The following was taken from Microsoft's Music Central '96 CD-ROM

Cilla Black- b. Priscilla White, 27 May 1943, Liverpool, England. While working as a part-time cloakroom attendant at Liverpool's Cavern club, in 1963, Priscilla appeared as guest singer with various groups, and was brought to the attention of Brian Epstein. The Beatles’ manager changed her name and during the next few years ably exploited her girl-next-door appeal. Her first single, under the auspices of producer George Martin, was a brassy powerhouse reworking of the Beatles’ unreleased Love Of The Loved, which hit the UK Top 30 in late 1963. A change of style with Burt Bacharach's Anyone Who Had A Heart saw Cilla emerge as a ballad singer of immense power and distinction. You're My World, a translation of an Italian lyric, was another brilliantly orchestrated, impassioned ballad which, like its predecessor, dominated the UK number 1 position in 1964. In what was arguably the most competitive year in British pop history, Black was outselling all her Merseyside rivals, bar the Beatles. For her fourth single, Paul McCartney presented It's For You, a fascinating jazz waltz ballad which seemed a certain number 1, but stalled at number 8. By the end of 1964, Cilla was one of the most successful girl singers of her era and continued to release superb quality covers, including a version of the Righteous Brothers’ You've Lost That Lovin Feelin’’ and an excellent reading of Randy Newman's I've Been Wrong Before. A consummate rocker and unchallenged mistress of the neurotic ballad genre, Black was unassailable at her pop peak, yet her chosen path was that of an ‘all-round entertainer’. For most of 1965, she ceased recording and worked on her only film WORK IS A FOUR LETTER WORD, but returned strongly the following year with Love's Just A Broken Heart and Alfie.

The death of Brian Epstein in 1967 and a relative lull in chart success might have blighted the prospects of a lesser performer, but Black was already moving into television work, aided by her manager/husband Bobby Willis. Her highly-rated television series was boosted by the hit title theme Step Inside Love, donated by Paul McCartney. Throughout the late '60s, she continued to register Top 10 hits, including the stoical Surround Yourself With Sorrow, the oddly-paced wish-fulfilling Conversations and the upbeat Something Tells Me. Like many of her former contemporaries, Cilla wound down her recording career in the '70s and concentrated on live work and television commitments. While old rivals such as Lulu, Sandie Shaw and Dusty Springfieldwere courted by the new rock elite, Black required no such patronage and entered the '90s as one of the highest paid family entertainers in the British music business with two major UK television shows, BLIND DATE and SURPRISE SURPRISE.

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