Helen Shapiro's Birthday

Subject: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: The Shambles
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 07:55 PM

Helen Shapiro was born on this day in 1948 in London.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: The Shambles
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:00 PM

That is September 28th 1948. [it is already the 28th here]

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:02 PM

Shambles - you posted before midnight, so I guess you mean 28 September?

Kitty (walking back to happiness...)

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:03 PM

whoop-ah-oh-yeah-yeah!

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: GUEST,Robin Lovell
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:18 PM

Wow - she's STILL younger than me!

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:43 AM

So, Shambles, is there something you would like to tell us about Helen Shapiro? Her website says she's a gospel singer, but there's a menorah on the Website, too. I take it she's a Jewish woman who converted to evangelical Christianity. Are you a big follower of her work, Shambles?
Her Wikipedia biography says she was known as "foghorn" as a child, and that she sports a beehive hairdo. My, what an interesting person.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: treewind
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:56 AM

Helen's Testament (on the website) explains the religious background.

Wasn't she a one hit child prodigy wonder with "Walking Back To Happiness" - I think I'd have been very young then , but I remember it.
[peeks at site again...] yes, first hit in the charts at age of 14...

Anahata

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:01 AM

She's still around, still singing and still has a great voice. She was on "Woman's Hour" [UK Radio Prog] not so long ago, sounding contented with her lot.
Happy birthday to her indeed.

Giok

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: GUEST,Bystander
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:14 AM

Hardly a one hit wonder. Five records in the top ten and another six in the top fifty, all between 1961 (when she was still a schoolgirl) and 1964. In 1963 she headlined a package tour with an up-and-coming group known as The Beatles as a supporting act. By the time the tour finished Beatlemania had started and she had to suffer the humiliation of seeing them billed above her. She took it all in good part though.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Jeanie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:42 AM

She is, as you say Joe, a very interesting person ! She has a fabulous voice and her gospel albums are well worth listening to (many songs in a jazz/blues style).

She is a lovely, feisty, spirited lady. I got to know her quite well a few years back, as she attended and regularly sang with the worship group at "The Tree of Life", a messianic Jewish fellowship I belonged to in East London.

Mazeltov and a Happy Birthday to her !

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: The Shambles
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:57 AM

She is, as you say Joe, a very interesting person !

I thought he meant me.

What I wanted to say was that Helen Shapiro was born on 28the September in 1948 in London.

And I do think that I said this.

I could also post the details about my teenage lust for her and the wet dreams that she featured in - but I will leave that to others.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 06:04 AM

Why Roger; you're making me blush !

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 07:15 AM

She was my first love (from afar, sadly!).

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: chucky
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 07:19 AM

A lovely lass!

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 07:37 AM

Now she's 50+, I hope people aren't still treating her like a child!

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 07:50 AM

Maybe it's a "Brit" thing Joe but she was the original "girl power" a long time before the Spice Girls and, as such, someone remembered fondly by the women of my generation too!
She is still one of the few women (apart from Madonna) to have a number of "top ten hits" in the UK

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 09:38 AM

My sisters were at the same school.
I am such a name dropper.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: GUEST,schoolboy humourist
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 10:04 AM

walking back to a penis

wo ho oh yeah-eh-eh

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 10:17 AM

Now I know I'm old!

RtS

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: GUEST,Captain Mainwaring
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 02:55 PM

Stupid boy!

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

loved her voice, didn't care too much for the moustache.

time will no doubt have wrought some changes

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Dave Earl
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:05 PM

But it was 1946 not 1948.

Her girls school occupied the upper floors of the building where my primary school was on the ground floor.

Dave

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:43 PM

Didn't she sing "You Don't Know?".
Went something like "Every time you pass me by Oh you don't know Oh you don't know-o-o-o-ow Something something o-o-o, something?

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 12:37 AM

I'm reading this history of the Beatles, "Shout: The Beatles in Their Generation," by Philip Norman, a very good read. He writes about a tour they were on with Helen Shapiro, in their early years, and what a nice, likeable person she was. She was 16 at the time, after having first been a hit a couple of years earlier, apparently unspoiled by her rise to fame at such a young age.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Scrump
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 06:40 AM

I could also post the details about my teenage lust for her and the wet dreams that she featured in - but I will leave that to others.

Thank you for that image. But one thing puzzles me - how do others know what happened in your dreams? ;-)

Each to his own - personally I never quite saw her in that light, although she had (and I think still has) a good strong voice, and I liked her old hits in those days. I've heard her in more recent times doing jazz-oriented stuff - that sounded good too.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: NormanD
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 07:10 AM

The Fabs wrote their song "Misery" with Helen in mind to record it, but producer Norrie Paramor turned it down. She was a biger hit than they were at the time. Poor advice

She also recorded the first version of "It's My Party", but her producer turned that one down too. She'd recorded an album in the USA, "Helen In Nashville" in about 1962. Poor advice, although Lesley Gore's hit version is far better.

She was born in 1946, so that makes her 60.

As a non-Jewish Jew myself, I can never understand why a Jew wants to become a Christian. Wasn't the first religion bad enough already?

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 09:38 AM

I was going to send her a card but I thought bollocks, she never sends me one.

eric

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: bradfordian
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 04:30 PM

Helen sang a couple of songs for the film "Its Trad Dad" round about 1963. One of them was a haunting "Sometime Yesterday" which I still like very much. (Still have the LP -- what does one do with all these old LPs?)
brad.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: NormanD
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 05:55 PM

And from that same film - "It's Trad Dad" - there's a divine clip of Gene McDaniels singing the mournful pop-soul ballad "Another Tear Falls". See it here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RI1Apwo2ys

and right at the end of the clip you'll see Helen Shapiro, with her film co-star Craig Douglas, applauding this smouldering performance (it was supposed to be in a club, the usual old rubbish). She's got a nice bee-hive.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: NormanD
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 06:02 PM

...and here's a bit more of our Helen, singing "Queen For Tonight". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEn1pVFB2ng

I remember some story about John Lennon singing this song to Brian Epstein.....

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 06:20 PM

Which school was that?

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: fat B****rd
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 01:27 PM

When I worked illegally at the Humber Arcade on Cleethorpes prom that bloody record "Don't treat me like a child" was on the jukebox all f***ing day and night. I actually pleaded with some bloody tripper not to put it on. I liked "Walking Back To Happiness" mind.

Subject: RE: Helen Shapiro's Birthday
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 02:04 PM

Wow! I thought that Shambolina only got excited when he posts attacks against the Mudcat moderators. Way to go Roger!