#015 - Lulu

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, best known as Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, television personality and businesswoman. She is noted for her powerful singing voice. She is internationally known, but especially by UK audiences in the 1960s. Later in her career she had hits internationally with "To Sir with Love" from the 1967 film of the same name and with the title song to the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun. In European countries, she is also widely known for her Eurovision Song Contest 1969 winning entry "Boom Bang-a-Bang", and in the UK for her 1964 hit "Shout", which was performed at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Lulu was born in Lennoxtown, Stirlingshire, and grew up in Dennistoun, Glasgow, where she attended Thomson Street Primary School and Onslow Drive School. She lived in Gallowgate for a while before moving to Garfield Street, Dennistoun. At the age of 12 or 13, she and her manager approached a band called the Bellrocks seeking stage experience as a singer. She appeared with them every Saturday night: Alex Thomson, the group's bass player, has reported that even then her voice was remarkable.  In 1964, under the wing of Marion Massey, she was signed to Decca Records. When she was only fifteen, her version of the Isley Brothers' "Shout", credited to 'Lulu & the Luvvers' and delivered in a raucous but mature voice, peaked at no. 7 on the UK charts. Massey guided her career for more than 25 years, for most of which time they were partners in business, and Massey's husband Mark produced some of Lulu's recordings. After the success of "Shout", Lulu's next charting single was "Leave A Little Love" in 1965, which returned her to the UK Top Ten. Her next record, "Try to Understand", made the Top 40. Later that year she guested on the cover version of the Dan Hartman song "Relight My Fire", with boy band Take That. The single reached no. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and Lulu appeared as Take That's supporting act on their 1994 tour. At this time she also appeared as an unhappy public relations client of Edina Monsoon in two episodes of the BBC television programme Absolutely Fabulous and teamed with French and Saunders many times, including their send up of the Spice Girls (the Sugar Lumps) for Comic Relief in 1997, when she took the role of "Baby Spice", mimicking Emma Bunton. The music for the podcast is Twiggy's version of "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks and can be found on Apple Music at this link https://music.apple.com/gb/album/romantically-yours/693460953 If you’ve enjoyed listening to “Tea With Twiggy” please give take a moment to give us a lovely 5 STAR rating on Apple Podcasts. It really helps other people to find the show.If you haven’t done so already please subscribe to this podcast so you auto-magically get the next episodes for free and do tell all your friends and family about it too. If you want to connect with me I’d love to hear from you. You can find me on Twitter @Twiggy Or you can find me on Instagram @Twiggy Lawson My thanks go to all the people that have helped this podcast happen: ● Many thanks to James Carrol and all the team at Northbank Talent Management ● Thanks to all the team at Stripped Media including Ben Williams, who edits the show, my producer Kobi Omenaka and Executive Producers Tom Whalley and Dave Corkery If you want to know more about this podcast and other produced by Stripped Media please visit www.Stripped.media or email Producers@Stripped.Media to find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices