Lulu (singer) - Life and Career

Life and Career

Lulu grew up in Dennistoun, Glasgow, where she attended Thomson Street Primary School and Onslow Drive Junior School. She lived in Gallowgate for a while before moving to Garfield Street. At the age of 12 or 13 she and her manager approached a band called the Bellrocks seeking stage experience as a singer. She appeared with them every Saturday night: Alex Thomson, the group's bass player, has reported that even then her voice was unbelievable. Lulu has two brothers and a sister. Her father was a heavy drinker who beat her mother. Her mother hated her father, but remained with him until she died of cancer.

Under the wing of Marion Massey, she was signed to Decca Records and when she was only fifteen her version of The Isley Brothers' "Shout", delivered in a raucous but mature voice, reached the UK charts. Massey guided her career for more than 25 years, for most of which time they were partners in business, and Massey's husband, Mark, produced some of Lulu's recordings.

In 1966 Lulu toured Poland with The Hollies, the first British female singer to appear live behind the Iron Curtain. In the same year she recorded two German language tracks, "Wenn du da bist" and "So fing es an", for the Decca Germany label. All her Decca recordings were made available in 2009 on a 2-CD entitled Shout!, issued on RPM Records. After two hit singles with the The Luvvers Lulu launched her solo career.

She left Decca after failing to chart in 1966 and signed with Columbia to be produced by Mickie Most. In April 1967 she returned to the UK singles chart reaching number 6 with "The Boat That I Row", written by Neil Diamond. All seven singles she cut with Most made the UK Singles Chart. However, in her autobiography I Don't Want To Fight, published in 2002, she described him as "cheap" and had little positive to say about their working relationship, which she ended in 1969 after her biggest UK solo hit. Nonetheless when Mickie Most died in 2003, Lulu was full of praise for him and told the BBC they had been very close.

In 1967 she made her film debut in To Sir, With Love, a British vehicle for Sidney Poitier. Lulu both acted in the film and provided the title song, with which she had a major hit in the United States, reaching No.1. "To Sir, With Love" became one of the best-selling singles of 1967 in the US, selling well in excess of a million copies; it was awarded a gold disc. In the UK, "To Sir, With Love" was released on the B-side of "Let's Pretend", a No.11 hit.

In the late-'sixties Lulu's pop career in the UK thrived and she had several television series of her own. After appearing on the BBC in 1967 in a successful TV series that featured music and comedy, Three Of A Kind, Lulu was given her own TV series in 1968, which ran annually until 1975 under various titles including Lulu's Back In Town, Happening For Lulu, Lulu and It's Lulu, which featured Adrienne Posta. Her BBC series featured music and comedy sketches and star guests; one episode remains famous for Jimi Hendrix's unruly live appearance where, after playing about two minutes of Hey Joe, Hendrix stopped and announced "We'd like to stop playing this rubbish and dedicate a song to The Cream, regardless of what kind of group they may be in, dedicate to Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce". He then broke into Sunshine of Your Love. With the studio director signalling for Hendrix to stop he continued. Unrepentant, Hendrix was told he would never work at the BBC again. He told his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham "I'm not going to sing with Lulu. I'd look ridiculous".

From 30 June to 2 July 1967 Lulu appeared with The Monkees at the Empire Pool, Wembley, and her brief romance with Davy Jones of The Monkees during a concert tour of the USA in March 1968 received much publicity in the UK press. Lulu described her relationship with Jones as "He was a kind of boyfriend but it was very innocent – nothing untoward happened. It faded almost as soon as it had blossomed".