Helen Shapiro

Helen Kate Shapiro (born 28 September 1946) is a British pop and jazz singer and actress. While still a teenager in the early 1960s, she was one of Britain's most successful female singers. With a voice described by AllMusic as possessing "the maturity and sensibilities of someone far beyond their teen years", Shapiro recorded two 1961 UK chart toppers, " You Don't Know" and "Walkin' Back to Happiness", when she was just fourteen years old.

Shapiro first achieved prominence in 1961 when her debut single, " Don't Treat Me Like a Child", reached No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart. After the two million-sellers, her success continued in 1962 with further hits including " Tell Me What He Said" and film appearances in '' Play It Cool'' and ''It's Trad, Dad!''. In 1963, Shapiro toured with the Beatles as her supporting act. Since the 1970s, she has branched out as a performer in musical theatre and jazz; she appeared in the West End and toured extensively with the British jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band.

Early life

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 flat 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, Shapiro's parents encouraged music in their home (she had to borrow a neighbour's player to hear her first single). Shapiro played banjolele as a child and occasionally sang with her brother Ron in the skiffle group of his youth club. She had a deep timbre to her voice, unusual in a girl not yet in her teens; school friends nicknamed her "Foghorn".

At the age of ten, Shapiro was a singer with "Susie and the Hula Hoops" (together with her cousin, 1960s 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 London's 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 Alma's style, but chose the school merely because of Alma's success", she said in a 1962 interview. Burman's connections included John Schroeder, a young songwriter and A&R man at EMI's Columbia Records, who recorded a demo of Shapiro singing "Birth of the Blues" and, motivated by her singing, signed her to the label.

Early career

In February 1961, aged fourteen, Shapiro released her first single, " Don't Treat Me Like a Child". The song was recorded at EMI Recording Studios, Abbey Road with a nine-piece band under the direction of Martin Slavin. After Helen's appearance on the ITV music programme '' Thank Your Lucky Stars'', the record took off and reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1961. According to AllMusic, Shapiro's rich and mature voice made her "an extraordinary new phenomenon on the British pop scene." Her next single, the ballad " You Don't Know", topped the chart in August. The follow-up, "Walkin' Back to Happiness", was written by John Schroeder and Mike Hawker and featured backing orchestrations by Norrie Paramor. The single quickly reached the top of the chart with far greater sales than her last in October 1961, by which time Shapiro had turned 15. She had initially been reluctant to record the song as she considered it old-fashioned and corny. Both of Shapiro's No. 1 singles sold over a million copies, earning her two gold discs. Her mature voice made her an overnight sensation, as well as the youngest female chart topper in the UK.

Shapiro's next single release, " Tell Me What He Said", peaked at No. 2, achieving her first four single releases in the top three of the UK Singles Chart. Her success led to film roles; she appeared as herself in the Billy Fury film '' Play It Cool'' and played the lead female role in Richard Lester's ''It's Trad, Dad!''.Her final UK Top Ten hit single was with the ballad " Little Miss Lonely", which peaked at No. 8 for two weeks in 1962. Before she was sixteen years old, Shapiro had been voted Britain's "Top Female Singer".

The Beatles' first national tour of Britain, in the late winter and early spring of 1963, was as one of her supporting acts. During the course of the tour, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the song " Misery" for her; but Shapiro's producer, Norrie Paramor, turned it down, and she did not record the composition. In 1995, during an episode of '' 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. It's 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).

On 31 December 1969, Shapiro appeared in the BBC
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