Monday, February 17, 2020

Goodbye Pearl Carr (1923 - 2020)

British Eurovision pioneer Pearl Carr has passed away at the age of 98.
With her husband Teddy Johnson she represented the United Kingdom in 1959 with Sing Little Birdie and ended second behind the Dutch Teddy.
Sing Little Birdie became an evergreen even though it only made it to #12 in the U.K. charts. It got to #8 in the Dutch charts and was a popular song in Scandinavian countries.

The oldest tracable record featuring Pearl Carr I could find is Blue For A Boy with Dick James (1951).
Update: No it isn't, Lou Preager's Hang On The Bell Nelly from 1949 features Pearl Carr and Rusty Hurren on vocals.

Later Pearl Carr was a vocalist fore Dave King and the Keynotes. She was a frequent singer and comedian on various radio shows until she met her husband Teddy Johnson.
From then on they continued as a duo, performing on many British TV shows.
A rare record in picture sleeve was the EP Meet Teddy and Pearl which includes the 1957 single Tomorrow Tomorrow.
About a dozen singles followed up to 1965.
They only managed to score one more U.K. top 40 hit: How Wonderful To Know (#23 in 1961)
Teddy Johnson passed away in 2018 also at the age of 98.

Eurovision
Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson participated twice in the U.K. selection for Eurovision, each time with two songs.

Eurovision Song Contest British Final 1959
- Sing Little Birdie (finalist and winner)
- That’s It, That’s Love (semi) unreleased

Eurovision Song Contest British Final 1960
- When The Tide Turns (finalist)
- Pickin' Petals (semi)
Both songs on U.K. 7” HMV 45-POP 697
It was Teddy's brother Bryan Johnson who took the trophy and ended up 2nd in the Eurovision Song Contest with Looking High, High, High.

Sing Little Birdie releases
U.K. 7”   (Columbia 45-DB 4275), promos exist
U.K. 78 rpm   (Columbia DB 4275)
Netherlands 7”     (Columbia 45-DB 4275)
Germany 7”    (Columbia  C 21166)
Norway 7”    (Columbia 45 DD 697) Yellow vinyl
US 7”    (Capitol F 4211) possibly promo only




Coverversions
Sing Little Birdie proved to be a popular tune in Scandinavia, with 11 listed coverversions in Nordic languages. 
Some more Eurocovers post with The Birdie Song: Teddy Scholten, Oslo Weeks, Carla Boni, Festivalfavoriter, Marie Dieke / Ria Solar.

Below is a list of all the coverversions I know of. There's probably more, please let us know.
(It's a picture / scan of a word document, so it will be here forever, click it and it gets bigger and you can download it.)


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