Alma Cogan (19 May 1932 -- 26 October 1966) was an English singer of traditional pop music in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dubbed "The Girl With A Giggle In Her Voice", she was the highest paid British female entertainer of her era.
Her mother encouraged her to enter show business, and she auditioned for Ted Heath as a child. But her real patron was an executive of HMV Records, Walter Ridley, who saw her potential as a teenage art school student.
As a teenager, she had her professional debut singing at the Cumberland Hotel, in the dining room. Her first record was a 78rpm record of "To Be Worthy Of You" / "Would You" on the British HMV record label. When Joy Nichols left the BBC programme "Take It From Here," Cogan replaced her as the resident singer, performing many types of songs but, most successfully, up-beat ballads and novelty songs. In 1953 she was working on the song "If I Had A Golden Umbrella" and broke into a giggle while recording it. The people decided that they liked the sound, and that sound became her trademark style. In 1954 she had her first chart hit, a cover of Teresa Brewer's "Bell Bottom Blues."
Lionel Bart wrote his musical Oliver! with Alma in mind for the part of Nancy, but Alma was unable to commit to the musical and it was childhood friend Georgia Brown who took on the stage role and made it her own and Shani Wallis who took on the film role. Subsequently she made a recording of the popular musical for EMI, produced by Norman Newell.
She had many UK chart hits, some of which were covers of US hits, including some rock and roll flavoured ones as the 1950s progressed. Her recordings for EMI were produced by Walter "Wally" Ridley and then later by Norman Newell, with whom she had some disagreement. In 1965 EMI Records decided that they would not renew her contract with the company and requested that their newly hired young producer, David Gooch, produce an album of material which would bring the association to a conclusion. Cogan had wanted to make an entire album of Beatles' material, but EMI felt that that was unsuitable since there were a number of other similar recordings available at the time. With orchestrations by Stan Foster, the songs comprising the album were recorded in Studio 1 at the Abbey Road Studios of EMI (contrary to written reports, neither John Lennon nor Paul McCartney attended the sessions, although according to her sister, Cogan had carried on a long-term affair with John Lennon in the early 1960s).
All of the songs were initially recorded without the presence of the singer because she was unwell: the Musicians' Union gave permission for the backing tracks to be recorded to which she later added her voice. Although some sources cite Andrew Loog Oldham as the producer of the singles that appear on the subsequent album, Alma, this is incorrect. The producer of the singles and of the album itself was David Gooch who, in the fashion of the time, was uncredited. It is thought that during Cogan's lifetime, Oldham may have remixed one or more tracks, but contrary to popular belief, those were not released.
Cogan died in London several months later in 1966 from ovarian cancer when she was only 34 years of age and was buried at Bushey Jewish Cemetery. She is commemorated by a blue plaque on her former residence in Kensington High Street.
Tags: pop 50s
