Tops With Me – HELEN SHAPIRO***

Little Devil/Will You Love Me Tomorrow/Because They’re Young/The Day The Rains Came/Are You Lonesome Tonight/A Teenager In Love/Lipstick On Your Collar/Beyond The Sea/Sweet Nothin's/You Mean Everything To Me/I Love You/You Got What It Takes

When Tops With Me was released young teenager Helen Shapiro had achieved four recent UK top three hit singles, including two chart toppers. She was top of the bill at the London Palladium and with her powerful voice looked all set for a long and successful career. Cruelly, within six months her top twenty chart career would be over. (UK:2)

“Helen had two years of mega fame and then with the advent of the Beatles era, faded from view. She was a much underrated talent and was cruelly over exposed by her management.”

“Helen Shapiro had a handful of pop hits early in her career when she was under 16 years old, but she is too often remembered as a novelty, mostly because her voice was preternaturally deep and husky, and her bouffant was big enough to hide a small child.”

“In this LP Helen Shapiro covers hits of a wide range of American songs with different styles, and incredibly she is able to stamp her personal touch on all of them, some sound even better by her than the originals.”

“Unable to make her own career decisions due to her youth, she was exploited and milked for all she was worth by people who did not seem to understand her phenomenal and unique talent, and who could not see further than the current pop scene. Rather than being carefully nurtured for a lifetime as a sultry torch, blues and ballad singer, she was recording virtually identical bouncy pop material with a strong beat and yea, yea, yea, backing group. Fortunately her crystal clear diction overrode the backing because you could hear and still remember every word.”

“Helen would have been wonderful with the types of songs popularized by Patsy Cline - the slow heartbreaking torch numbers, but this was not to be.”

“Helen Shapiro had a great singing voice, with great stage presence, but sadly was very badly managed.”