HELEN SHAPIRO - AT ABBEY ROAD

[huglo]

this is clip was used for the 1983 Abbey Road Video Show. A spectacular multimedia Beatle Show

[tim60s321]

dear piggie58 ..... is there any chance of tracking down the original colour film and putting it up on youtube? ... that would be so great and if i can help please get in touch

[andrewearwaker]

@tim60s321 A private colour copy on vhs was made available to Fan Club members circa 1991...

[baseballeddie1177]

If this girl could bottle maturity at a young age and sell it she would have more money than Bill Gates.

[franklindavid]

I loved her husky voice! Takes me back in time.

[tim60s321]

thanks for this love helen singing this song always have!  a total classic

and its so amazing to see the studio setup... the 6 violinists the 3 backing "girls" the 2 drummers etc great

[lottosbaby]

I never knew she was english

[gallafey]

why the bloody hell only half a video of the song couldn't botherd be uploading the hole promo video I want to see full video please

[PIGGIE58]

Half a Video is Better than None at all. Old Footage of Helen is Very Hard To Find. I got This Short Piece from the "Rock n' Roll Years" Programme on BBC2 in the 1980s. The Whole Song was not Shown, Just this Bit. The Original of this Film was From the "Look at Life" , a Series of 10 Minute Films Made for Cinemas in the 1960s. The Original was in Colour, and has Never been Made Available for the Public on DVD or Video. It's Not a Question of Being too Lazy to Upload The Whole Film.

[Mann1979HH]

I do appreciate your work.

Ich schätze deine Arbeit. :)

[ilcourtlesfilles]

man those backing singers look exactly the way i imagined them. middle aged women with high pitched voices. you hear them on connie francis records and peggy march too

[fadgegirl76]

Legend

[77doriella]

No surely it was a prehistoric REDD 69 with the dangly cathode ray type thing.... Get a life and listen to this beautiful young lady sing dudes.

[LaVerne37]

Piggie: Thanks for the info regarding the background singers...I knew they sounded awfully young....Piggie 58 has become my "One Stop Shop," for information on Helen Shapiro!!!

Still Dazzled In Texas!!!

[antihotmail]

I was wrong in the last post, the console is

the 'unmodified' REDD 37 desk with the V72 tube microphone amps.

[antihotmail]

The console is the 'unmodified' REDD51 desk

with the (4) Ernest Turner peak meters along with center Tab U70 light beam level indicator

meter. The center square box was the orginal talk back microphone which was replace with the Echo Return controls that where orginally (AUX) fader 5 and 10. Fader 6 to 9 where the main multitrack faders which went to the Echo send/return and then to to tape machines. Notice the filter controls each side of the

console.

[LaVerne37]

This is the film clip I remember and haven't seen in years. Thanks, Piggie. Is there a version that shows the entire session and do you think that this was the actual recording session for "Walkin...," or was it just re-created for the cameras? The background ladies just don't seem to go with their sound...if you know what I am trying to say. Anyway, this also will go in my favorites. Thanks soooo much Piggie!!! Helen RULES!!!!

[PIGGIE58]

The Abbey Road clip came from a short 10 minute film called "A look at life" which was shown at British cinema's in the 1960s. I dont have the full film, but I am keeping my eye out for it. Yes the recording was done again for the camera, a few day's after the real recording. I think the girl backing singers were for show. the real singers were the "Mike Sammes singers. Which had girls and boys in the group.

[antihotmail]

This video may be from a real actual recording

session at Abbey Road Studios (known back then as EMI Studios), don't rule it out. Do You think EMI would pay all those musicians

to show up at studio two to do a fake promo video. EMI Studios was notoriously cheap back then and watched every penny spent in recording time.

[DavidRayner1947]

The footage of Helen being interviewed is from a 1961 ITN News report about her leaving school. The studio stuff, although monochome here, was originally part of a 1961 Rank Organisation 9 minute Eastman Colour short in the "Look at Life" series called "For the Record", shown in UK cinemas at the time. This particular short has never been released on DVD. At Abbey Road in 1961, artistes were still singing to a live orchestra. By 1973, they were singing to a pre-recorded stereo backing track.

[antihotmail]

in 1961 Abbey Road (EMI Studios) was using

a very primitive console designed by EMI Hayes. Recordings where live, done in mono recordings on either single on dual tracks. By 1973, Abbey Road was using the TG desk which was transistorized  and had eight tracks with 24 mike inputs. Pink Floyds "Dark

of the Moon" was recorded using this type

of desk at Abbey Road in 1972-1973. This shows how how Abbey Road Studios involved in recording equipment in a ten year span.

[DavidRayner1947]

Yes, I have a private DVD of the July, 1973, BBC TV "Man Alive" documentary film "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", which features eleven years old ex-choirboy Darren Burn recording "Concrete and Clay" in Studio 2 at Abbey Road under the direction of his producer, Eric Woolfson. A backing track is laid down first by musicians playing for arranger Cy Payne and when that's successfully been done, Darren sings on his own into a microphone in the studio to the pre-recorded music track.

[antihotmail]

This was done at Abbey Road Studio two. I am certain that Norman "Hurricane" Smith is behind the REDD 37 tube console. The guy looking out the window may be Sir George Martin. Notice that no sound screens where used between the artist and the musicians.

This was a live recording more then likely

done to Mono because Abbey Road didn't do

Stereo recording until around 1964 on as we

know the Beatles Recordings.

[PIGGIE58]

Abbey Road did do Stereo Recordings before 1964. Because Helen's "Tops with me" L.P. was done in Stereo in 1962.

[antihotmail]

Maybe it wasn't real a true stereo recording due the fact that most people at that time where still listening to music through a mono speaker (cars,home audio,AM) You see,Abbey Road's REDD-37 and REDD-51 consoles could record in stereo mode if that is what you want call it. It was more like fake stereo so that it could be played back on a mono playback systems and still sound decent. Listen to the Beatles recordings, instruments are panned hard right and left even though it says stereo.

[antihotmail]

Also keep in mind that Stereo recordings in the "UK" was still a new thing back before the Beatles became famous. It was more for the person who had HIFI stereo setup and could reproduce the wider fidelity. Abbey Road studios equipment during the early sixties was archaic if compared to the recording studios

in the United States. This is the reason why American recordings sounded so much better which influenced Lennon and McCartney.

[ketmaniac]

I don't know about EMI, but the Decca studios in London were state-of-the-art. Wagner's Ring Cycle (a four-opera sequence) was recorded there in 1964 and was still considered the ultimate in sound engineering into the 1970s. The boxed set is still a steady seller today, ranking second on Amazon amongst Ring recordings.

[NearAbbeyRoad]

@ketmaniac

The echo chamber at Abbey Road studios was a room in the roof covered in cheap white bathroom tiles. Wires came into the room from below to speakers from microphones in the studios. Then two other microphones picked up the sound and sent it back to the tape recorder. Why is was an echo chamber

DECCA was superior to Abbey Rd. I was surprised the Beatles were given a rehearsal session there - and allowed to write their own songs...and given a surefire hit which they turned down.

[TheDustpile]

@PIGGIE58 The first proper stereo recording at Abbey Road was of an orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1934.

However, EMI didn't realease its stereo catalogue until around 1958, following behind Decca. Ironically, despite Abbey Road's pioneering stereo experiments, the top men were slow to note its commercial potential.

[hostingturan]

@antihotmail They were doing stereo recordings at EMI in the 1950s, two mics and straight to tape. The Beatles weren't the first to make stereo recordings there. Alan Blumlein a very talented inventor actually invented stereo recording and demonstrated it at Abbey Road in the 1930s. A crossed pair of mics for recording stereo is often called a Blumlein pair.

[TheMantico1959]

It's actually Malcolm Addey operating the console, and it's John Schroeder looking out of the window into the studio. If you would like to hear "first hand" some of the history of these and other recording sessions at EMI then Google "Malcolm Addey Oral Studio History" then sit back and enjoy.

[keithhutt]

helen shapiro was so great her songs and her talent is just the best and she was so gorgeous as well

[antihotmail]

Amazing film shots of Abbey Road Studio number

two. Nice seeing a close up of the four track ( Vacuum tube) console that was used by the Beatles. Notice that these where live recordings done on session tapes or two tracks which then where mixed done to a mono master tape. I like how Miss Shapiro just sings along like it was no big deal

[regolio]

queen for a day, i don't think so. how about queen for a lifetime. more helen uploads please

[bigrevkev]

Is that the Norrie Paramor orchestra?

[PIGGIE58]

Yes it is Norrie Paramor's orchestra. But on her first L.P. Martin Slavin's orchestra was used.

[PIGGIE58]

Hi harrihorse, I have now put that clip on, of "you dont know" see HELEN SHAPIRO - 2 SONG MEDLEY. The other song being, Dont treat me like a child.

[harrihorse]

yes pleeze, anyone have a clip of 'you don't know'?

[bedouinboy]

That was nice!

THANKS.

PLEASE LETS HAVE SOME MORE OF HELEN...

Yonatan