Helen Shapiro - Helen At Abbey Road 1961-1962 '2020

Tracks list

Helen Kate Shapiro (born 28 September 1946) is an English pop singer, jazz
singer and actress. She is best known for her 1960s UK chart toppers, You Dont
Know and Walkin Back to Happiness.

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 Northwold Primary School and
Clapton Park Comprehensive School until Christmas 1961. She is the granddaughter
of Russian Jewish immigrants; 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, Shapiros parents encouraged music in
their home (she had to borrow a neighbours player to hear her first single).
Shapiro played banjolele as a child and sang with her brother Ron occasionally
in his youth club skiffle 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 Londons 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 Almas style, but chose the school
merely because of Almas success, she said in a 1962 interview. Burmans
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, Dont Treat
Me Like a Child and two number one hits in the UK, You Dont 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 EMIs 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.

Shapiros final UK Top Ten hit single was with the ballad Little Miss Lonely,
which peaked at No. 8 for two weeks in 1962. Shapiros recording manager at the
time was Norrie Paramor.

Before she was sixteen years old, Shapiro had been voted Britains Top Female
Singer. The Beatles first national tour of Britain, in the late winter/early
spring of 1963, was as one of her supporting acts. 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. Its a shame, really.
Shapiro lip-synched her then-current single, Look Who It Is, on the British
television programme Ready Steady Go! with three of the Beatles (John Lennon,
Ringo Starr and George Harrison).

In 1962, Shapiro appeared as herself in the Billy Fury film Play It Cool, and
played the lead female role in Richard Lesters movie, Its Trad, Dad!, which
co-starred another early 60s hitmaker, Craig Douglas. On 31 December 1969,
Shapiro appeared on the BBC/ZDF co-production Pop Go The Sixties, singing Walkin
Back to Happiness.

By the time she was in her late teens, her career as a pop singer was on the
wane. With the new wave of beat music and newer female singers such as Dusty
Springfield, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw and Lulu, Shapiro appeared old-fashioned
and emblematic of the pre-Beatles, 50s era. As her pop career declined, Shapiro
turned to cabaret appearances, touring the workingmens clubs of the North East
of England. Her final cabaret show took place at Peterlees Senate Club on 6 May
1972, where she announced she was giving up touring as she was travel-weary and
had had enough of living out of a suitcase. Later, after a change of mind, she
branched out as a performer in stage musicals, and jazz (being her first love
musically).

She played the role of Nancy in Lionel Barts musical, Oliver! in Londons West
End and appeared in a British television soap opera, Albion Market, where she
played one of the main characters until it was taken off air in August 1986.

Between 1984 and 2001, she toured extensively with legendary British jazz
trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band, whilst still performing her own jazz
and pop concerts. Her one-woman show Simply Shapiro ran from 1999 to the end of
2002, when she finally bade farewell to show business.

Her autobiography, published in 1993, was entitled Walking Back to Happiness.
She appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4s The Reunion in August 2012. In March
2013 she appeared on BBC Radio 3s Good Morning Sunday

Helen Shapiro has been married since 31 August 1988 to John Judd (real name,
John Williams), an actor with numerous roles in British television and cinema.

Tracklist:
01. Helen Shapiro - Dont Treat Me Like A Child (Mono Remastered) (2:34)
02. Helen Shapiro - You Dont Know (Mono Remastered) (2:42)
03. Helen Shapiro - Walkin Back To Happiness (Take 2 Plus Studio Chat, Stereo
Remastered) (2:48)
04. Helen Shapiro - Walkin Back to Happiness (Take 13 Master, Stereo Remastered)
(2:32)
05. Helen Shapiro - KissNRun (Stereo Remastered) (2:08)
06. Helen Shapiro - I Want To Be Happy (Stereo Remastered) (2:20)
07. Helen Shapiro - Lets Talk About Love (Mono Remastered) (1:56)
08. Helen Shapiro - Tell Me What He Said (Stereo Remastered) (2:48)
09. Helen Shapiro - Little Miss Lonely (Mono Remastered) (2:55)
10. Helen Shapiro - A Teenager Sings The Blues (Mono Remastered) (3:14)
11. Helen Shapiro - I Cant Say No To Your Kiss (Plus Studio Chat, Remastered)
(2:11)
12. Helen Shapiro - Sometime Yesterday (Stereo Remastered) (2:56)
13. Helen Shapiro - I Dont Care (Stereo Remastered) (2:32)
14. Helen Shapiro - Basin St. Blues (Mono Remastered) (3:35)
15. Helen Shapiro - Everyone But The Right One (Mono Remastered) (2:36)
16. Helen Shapiro - Keep Away From Other Girls (Mono Remastered) (2:25)
17. Helen Shapiro - A Dozen Other Boys (Plus Studio Chat, Stereo Remastered)
(2:11)

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