Who was the second biggest selling music star to come out of Liverpool after the Beatles? It wasn't Gerry & the Pacemakers or Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, nor was it the Searchers.

It was Cilla Black, a one-time coat-check girl from the Cavern Club who was still learning to sing with confidence, forget developing a technique, just... [+] Read More

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Britain's greatest pop diva, Dusty Springfield was also the finest white soul singer of her era, a performer of remarkable emotional resonance whose body of work spans the decades and their attendant musical transformations with a consistency and purity unmatched by any of her contemporaries; though a camp icon of glamorous excess in her... [+] Read More

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Usually thought of as a middle-of-the-road popular singer, Françoise Hardy -- at the beginning of her career, at least -- covered more stylistic ground and owed more debts to pop/rock than she's given credit for. Immensely popular in her native France, the chanteuse first displayed her breathy, measured vocals in the early and mid-'60s. Her... [+] Read More

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A British singer/songwriter of the '60s whose voice was far better suited for reaching the back row of Broadway auditoriums than soul or rock, Jackie Trent nonetheless operated on the fringe of the U.K. pop scene in the manner of other femme belters like Cilla Black, though her efforts were usually even more in the middle of the road. Her one... [+] Read More

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Most Americans first heard of Lulu when she soared to the top of the charts with the pop ballad "To Sir with Love," the theme to the film of the same name, in 1967. Actually, the Scottish singer -- born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie -- had been a star in Britain since 1964, when she hit the Top Ten with a raucous version of "Shout." Lulu's... [+] Read More

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The most commercially successful female singer in British chart history, Petula Clark was born November 15, 1932 in Epsom, England. Trained to sing by her soprano mother, Clark embarked on a stage career at the age of seven; soon she was a fixture on British radio programs, and began hosting her own regular show Pet's Parlour -- a series... [+] Read More

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Although actor/pop singer Sylvie Vartan is Bulgarian, she would eventually receive recognition from the French, usually singing entirely in the language of her adopted homeland. Born August 15, 1944, in Iskretz, Bulgaria, Vartan showed great talent for both acting and singing at an early age, resulting in an appearance in the Bulgarian film... [+] Read More

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Britain's premiere session vocalists throughout the 1960s, the Breakaways also recorded a handful of little-known but superb girl group singles. The trio of Vicki Haseman, Margot Quantrell and Betty Prescott originally teamed in the vocal group the Vernons Girls; another onetime Vernon Girl, Jean Ryder, replaced Prescott in the Breakways within... [+] Read More

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A British one-hit wonder of the mid-'60s that never crossed over to the U.S., Twinkle made #4 in the U.K. at the end of 1964 with her self-penned debut "Terry," a maudlin disc about the death of a (fictional) biker boyfriend. "Leader of the Pack" it wasn't, yet the record caused a furor, accusations of bad taste leading to its ban from the BBC... [+] Read More

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