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 14 years old.

Shapiro first achieved prominence in 1961 when her debut single, "Don't Treat Me Like a Child", reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. 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! 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. 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 10, Shapiro was a singer with Susie and the Hula Hoops (together with her cousin, 1960s singer Susan Singer), a school band that 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, Burman's connections included John Schroeder, a young songwriter man at EMI's Columbia Records, who recorded a demonstration tape of Shapiro singing "Birth of the Blues", and motivated by her singing, signed her to the label. According to AllMusic, Shapiro's rich, 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 She had initially been reluctant to record the song, as she considered it old-fashioned and corny.

Shapiro's next single release, "Tell Me What He Said", peaked at number two, meaning each of her first four single releases made 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! Before she was sixteen years old, Shapiro had been voted Britain's "Top Female Singer". 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). In January 1964 she released her cover version of the song Fever, made famous by Peggy Lee in the late 1950s. Shapiro's version, however, did not do as well as hoped, reaching only no. 38, and was her last UK chart hit.

On 31 December 1969, Shapiro appeared in the BBC-ZDF co-production, Pop Go the Sixties, singing "Walkin' Back to Happiness".

By the time she was in her late teens, Shapiro's 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 era of the 1950s. Later, after a change of mind, she branched out as a performer in musical theatre and jazz, one of her musical interests.

Later career Shapiro played the role of Nancy in Lionel Bart's musical Oliver! in London's West End In March 2013 she appeared on BBC Radio 3's Good Morning Sunday.

Since 2015, she has played in a trio called Hebron with Chrissy Rodgers and Simon Elman. They are promoted via Shapiro's ministry umbrella, Manna Music.

Personal life She married the theatre producer Duncan Weldon in 1967 and they divorced in 1971.

In 1982, Shapiro met John Judd (real name John Williams), an actor with numerous roles in British television and cinema. They were married on 31 August 1988.

In 1987, she became a Messianic Jew. She temporarily retired from show business in 2002.

The 1975 song "Miss Shapiro", the sixth track on the first Phil Manzanera solo album Diamond Head, is named in reference to Helen Shapiro. . Brian Eno wrote and sang the lyrics. A live version of the song also appears on the album 801 Live recorded in 1976.