Alfie (song) - Cilla Black

Cilla Black

Although Bacharach and David suggested "Alfie" be recorded by Dionne Warwick, their most prolific interpreter, Paramount felt the film's setting demanded the song be recorded by a UK singer and the initial invitation to record "Alfie" was made to Sandie Shaw who had had a UK number 1 hit with the Bacharach/David composition "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me". When the invitation to Shaw was declined "Alfie" was offered to Cilla Black, who had also had a UK No.1 with a Bacharach/David song: "Anyone Who Had a Heart".

Black was invited to record "Alfie" via a letter from Bacharach - who Black recalls wrote that the song had been written especially for her - and her manager Brian Epstein was sent a demo of the song; Black would recall her negative reaction to hearing the demo "of some fella singing 'Alfie'...I actually said to Brian 'I can't do this.' For a start - Alfie?? You call your dog Alfie!... it be Tarquin or something like that?"

Black states that rather than overtly decline the song "I said I'd only do it if Burt Bacharach himself did the arrangement, never thinking for one moment that he would. the reply came back from America that he'd be happy to...I said I would only do it if Burt came over to London for the recording session. 'Yes,' came the reply. Next I said that as well as the arrangements and coming over, he had to play on the session. To my astonishment it was agreed that Burt would do all three. So by this time, coward that I was, I really couldn't back out."

The session for Cilla Black's recording of "Alfie" took place in the fall of 1965 at Studio One, Abbey Road Studios and was overseen by Black's regular producer George Martin. In addition to the agreed arranging and piano playing, Bacharach conducted the 48-piece orchestra which played on the session which also featured the Breakaways as background vocalists. According to Black, Bacharach had her cut eighteen complete takes before he was satisfied with her vocal while Bacharach's estimation of the session's total number of takes including partial ones is as high as "twenty-eight or twenty-nine...I kept going can we get it a little better... just some magic".

"Alfie" was released in January 1966 four months prior to the opening of the film. The single was essentially intended as a specialty item to foster interest in the upcoming film rather than a mainstream hit; however the track accrued enough interest to enter the UK Top 50 in April 1966, reaching No.9 that May.

Black's "Alfie" was issued in Australia and the US in July 1966, the month prior to the release of the film Alfie in both territories. Despite the soundtrack appearance of a version of "Alfie" by Cher in the film's worldwide release, Black's "Alfie" was a sizable Australian hit at No.22. In the US - where Black had had only one moderate success with "You're My World" in 1964 - her "Alfie" single just made the Billboard Hot 100 at No.95, the Pop mainstream sector's focus on the song being primarily on Cher's version. Cher's version was only a moderate hit in the US at No.32, interest in any single recorded version of "Alfie" also being dissipated by the plethora of easy listening-oriented covers which were in release by the summer of 1966.

Cilla Black entitled her 2004 autobiography What's It All About?, referencing the opening phrase of the song "Alfie".