Cilla Black (1943-2015)

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Cilla Black, a coat-check girl at Liverpool's Cavern Club when the Beatles were getting their start who went on to become one of Britain's most beloved female pop singers, died on Aug. 1 at her summer home in Spain. She was 72.

Despite being produced by George Martin, managed by Brian Epstein (above) and helped along by pals John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who gave her songs, Black was virtually unknown in the States. She had only three pop hits here, and all charted high in the double-digits. Part of the problem was that Epstein's efforts were divided among the Beatles and several other Liverpudlian acts. Black also became known early on for covering American hits, which limited her trajectory.

Perhaps most problematic for Black was that the American post-Beatles record market was largely driven by teenage girls hungry for British boy bands. Among the handful of British female pop artists who made it onto the American charts were Petula Clark, Sandie Shaw and Dusty Springfield. Two were blonde, and all three were more mature looking than Black. In fact, Petula was 35 when she recorded Downtown. By contrast, Black's voice was higher, more girlish and a bit shrill.

Nevertheless, Black's charm rested in her vocal edginess, her vulnerability and her passionate delivery. Black was more of a home girl who best expressed the British female experience—not from the perspective of girls who had it easy with boys but from those who dreamed of love and soldiered on to find it.

What many fans admired most about Black was her determination and ability to power through difficult songs. Like Dionne Warwick, she had particular success with songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, which were big hits for her in the U.K. Several years ago, when I interviewed Dionne, she seemed to resent having her vocal style copied. "If I had coughed on 'Anyone Who Had a Heart,' Cilla would have coughed, too," she told me. "I never forgave her for that."

For the American audience, there was too much anxiety and desperation in Black's timbre and not enough sultry warmth. In the 1960s, American girls who bought pop records tended to gravitate toward female artists like the street-smart Ronettes, the glamorous Supremes and Leslie Gore—a teen who appeared to be trapped in her mother's suburban attire. Black was appreciated more fully in Britain, where she came off as the girl in the rowhouse next door. There was a working-class ambiance about her, but most appealing of all was her exasperated, big-build sound. In her songs, Black often sounded as though she had been jilted by a boy and was singing out the pain.

What I realized early on with Black is that to truly understand and appreciate her appeal, you needed to weigh her through a Swinging London prism. By imagining the tone and tempo of Britain in the mid-1960s, Black's value was immediate and obvious. She represented the free spirit of young women there then—carefree, quick-witted, tom-boyish and fashion-forward without worrying what people thought or what magazines were dictating. The qualities American ears failed to grasp became instantly identifiable to British girls. Black was the voice of their emotional struggles and desires, which were different from those of female teens in the States. In Britain, Black sang for good girls who still respected their parents and authority figures but still wanted to be wildly independent and outrageous.

Among Black's best known songs in the States was Alfie, which was recorded for the movie's U.K. release in early 1966. Burt Bacharach, who wrote the music, wanted Black to sing the title track after a conversation with her producer, George Martin. at first, Black coyly insisted that Burt come over to London and write the orchestration, conduct and play piano on the session. Her demands actually were meant to set the bar too high so that Burt would balk. He didn't.

The resulting recording session became an endurance test for Black, as Burt (above) had her sing the song over and over. When I asked Burt why he had done that during an interview at his home in 2011, he said, "Control, I guess. I've always tried to get the best performance from everyone. And sure, sometimes I've gone way too far." He also told me that he liked to have singers at the end of their rope, that when that happened he often got the most emotional performance.

But once the movie was slated for released in the States, United Artists wanted Cher, its hugely popular recording artist, to sing the song at the end for the American market and radio airplay, and that's whose voice you hear as the end credits roll.

Unfortunately, most Americans were never exposed to the full measure of Black's superb recordings, since they weren't released here. Listening to all of them yesterday, I was reminded how foreign the sound must have been to the American market back then. Context and location matter when it comes to music, and this was certainly true of Black. Several years ago I was in London in the back of a cab in the rain. At one point, Black's voice came on the radio singing Work Is a Four-Letter Word. As the rain came down, Black sang eagerly about balancing work and love. That's when I realized that Cilla Black could make you think that the rain (or one's personal woes) would soon end and the sky was going to clear. Her contribution wasn't celebrated nearly enough and she will be missed.

JazzWax tracks: There are dozens of Cilla Black collections out there. But do yourself a favor and spring for Cilla Black: Completely Cilla, 1963-1973 here. It features five CDs and one DVD and provides a delicate, floral trip back to London in the '60s, when the youth culture there set the pace worldwide.

JazzWax clips: Here's Black singing Anyone Who Had a Heart in 1966 at the Savoy Hotel...

Here's Cilla in 1968 singing Paul McCartney's song Step Inside Love...

Here's Black in 1969 singing You'll Never Get to Heaven...

Here's Black recording Alfie at Abby Road's Big No. 1 studio with Burt Bacharach conducting and playing piano...

Here's Black on Ed Sullivan in 1965 singing September in the Rain...

Here's Black singing Heatwave...

Here's Black and Burt singing a few of his hits...

And here's my favorite Cilla Black recording, Is It Love?, from the jukebox movie Ferry Cross the Mersey (1965). It's a shame the clip of Black singing it in the movie has been taken down. It's stunning...

Used with permission by Marc Myers