Alma Cogan - Early Recording Career

Early Recording Career

Cogan's first recording was "Red Silken Stockings" but as it was decided to give that song to her HMV label-mate entertainer Betty Driver, Cogan's first release was the 78 rpm record "To Be Worthy Of You"/"Would You" recorded on her twentieth birthday in 1952.

When none of her first recordings became hits Cogan was moved to submit a demo to the BBC who – out of a field of four hundred applicants – hired Cogan as vocalist for the programme Take It From Here; both Cogan and June Whitfield were added to the cast after Joy Nichols left the UK.

In 1953 Cogan was recording the song "If I Had A Golden Umbrella" and broke into a giggle: she played up this effect on some later recordings and upon attaining stardom would become known as "The girl with the giggle in her voice".

In the fashion of the time many of Cogan's recordings would be covers of US hits beginning in 1952 with "Half as Much"; however, the Rosemary Clooney original also became the UK hit. HMV subsequently had Cogan cover US hit songs by Clooney, Teresa Brewer, Georgia Gibbs, Joni James, Patti Page, Jo Stafford and Dinah Shore.

Symptomatic of the 1950s UK music industry, three UK singers covered Brewer's "Ricochet": Cogan, Billie Anthony and Joan Regan, and the same three UK singers: Cogan, Anthony and Regan, had as their next release a cover of "Bell Bottom Blues" – again a US hit for Teresa Brewer. Both Cogan and Billie Anthony had as their subsequent single to "Bell Bottom Blues" a cover of Jo Stafford's "Make Love to Me" – the original became the UK hit. Cogan, Anthony and Joan Regan all covered Rosemary Clooney's 1954 US #1 "This Ole House" – this time Anthony had the hit (she reached #4 despite being beaten by the Clooney original at #1). Regan had had the UK hit with "Ricochet" but "Bell Bottom Blues" - also covered by Shani Wallis - proved to be Cogan's chart breakthrough, reaching #4 on the chart dated 3 April 1954.