVE. Funny thing, THAT album began with Pet’s take on “Strangers in the Night”, and since it followed the MY LOVE album, “If I Were A Bell” went right into “Strangers in the Night”, a PERFECT coupling, both with that aforementioned “Vegassy” feel and Sinatra connection! Ahahahaha