By Geoffery Rowlands


“Liverpool’s Cinderella.” This is how comedian Jimmy Tarbuck described his friend Cilla Black during a reading at her recent funeral.
His description could hardly be more appropriate. Cilla’s story is a tale of rags to riches. She was the docker’s daughter from Scotland Road who worked part-time as a cloakroom attendant at the Cavern Club. She became a chart-topping singer and the Queen of Saturday night television.
Cilla enjoyed an enormously successful singing career. She recorded two UK number one singles, 11 top ten hits and three more songs which made the top 20. Three of her albums also reached the top ten.
In death though, Cilla has achieved a mark which eluded her in life. Her compilation album, “The Very Best of Cilla Black,” hit number 20 when first released in 1983. News reports and television tribute programmes reminded older fans and exposed younger people to the quality of her songs. The LP re-entered the top 40, climbed to number eight and has now given Cilla her first UK chart-topping album.
She would have been delighted. But she would almost certainly have also made a joke along the lines of the things you have to do to get a number one album.
Such a remark would have typified Cilla. As her friends both in and out of show business all testified, their abiding memory of her would always be laughter.
Only death took the laughter from Cilla. Losing her parents and her baby daughter, who lived for just two hours. But her beloved husband, Bobby Willis, was there to help her recover from these sorrows. His death from cancer in 1999 left Cilla bereft of her soulmate. She was a one guy girl who had lost the light in her life.
Family and friends did what they could to help but she never got over Bobby’s death. It was entertainer Paul O’Grady who at least taught her to laugh again.
They had become friends after meeting on a TV talk show some years before Bobby died. Like Cilla, Paul came from a poor family. He was from Birkenhead, just across the River Mersey from Liverpool. Their shared background and sense of humour saw them form an immediate bond which quickly developed into a close friendship.
Paul, Jimmy Tarbuck and Sir Cliff Richard spoke movingly about Cilla during her funeral service. Paul’s friendship spanned two decades but her friendships with fellow-Liverpudlian Jimmy, Sir Cliff and many of the show business stars in attendance had lasted for 50 years.
The Beatles were her backing band when she auditioned for their manager, Brian Epstein. It did not go well. They hadn’t rehearsed her song choice of Summertime and played it in their vocal key rather than re-pitching the music for Cilla’s voice. Epstein was unimpressed but did sign her some weeks later after seeing Cilla sing at Liverpool’s Blue Angel jazz club.
She initially performed under her real name of Priscilla White. A misprint in the local music paper, Mersey Beat, referred to her as Cilla Black. She liked this moniker rather more so adopted it as her stage name.
Beatles producer George Martin signed her to Parlophone Records and produced Cilla’s debut single, Love of the Loved. Despite being a Lennon and McCartney composition, it only reached number 35. But Cilla’s next two singles, Anyone Who Had A Heart and You’re My World, both topped the UK chart.
The latter was massively successful throughout the English-speaking world and became her biggest UShit. But Cilla failed to make the most of this. She suffered terrible homesickness while performing in America and realised she could never spend the length of time there which would be required for her to become a major star on both sides of the Atlantic.
Her television career began in 1968. Cilla was a music and entertainment show which ran for eight seasons. She moved into comedy acting during the mid-1970s but concentrated much more on raising her young children than her career before an appearance on Terry Wogan’s talk show in 1983 reminded fans and TV producers of her talent and personality.
So began 30 years as a television presenter. The popularity of her programmes saw Cilla become the highest-paid woman on British TV and a show business national treasure.
Although she loved being a star, Cilla never lost sight of her roots. She had not lived in Liverpool for decades but visited regularly to see family and friends. Her love for the city was evident in death. Her funeral was held there and she was laid to rest in Allerton cemetery alongside her parents.
Cilla’s funeral procession was reminiscent of Diana, Princess of Wales. Thousands of mourners lined the streets throwing flowers on to the hearse carrying her coffin.
The burial was supposed to be a private affair attended by just her closest friends and family. But an estimated 2,000 people crowded into the cemetery to witness her final farewell.
Rose petals were thrown on to Cilla’s coffin after it was lowered into the ground. Her friend, Christopher Biggins, admitted an uncertainty of what to do next. But her fans knew. All the people who had stood by quietly paying their last respects suddenly began a spontaneous round of applause, the kind of ovation reserved for special performances. Her fans shouldn’t really have been there but they provided the perfect finale.

in brief
One Direction

One Direction fans fear their favourite group may be on the verge of splitting up.
Despite being more popular than ever, it seems their five years together has taken a toll on Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson.
There have been numerous stories of friction within the camp though these were always denied. But it has now been reported that the boys need a break from each other and will spend at least a year apart to pursue other projects beginning next March.
Word is that they do plan to reunite at some point in the future but it remains to be seen if this will happen. It may well depend upon how successful their solo work might be.

JoJo

American singer and actress JoJo has not released a studio album since “The High Road” in 2006. There were two mixtapes, “Can’t Take That Away From Me” in 2010 and “Agape” in 2012, plus an EP, “#LoveJo,” in 2014. But JoJo will finally be releasing her as-yet-untitled third official album later this year.
In the meantime, she has issued three singles, which she calls a ‘tringle,’ as a preview to her album. No videos are available as yet but the audios of When Love Hurts, Save My Soul and Say Love have all been posted online. They can be accessed at www.youtube.com/user/jojoofficialonline/videos

The Neighbourhood

US indie rockers The Neighbourhood release their sophomore album, “Wiped Out!,” on October 30. It is the follow-up to 2013’s “I Love You” which is posted in full at www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N7tHIHQ2mY
The video for their big hit single, Sweater Weather, can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCdwKhTtNNw
Anyone pre-ordering their forthcoming album will receive an instant download of the newly released lead single, R.I.P. 2 My Youth. The track can be heard at www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpIzK7ncog
Much more of the band’s music can be found on YouTube. This includes their very different hip hop mixtape, “#000000 & #ffffff,” which is available to hear in full at www.youtube.com/watch?v=qicbbX4XgNM
Songs can also be found at (no www.) soundcloud.com/theneighbourhood
Some of the remixes posted here are offered for free download.