Found Performance: “My Love” by Petula Clark

When most of us think of the British Invasion, we probably focus on all those 1960s “boy bands” — Beatles, Stones, DC5, Animals, Kinks, Hollies, Yardbirds, Peter & Gordon, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman, etc.)  There was a big exception of the female gender.  Petula Clark became one of the most popular performers of that era. Her breakthrough hit, and her signature song, was “Downtown,” a mega-giant around the world in 1964.

This “Found Performance” is another of her chart-topping hits in the US, Canada and the UK. “My Love” was written by prominent songwriter Tony Hatch. The studio backing track was by none other than LA’s famed “Wrecking Crew.”

In February 1966, “My Love” peaked at #1 in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 (two weeks at #1, thirteen total weeks on the chart) and on Canada’s RPM Play Sheet it went to #1. Back home in the UK, Clark’s song stalled at #4, but its momentum was such that she put together several more smash hits. 

Since this record was always one of my ’60’s favorites, I have periodically searched for a video of Clark performing this hit song. I consider this to be one of the best of those performances. To augment the original film, I have cleaned up the video as best as I could and added a better quality audio track. The video is at ad free Vimeo, so click 2x on the start button – the first time to go to Vimeo and then again to start the video.)