Sixties City - Bill Harry's Sixties - articles from the creator of iconic 60s music paper Mersey Beat

Liverpool’s most famous female vocalist singer was born Priscilla Maria Veronica White in Stanley Hospital on 27th May 1943 and grew up in a family with three brothers. She was working as a dictaphone typist at the cable company BICC when she first started singing with local groups. It all began when she went to the Iron Door club with her friend Pauline Behan, who was going steady with George Harrison at the time and was later to marry Gerry Marsden of Gerry and The Pacemakers. The group on stage was Rory Storm and The Hurricanes and Pauline asked them if Cilla could get up with them and sing ‘Fever’. As a result she made several further appearances with the band. Rory’s drummer was Ritchie Starkey, whom Rory had dubbed Ringo Starr. Rory had also given him his own five-minute spot in the show called ‘Starrtime’ and he generally sang one song per performance. ‘Boys’, the song popularised by the Shirelles, was the number he usually performed, but when Cilla began to sing with the band it was also the number that she preferred. There was a bit of a dispute about this, which they resolved by performing it as a duet.

Commenting on the compromise, Cilla said: “We did it as a duet, and even then he didn’t concede anything. He had a microphone over the drums and I used to have to sing it bent over his kit”.
Ringo also took to calling her ‘Swinging Cyril.’ While still working as a secretary, Cilla began to sing with the Big Three at the Zodiac Club (where she had previously served coffee) – and was paid for it! She also sang with Kingsize Taylor and The Dominoes, the group led by Ted Taylor, but had to leave the group when they left for Hamburg. The numbers in her small repertoire were ‘Fever’, ‘Always’, ‘Boys’ and ‘Summertime’.

On 6th July 1961, in the first issue of Mersey Beat, I ran a feature called Swinging Cilla in which I wrote: “Cilla Black is a Liverpool girl who is starting on the road to fame.” The name was a mistake. I’d been rushing to complete the first issue and my mind had gone blank when writing about Cilla, although I remembered her surname related to a colour and decided to plump for ‘Cilla Black.’ When the issue hit the streets, Cilla White was pleased with the article and said that she liked the sound of the new name and would use it in future.

In 1963, when Cilla was being launched, her press officer concocted a story that Brian Epstein had thought of the name change. He was probably unaware that the proof lay in the issue of Mersey Beat published almost two years before Brian was even aware of her existence. In her autobiography, Step Inside, Cilla wrote: “Not all the changes in my life met with the approval of me Dad. Although he was generally happy for me, he didn’t approve of the change of name from White to Black, which began as a misprint in Mersey Beat.”

In an interview in the book ‘Secret Lives’, she said: “The 'Black' bit came when a local paper, called the Mersey Beat, had a misprint. They knew my surname was a colour and guessed wrong!”
As the Mersey scene began to thrive locally, Cilla’s ambitions grew. She was still performing as a semi-pro and a guy called Terry McGrath was pressing her to make him her manager. She often dropped into the Mersey Beat office suggesting that I become her manager, but I was too occupied with producing the newspaper. During one of her visits I took her to a nearby coffee bar, the Coffee Pot, where she described the career she had in mind. Peggy Lee was her idol and she wanted to become a jazz singer. She asked me if I could fix up for her to have a jazz trio backing her.

This situation lasted for some time until one evening early in 1963, at the Blue Angel Club, I noticed Brian Epstein huddled in conversation with Andrew Loog Oldham. I took Cilla over to Epstein, introduced her and asked him if he would listen to her sing. Then he arranged for Cilla to join the group, The Masterminds, on stage and sing the number ‘Boys’. Afterwards, I brought her back to Epstein’s table and left her to it. She then told me that Epstein had arranged a meeting for her at his office the next day and she became the first female artist in his stable.
Epstein realised that he could express his creative talents in the management of Cilla. He had no real grasp of the music of the Mersey Beat scene but had displayed an interest in the theatre and he set about developing Cilla’s image, even designing dresses for her to wear. Managing a female artist enabled Epstein to express part of his own personality.

Her debut single ‘Love Of The Loved’, despite being a Paul McCartney composition, didn’t prove to be the right song for her and was only a minor hit, reaching No.35 in the British charts following its release on 27th September 1963. Initial 1963 publicity described her as ‘The Gal with the Bright Red Hair and the Jet Black Voice’ and she made her concert debut at the Odeon, Southport, in a show with The Beatles on 30th August.

She then appeared with The Beatles on the all-Merseyside edition of the ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’ TV show and was booked for the Beatles Christmas Show at the Finsbury Park Astoria in north London from 24th December. Not unnaturally, Brian exploited the Beatles association in the building of Cilla and his other artists – and also placed her with the Beatles’ recording manager, George Martin. Her career changed direction with a number Epstein picked for her, ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’, which had been a big hit for Dionne Warwick in America. He heard the number while on a trip to the States and brought the record back with him, taking it to George Martin as a song for Cilla to record.

George said it would be perfect for another of his artists, Shirley Bassey, and told Epstein that Cilla couldn’t cope with such a song and wouldn’t have a chance with it. Sticking to his guns, Epstein insisted and Cilla’s version of the song topped the British charts. Brian was delighted at the opportunity of moulding a female artist and was able to continue placing her in concerts and TV shows with his other acts.

She toured with Gerry and The Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer, appeared on ‘Around The Beatles’ and ‘The Music of Lennon and McCartney’ TV specials and featured in the Gerry and The Pacemakers’ film ‘Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey’. Gradually, however, her image was directed away from Beat music towards the conventional world of traditional show business, with appearances at the London Palladium, the Royal Variety Show and in cabaret and pantomime. By 1965, using his prestige and contacts, Epstein attempted to break the 22-year-old Cilla into America. She made her TV debut on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ on 4th April and her American cabaret debut at the Persian Room in the Plaza Hotel, New York, from 26th July. However, American success was to elude her and her sole chart entry there was ‘You’re My World’, which reached No.26 in the Billboard charts in July 1964.

Success on record in Britain continued throughout the decade. She followed ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ with her second consecutive No. 1 ‘You’re My World’, an adaptation of an Italian tune. A Lennon and McCartney composition, ‘It’s For You’, was her fourth release, reaching No.7 in the charts. John and Paul visited Cilla in the studio during the recording of the track and Paul played piano on it.


Sixties City presents a wide-ranging series of articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic 60s music paper Mersey Beat