Cilla Black - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1964-1966)

Next up in my BBC sessions project is British singer Cilla Black. There's enough material for two volumes.

Cilla Black, who died in 2015, didn't get a lot of respect back in her 1960s and 1970s heyday, and that's still true today. Her vocal talents, while good, didn't rise to the likes of Dusty Springfield's. It didn't help that after her music career success lessened in the early 1970s, she deemphasized her music and became more of an all-around entertainer, becoming a frequent presenter on British TV. 

That said, there's a lot to like about her music career in the 1960s and early 1970s, which is the time frame of these two BBC volumes. She had lots of hits in Britain, some of them massive. She also had lots of connections to the Beatles, who not only helped her get her first record contract, but even were the backing band for her first audition. The first song here, "It's for You," was written for her by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and was a Top Ten hit in Britain.

As far as I can tell, every single performance here is officially unreleased. But the sound quality is generally excellent, because most of these songs come from BBC Top of the Pops transcription discs, and those sound as good as official releases. But I tried to augment that source, because many of her key songs happened to have not been played there. So there are three songs from the Ed Sullivan Show in the US, two from a 1966 British TV special called "Cilla at the Savoy," and two more from other BBC shows. As a result, I might have missed a key song or two, but overall, this does an able job as a de facto "best of" collection.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 It's for You (Cilla Black)
02 You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin' (Cilla Black)
03 Heat Wave [Edit] (Cilla Black)
04 Dancing in the Street (Cilla Black)
05 You're My World (Cilla Black)
06 Goin' Out of My Head (Cilla Black)
07 You're No Good [Edit] (Cilla Black)
08 He Was Really Saying Something [Edit] (Cilla Black)
09 I've Been Wrong Before (Cilla Black)
10 Shotgun (Cilla Black)
11 September in the Rain (Cilla Black)
12 Sing a Rainbow (Cilla Black)
13 Anyone Who Had a Heart (Cilla Black)
14 Yesterday [Edit] (Cilla Black)
15 Love's Just a Broken Heart (Cilla Black)
16 1-2-3 [Edit] (Cilla Black)
17 Let There Be Love (Cilla Black with Dudley Moore)
18 Rainbow Edit] (Cilla Black)
19 Lover's Concerto [Edit] (Cilla Black)
20 Night Time Is Here [Edit] (Cilla Black)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16066012/CillaB_1964-1966_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Black dates to 1966.