Billie Davis

Billie Davis (born Carol Hedges, 22 December 1945, Woking, Surrey, England^[1]) is an English female singer who had hits in the 1960s, and is best remembered for the UK hit version of the song, "Tell Him" (1963) and "I Want You to Be My Baby" (1968).

Early career

Her performing name was suggested by the impresario, Robert Stigwood, and was derived from those of blues singer Billie Holiday and the entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.^[2]

In her teens Hedges was an engineering secretary before she started her recording career. After winning a talent contest in which she was backed by Cliff Bennett's band, the Rebel Rousers,^[3] she cut some early demo records with the Tornados for record producer Joe Meek.^[4] However, her first commercial success, under Stigwood's guidance, was "Will I What?", released in August 1962,^[5] on which she performed as a foil to Mike Sarne, rather as Wendy Richard had done on Sarne's chart-topping disc, "Come Outside". This reached number 18 in the UK Singles Chart in September 1962.^[6]

In February 1963 Davis had her biggest success with the cover version of The Exciters' "Tell Him", a song written by Bert Russell (sometimes known as Bert Berns) that was successfully revived in the late 1990s by Vonda Shepard, for the American Fox television program, Ally McBeal. Davis' recording reached number ten in the UK chart, and was followed by "He's The One", which crept into the Top 40 in May 1963.^[7]

Setback

In 1963, the year in which popular music was transformed by the rise of the The Beatles, Davis left Decca records, with which she had had some financial disagreements. In September of that year, returning from a concert in Worcester,^[8] she suffered a broken jaw in a road crash in the West Midlands in which Jet Harris, former bass guitarist of the Shadows, received head injuries. The reporting in the press of her association with Harris, a married man, earned Davis, still only 17, some unwelcome publicity at a difficult time and may have been one of the factors which held back her career.^{[citation needed]} Despite the high regard in which many^[who?] held her as a performer, she never achieved the fame of such contemporaries as Cilla Black or Sandie Shaw.^{[citation needed]}

Style

Davis was an early proponent of many of the fashion styles for which the 1960s are remembered: bobbed hair, long boots of the kind popularised by Honor Blackman in early episodes of The Avengers and leather mini-skirts. She was said to have beaten the latter for 'percussive effect' when recording.^[9] The biographer of the "supergroup" Cream has described her as "astonishingly photogenic".^[8]

Later career

Returning to Decca in the late 1960s Davis made some recordings, including Chip Taylor's "Angel of the Morning", on which she was backed by, amongst others, Kiki Dee and P. P. Arnold. The latter recorded the song herself and had the bigger hit in 1968. Davis' final chart entry was a Northern soul version of Jon Hendricks' "I Want You to Be My Baby", originally recorded by Louis Jordan in 1952, which reached number 33 in October 1968,^[7] although sales were affected by an industrial dispute at the manufacturing plant.^[10]

Davis left Decca in April 1971 after a stay of eight years.^[11] She continued to record into the 1980s and was popular, in particular, with audiences in the Spanish-speaking world.^{[citation needed]} Some of her work was reissued on compilation CDs, including her cover of Burt Bacharach's "The Last One to Be Loved", which appeared on Sequel Records', Trains & Boats & Covers (1999).^[4] A retrospective collection of her recordings for Decca was released in 2005.^[12]

In 2006 she was re-united with Jet Harris for a series for concerts.

Discography

Hit singles

• "Will I What" (as 'Mike Sarne with Billie Davis') - August 1962 - Parlophone R4932 UK #18
• "Tell Him" (Russell) b/w "I'm Thankful" (Blackwell) - February 1963 - Decca F11572 UK #10
• "He's The One" (Blackwell) b/w "V.I.P." (Stephens) - May 1963 - Decca F11658 UK #40
• "I Want You To Be My Baby" - October 1968 - Decca F12823 UK #33

^[7]

References

External links

• Official Billie Davis website
• Glasgow Mods presents Billie Davis