Guest
Helen Kate Shapiro (born 28 September 1946) is a British pop singer, jazz singer, and actress. She is best known for her two 1961 UK chart toppers, “You Don't Know“ and “Walkin' Back to Happiness“, both recorded when she was just fourteen years old. At the age of ten, Shapiro was a singer with “Susie and the Hula Hoops“ (together with her cousin, 1960s singer Susan Singer), a school band which included Marc Bolan (then using his real name of Mark Feld) as guitarist. At 13, she started singing lessons at The Maurice Burman School of Modern Pop Singing,[4] based in London's Baker Street, after the school produced singing star Alma Cogan. “I had always wanted to be a singer. I had no desire to slavishly follow Alma's style, but chose the school merely because of Alma's success“, she said in a 1962 interview. Burman's connections included John Schroeder, a young songwriter and A&R man of EMI's Columbia Records, who recorded a demo of Shapiro singing “Birth of the Blues“ and, motivated by her singing, signed her to the label.
