Mary Hopkin Biography

The Welsh teenager who became an internationally successful folk singer after signing to The Beatles' Apple label.

Born in 1950 in Pontardawe, Mary Hopkin's singing began while she was still a schoolgirl. Starting out in a local folk band, the Selby Set & Mary, she also released several Welsh-language albums on local label Cambrian Recordings.

Mary's fortunes changed dramatically in 1968 following an appearance on the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks, where she performed Turn Turn Turn. It was indeed to be a turning point in her life.

She won the competition, and the following Monday received a telegram asking her to call Apple Records. She did, and spoke to Paul McCartney, who asked her to come up to London the next day for an audition.

Mary recorded eight songs that day, and was offered a recording contract on the spot. The song Those Were The Days was chosen as her first single, and it looked to be an instant success - her success in Opportunity Knocks had already made her a household name. She was just 18 years old.

However, it wasn't all plain sailing. News came through that Sandie Shaw had also recorded Those Were The Days, and was rushing it out to coincide with Mary's release date of 30 August. Apple took out ads in the music press which said, "Listen to Mary Hopkin sing Those Were The Days. Listen to Sandie Shaw's version. Then buy the one you like".

The gamble paid off. Mary's version topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Its follow-up, Goodbye, was written by Paul McCartney, who was also produced her first album, Postcard. With cover versions of Donovan's Lord Of The Reedy River and Happiness Runs, much of Postcard featured songs that weren't best suited to her voice.

The single Temma Harbour, produced by Mickey Most, reached the Top 10, and Knock, Knock, Who's There? was Britain's 1970 Eurovision entry. She came second.

Her last top 20 hit was Think About Your Children, a song written by Hot Chocolate. By this time, Mary had become increasingly unhappy at the material she was being given to sing, although there were high points. Her album Earth Song Ocean Song, released in 1970, remains to this day the album Mary is most pleased with, considering it to be more her style than her previous releases. Earth Song/Ocean Song featured Danny Thompson from Pentangle on double bass, Ralph McTell on guitar and Dave Cousins from The Strawbs on guitar.

The album's release marked the end of her tenure with Apple. Mary temporarily retired from recording, married producer Tony Visconti, and mostly left the music business to bring up her children.

But Mary, although unhappy with showbusiness did not stop recording as is normally reported in the press. During 1972 while Apple were releasing the album Those Were The Days which was basically a Best Of... lp and a single from the wonderful Earth Song Ocean Song called Water Paper and Clay, Mary, with the help of Visconti was busy recording and releasing songs of her own.

1972 saw the release of the beautiful Christmas folk song Mary Had A Baby/The Cherry Tree carol on the Regal Zonophone label, which was incidently re-released in 1973 and under the name of Hobby Horse Summertime Summertime came out, this received a lot of airplay.

Although no singles or albums came out in her name until 1976, she sang on numerous recordings that Visconti produced for example Tom Paxton, Ralph Mctell, David Bowie, Bert Jansch, Radiators from Space, Thin Lizzy, Carmen, Sarstedt Brothers, Sparks, Hazel O'connor, Elaine Paige also Visconti released his own LP Inventory where she dueted and did backing vocals, the credits nearly always show as Mary Visconti and not Hopkin!

During this time she appeared on various TV programmes eg The Cilla Black show and radio stations.

In 1976/77 she returned to recording in her own name and released the wonderful single If You Love Me originally recorded by Edith Piaf and the b-side was one of her own compositions Tell Me Now, the next single was Wrap Me In You Arms, b-side Just a Dreamer again one of her own compositions, these singles came out on Visconti's own Good Earth Label, there was talk of an albums worth of her own songs called With You Without You, but this did not materialise.

Then many projects started coming her way, two members of Steeleye Span Bob Johnson and Pete Knight chose Mary to play the princess Lirazel on their concept album The King of Elflands Daughter also on this album was Alexis Korner, Frankie Miller, Derek Brimstone and PP Arnold.

She also appeared at the prestigious Cambridge Folk Festival with Bert Jansch. 1976 also saw the birth of her second child. Also in the 70's Decca records released a compilation LP of Mary's Cambrian Welsh recordings.

Then came the 1980's her first project was a 6-week stint at the Hexagon in Reading appearing as Mary in the Christmas story, called Rock Nativity, she was spectacular, it did indeed recieve very good reviews.

Mike Hurst record producer and ex of the Springfields asked her to sing lead in a new group he was putting together with Mike de Albuquerque ex of ELO. They released one single What's Love and did a tour of the UK with Dr Hook, but she decided to call it a day as she was not happy with the gigs the band were choosing. It wasn't until 2002 that Mike Hurst released a CD of all the recordings on the Angel Air label called simply Sundance.

Around 1984 Peter Skellern asked Mary to join him and Julian Lloyd Webber in a band called Oasis. This was the original Oasis. They recorded a beautiful albums worth of songs which was really successful and sold incredibly well all around the world, they appeared on several TV shows, a tour was booked and then Mary fell ill, it was cancelled and the band broke up, 2 singles were released from the LP.

She appeared at the London Palladium with Ralph Mctell, then came along George Martin's project of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. She played the character Rosie Probert and along with Freddie Jones playing Captain Cat, performed a piece called Love Duet, the words of the song are considered by some to be the finest poetry in the play. The making of the record was filmed and made into a South Bank Show Special, Mary and Freddie were shown rehearsing and recording Love Duet. In 1992 the cast got back together again and did a performance of the play as a tribute to Dylan Thomas in the presence of Prince Charles for the Prince's Trust.

In 1989 Mary recorded what some consider, apart from the folk Classic Earth Song, to be her finest work to date, a CD of songs called Spirit. This was recorded on the Trax label and is a collection of light classical songs. A single was released called Ave Maria. The CD was produced by Benny Gallagher, of Gallagher and Lyle, who in her early days on Apple wrote some of her best songs, like Sparrow.

Early in 1990 she was asked to sing with the Chieftains at the London Palladium in a charity show, she will later join them on a tour of the UK.

Again she continued to do projects she wanted, working with people like Julian Colbeck, she wrote the words and performed a song on his CD Back to Bach, there was The Collector, a Marc Cerrone creation, this was a stage play/opera, CD and Video she performed 2 tracks. Then Vangelis where she recorded Rachel Song for the Blade Runner soundtrack. She worked again with her old guitarist Brian Willoughby and Dave Cousins of the Strawbs on their CD The Bridge, wonderful harmonies, duets and backing vocals, she appears on a Beatles tribute album by Ram Pietsch.

Around 1996 a Welsh Label called Sain boughy Cambrian's back catalogue and released all her Welsh recordings on a CD called the Early Years. It was done very well, unlike the earlier Decca catastrophe where they overdubbed all her songs with Drums.

In 1999 she is invited to join the The Cheiftains on their UK tour, later that year she teams up with Benny Gallagher and Jim Diamond to perform a few concerts in Scotland.

More recently there have been 3 TV documentaries done about her, 1 for ITV, 1 for the BBC and 1 for S4C.

She has guested on The Crocketts' album The Great Brain Robbery, sang the theme song for Billy Connolly's BBC TV series The World Tour, she recorded with Robin Williams (yes, the actor) on this she sings her own song Those Were the Days while he raps over it! She also appeared in a film by Sara Sugarman called Very Annie Mary, and dueted with Dolly Parton on her new CD Those Were the Days (yes Mary's own song).

The most recent release was her own CD on her own label Mary Hopkin Music called Live at the Royal Festival Hall an absolute gem of a recording, released September 2005 and is still available from her own website. (edit)