Cilla Black - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Priscilla White was born in the Scotland Road area of Liverpool, England, during World War II, to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. Determined to become an entertainer, she got a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at Liverpool's Cavern Club, best known for its association with The Beatles. Her impromptu performances impressed The Beatles and others. She was encouraged to start singing by Liverpool promoter, Sam Leach, who gave her her first gig at The Cassanova Club, where she appeared as "Swinging Cilla". She became a guest singer with the Merseybeat bands Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes and, later, with The Big Three. She was also, meantime, a waitress at The Zodiac coffee lounge, where she was to meet her future husband Bobby Willis. She was featured in an article in the first edition of the local music newspaper Mersey Beat; the paper's publisher, Bill Harry, mistakenly referred to her as Cilla Black, rather than White, and she decided she liked the name, and took it as a stage name.

She signed her first contract with long-time friend and neighbour, Terry McCann, but this contract was never honoured, because it was signed when she was under-age, and her father subsequently signed her with Brian Epstein.

Brian Epstein had a portfolio of local artists. At first he showed little interest in Black. She was introduced to Epstein by John Lennon, who persuaded him to audition her. Her first audition was a failure, partly because of nerves, and partly because The Beatles (who supported her) played the songs in their vocal key rather than re-pitching them for Black's voice. In her autobiography What's It All About? she writes:

But after seeing her another day, at The Blue Angel jazz club, Epstein contracted with Black as his only female client on 6 September 1963. Epstein introduced Black to George Martin who signed her to Parlophone Records and produced her début single, "Love of the Loved" (written by Lennon and McCartney), which was released only three weeks after she contracted with Epstein. Despite an appearance on ABC-TV's popular Thank Your Lucky Stars, the single peaked at a modest No.35 in the UK, a relative failure compared to début releases of Epstein's most successful artists (The Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas).

Her second single, released at the beginning of 1964, was a cover of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition "Anyone Who Had a Heart", which had been written for Dionne Warwick. The single beat Warwick's recording into the UK charts and rose to No.1 in Britain in February 1964 (spending 3 weeks there), selling 800,000 copies in the UK in the process. Her second UK No.1 success, "You're My World", was an English language rendition of the Italian popular song, "Il Mio Mondo". She also enjoyed chart success with the song in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, South Africa and Canada. Both songs sold over one million copies worldwide, and were awarded gold discs.

Black's two No.1 successes were followed by the release of another Lennon–McCartney composition, "It's for You", as her fourth UK single. Paul McCartney played piano at the recording session and the song proved to be another major international success for Black, peaking at No.7 on the UK charts.

Black belonged to a generation of British female singers which included Dusty Springfield, Helen Shapiro, Petula Clark, Sandie Shaw and Lulu. These artists were not singer-songwriters, but interpreters of 1960s contemporary popular music by song writers/producers. Black recorded much material during this time, including songs written by Phil Spector, Randy Newman, Tim Hardin and Burt Bacharach. All were produced by George Martin at Abbey Road Studios.

Black's version of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (1965) reached No.2 in the UK charts in the same week that The Righteous Brothers's original version of the same song went to No.1 there (week of 4 February 1965). This was the first of only three occasions in the history of the British Top 40 where the same song, recorded by two different artists, held the top two positions in the chart in the same week. George Martin's and Parlophone's attempts to pull off the same trick that they had succeeded at with "Anyone Who Had a Heart", taking a strong song released by an American artist hitherto unknown to British audiences and giving it to Cilla, did not succeed in the same spectacular fashion in February 1965 as it had twelve months earlier.

Being so closely associated with The Beatles, Black became one of a select group of artists in the 1964-5 period (the others in the same position being Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas and Peter and Gordon) to record more than one Lennon–McCartney composition. Black continued to record Lennon-McCartney compositions throughout the period (1963-1973) that she was under contract to EMI's Parlophone; Black's recordings of "Yesterday", "For No One" and "Across the Universe" were acclaimed critically and became radio favourites. McCartney said Black's 1972 interpretation of "The Long and Winding Road" represented for him how he always intended the song to be sung.

Black's career in the United States, although begun enthusiastically by Epstein and his PR team, was limited to a few television appearances (The Ed Sullivan Show among them), a 1965 cabaret season at the Plaza Hotel in New York, and success with "You're My World", which made it to No.26 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was to be her only Stateside chart success, and Elvis Presley had a copy on his personal jukebox at his Graceland home. Black herself recognised that to achieve popular status in the USA she would need to devote much time to touring there. But she was plagued by homesickness and a sense of loneliness and returned to the UK just as she was starting to become popular in the US.

During 1966, Black recorded the Bacharach-David song "Alfie", written as the signature song to the 1966 feature film, Alfie. While Cher sang "Alfie" on the closing credits of the movie, Black was the first and only artist to have a hit with the song in the UK (No.9). "Alfie" went on to become a success for both Cher (in 1966) and Dionne Warwick (in 1967) in the States. Black's version of "Alfie" was arranged and conducted by Bacharach himself at the recording session at Abbey Road. Bacharach insisted on several takes, and Black cited the session as one of the most demanding of her recording career. For Bacharach's part, he said "...there weren't too many white singers around, who could convey the emotion that I felt in many of the songs I wrote but that changed with people like Cilla Black..."

By the end of 1966, Black had guested on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's Not Only... But Also, appeared in a Ray Galton-Alan Simpson revue in London's West End — Way Out In Piccadilly — alongside Frankie Howerd, made notable appearances on The Eamonn Andrews Show, and starred in her own television special (the first of its kind to be filmed in colour), Cilla at the Savoy.

Brian Epstein's attempts to make Black a film actress were less successful. A brief appearance in the "beat" film Ferry 'Cross the Mersey and a leading role alongside David Warner in the 1968 psychedelic comedy Work Is a Four-Letter Word were largely ignored by film critics. In a 1997 interview with Record Collector magazine, Black revealed she was asked to appear in the 1969 film The Italian Job, playing the part of Michael Caine's girlfriend, but negotiations fell through between producers and her management over her fee.

Brian Epstein died of an accidental drug overdose in August 1967, not long after negotiating a contract with the BBC for his only female artist to appear in a television series of her own. Relations between Epstein and Black had somewhat soured during the year prior to his death, due largely to the fact that Epstein was not paying her career enough attention and the fact that Black's singles "A Fool Am I" (UK No.13, 1966) and "What Good Am I?" (UK No.24, 1967) were not big successes. Apparently Black was also unhappy with Epstein's public admission that he had taken LSD. In her autobiography, Black claimed that Epstein had tried to pacify her by negotiating a deal that would see her representing the UK in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest. However, Black refused on the basis that Sandie Shaw had won the previous year's contest, and that the chances of another British female artist winning were improbable.

After the death of Epstein, Black's boyfriend and songwriter Bobby Willis assumed management duties. After the relatively disappointing performance of "I Only Live to Love You" (UK No.26, 1967), Black hit a new purple patch in her recording career, starting with "Step Inside Love" in 1968 (UK No.8), which McCartney wrote especially for her as the theme for her new weekly BBC-TV variety series. Other successes followed in 1969: "Conversations" (UK No.7), "Surround Yourself With Sorrow" (UK No.3), "If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind" (No.20). Black had a further big hit with "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)" (UK No.3) in 1971.

The Beatles association continued. At a Cannes Film Festival during the 1970s, Black joined George Harrison, Ringo Starr and popular music star Marc Bolan to attend a screening of the John Lennon-Yoko Ono experimental film Erection. She also holidayed with Harrison and Starr on a trip aboard a yacht chartered by Ringo. "Photograph" was written on this trip — originally intended for Black to record — but Starr decided to record it himself. George Harrison also wrote two songs for Black: "The Light that has Lighted The World" and "I'll Still Love You (When Every Song Is Sung)". The latter she recorded during 1974 with her then producer David Mackay, but it was not heard publicly until 2003, when it re-surfaced on a retrospective collection entitled Cilla: The Best of 1963-78.

She shows an increasing reluctance to sing nowadays, though there have been two returns to the recording studio in recent times; during 1993 Black released Through the Years, an album of new material featuring a number of duets with Dusty Springfield, Cliff Richard and Barry Manilow. Ten years later, she released the album Beginnings... Greatest Hits and New Songs.

In his 1969 study of popular music history Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, the rock music journalist Nik Cohn wrote prophetically:

Black was one of the best-selling female recording artists in Britain during the 1960s. To date, she has released 15 studio albums and 37 singles. During 2006–07, Black's 1971 single "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)" was used as the soundtrack to a new British advertising campaign for Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

During the 2008-09 pantomime season, Black returned to live musical performance in the pantomime "Cinderella", appearing as the Fairy Godmother. Black was part of an all-Scouse cast assembled in this three hour stage spectacular to mark the end of Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture. The show incorporated a number of Black's successes, which she performed live, including "You're My World", "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)", "Step Inside Love" and "Sing a Rainbow". Black received rave reviews for her singing and overall performance.

On 7 September 2009, a total of 13 original studio albums (the first seven produced by George Martin) recorded by Black between 1963 and 2003 were released for digital download. These albums were all digitally re-mastered and featured an array of musical genres. Also released by EMI at the same time was a double album and DVD set, The Definitive Collection (A Life In Music), featuring rare BBC video footage; a digital download album of specially commissioned re-mixes Cilla All Mixed Up; a remixed single on digital download of "Something Tells Me (Something’s Gonna Happen Tonight)".

For the winter 2010 pantomime season, Black appeared in Cinderella at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.