Year 8, Day 141

Hey guys. Today's song is Downtown by Petula Clark. 

Photo by: Lindeboom, Henk/Anefo

Petula Clark is a British singer/actress/composer active since 1940. Petula is actually a stage name, with her real name being Sally Clark. She did a bit of stuff before, but her career actually started when she was a kid during WW2. The BBC was running a radio thing for kids to send messages over the air to family service members, but an air raid happened and the kids were starting to freak out, so the producer asked for a volunteer to perform to calm everyone down, and Petula volunteered to sing. They like her voice so much that they recorded it, and it led to 500 shows of her performing for the troops, and other radio spots, and soon became known as Britain's Shirley Temple and became a mascot for the Army. She was cast in her first movie in 1944 which was a war drama followed by a bunch of other movies for her. In 1949 Polygon Records formed and she recorded her first songs there, including her first big hit, before the label was sold and became a new label at which she stayed into the 70's. She did lots of touring in the 60's and focused her career more in France, leading to he British career to kind on wane. Composer Tony Hatch tried showing her a bunch of songs she could do, and she didn't care for them at all, but on a whim he played a melody he was writing, which would later become this song and became a hit all over the world. Over her whole career she has 46 albums listed which is crazy, even keeping in mind that most "albums" early in her career were minuscule compared to today's standards. She also has live albums, compilations, EPs, and German, Italian, French, Spanish singles along with her other ones. Plus she has about 30 acting credits. Her career is so full and long (80 years) which I why I'm skipping most of it so I'm not here for hours writing about her, but seriously look it up if you're curious. There's just so much.

Peace.