Alma Cogan

This article is about the singer named Alma Cogan. For the Gordon Burn novel, see Alma Cogan (novel).

Alma Cogan
Birth name	Alma Angela Cohen Cogan
Genres	Traditional pop
Years active	1952–1966
Labels	HMV, EMI Columbia
Website	Alma Cogan International Fan Club

Alma Cogan (19 May 1932 – 26 October 1966) was an English singer of traditional pop music in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dubbed "The Girl With the Laugh/Giggle/Chuckle In Her Voice", she was the highest paid British female entertainer of her era. Throughout the mid-1950s, she was the most consistently successful female singer in the UK.

Early life

She was born Alma Angela Cohen Cogan in Whitechapel, East London, England, of Russian Jewish descent. Her parents Mark and Fay Cohen had another daughter, the future actress Sandra Caron, four or five years later and Alma Cogan also had a brother. Mark Cohen's work as a haberdasher involved opening stores in different areas; this entailed frequent relocation for his family. One of Cogan's early residences was in Worthing, Sussex – where her family originally lived above her father's shop.

Although Jewish, she attended St Joseph's Convent School in Reading. Her father was a singer but it was Cogan's mother who had show business aspirations for both her daughters – she had named Cogan after silent screen star Alma Taylor – and after eleven-year-old Cogan won the Sussex Queen of Song contest her encouraged mother managed to get her an audition with bandleader Ted Heath, who was impressed but thought Cogan too young.

Nevertheless by her teens Cogan was singing at London tea dances and at age fourteen she was featured in a variety show at the Grand Theatre in Brighton having been recommended by Vera Lynn.

Proceeding to Worthing Art College, Cogan continued singing in London venues including Selby's Restaurant and the Café Anglais. Cogan was a member of the chorus the production of High Button Shoes at the Hippodrome – the production opened in December 1948 – and Cogan was also featured in Sauce Tartare which opened in May 1949 at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End: Sauce Tartare was a review starring Muriel Smith which also featured Audrey Hepburn, Renée Houston and Bob Monkhouse.

In 1949, Cogan also became the resident singer at the Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch, where her original six week booking was extended to eighteen months. It was at the Cumberland Hotel that Cogan was spotted by Walter Ridley an A&R man for HMV Records who was looking for a female act to add to the label's mostly male roster.

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 would subsequently have 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.

1950s star

"Bell Bottom Blues" was typical of Cogan's '50s single releases, her output comprising mostly lightweight numbers whose chart success was fairly arbitrary: she appeared on the UK Singles Chart eighteen times between 1954 and 1960 with the 1955 release "Dreamboat" reaching #1.

Cogan's second charting single had been a cover of Kitty Kallen's "Little Things Mean a Lot": Kallen's US #1 had been equally successful in UK release in the summer of 1954 but Cogan's version did reach #11. One of Cogan's earlier releases that year: "Little Shoemaker", had been a cover of the Gaylords' US #2 hit – it was a version by another UK songstress: Petula Clark, which had become the chart hit (Clark's first).

It was also in 1954 that Cogan recorded "I Can't Tell a Waltz from a Tango", again a cover of a US chart hit – this one by Patti Page. Unusual for a UK cover, the original had only been a marginal US hit: "I Can't Tell a Waltz from a Tango" was recommended to Cogan primarily as it was deemed a strong number for her and her version became the second of Cogan's four Top Ten hits the fourth one being the Tommie Connor composition "Never Do the Tango With an Eskimo" (#6/ 1955).

Cogan also reached #16 in 1958 with her version of "Sugartime" despite competition from the McGuire Sisters original and another cover by Jim Dale. Her final Top 20 hit, "Sugartime" aroused an especial antipathy in future Beatle John Lennon, then a Liverpool art school student whose classmate Helen Anderson would recall "used to make horrible jokes against [Cogan], impersonating her singing 'sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, sugar at suppertime'. He'd pull crazy expressions on his face to try to imitate her expressions." Ironically Lennon and Cogan would later become friends and (according to Cogan's sister Sandra Caron) sometime lovers.

Cogan also faced chart competition for her chart singles "Willie Can" (#13/ 1956) – the Beverley Sisters' version reached #23 – and her version of Marty Robbins' "The Story of My Life" which was one of four to hit the UK charts in 1958 with Michael Holliday besting Cogan (#25) and also Dave King and Gary Miller by reaching #1.

Cogan did step outside the pop idiom with her cover of the Teenagers featuring Frankie Lymon's "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (#22/ 1956) although her version was bested by the original which reached #1.

Cogan's recordings were originally produced by Walter Ridley and subsequently by Norman Newell.

Cogan was one of the first UK recording artists to recognize the promotional potential of the new medium of television; while other singers were dependent on the vagaries of the record charts Cogan's career was buoyed by frequent television appearances showcasing not only her vocal prowess but her bubbly personality. Typically Cogan wore hooped skirts heavy with sequins and figure-hugging tops; reputedly her dresses were all custom made to her own designs and never worn twice. Cliff Richard recalls: "My first impression of her was definitely frocks – I kept thinking, how many can this woman have? Almost every song had a different costume. The skirts seemed to be so wide – I don't know where they hung them up!"

In 1957 Cogan journeyed to New York City to make a 14 April appearance on the televised variety programme Toast of the Town as The Ed Sullivan Show was originally named. Cogan's performance led to a booking at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. RCA Victor released some of Cogan's singles in the US with no discernible result.

Cogan's first album was released in 1958: I Love to Sing, which featured Frank Cordell conducting the orchestra, was focussed more on traditional pop classics rather than the lightweight material typical of Cogan's single releases.

In December 1956 Cogan topped the annual NME reader's poll as "Outstanding British Female Singer". She finished top again in 1957 and 1958; after coming second to Shirley Bassey in 1959 Cogan again topped the poll in 1960 remaining a popular personality despite by then no longer being a major chart presence.

UK chart decline and international success

Cogan's final single release of the 1950s was her cover of Bobby Rydell's US hit "We Got Love" which entered the UK Top 30 in December 1959: its #26 peak on the chart for 2 January 1960 would prove to be her highest charting for the incoming decade.

After the follow-up "Dream Talk" peaked at #48 Cogan had her last Top 30 hit with the Paul Anka penned "Train of Love" (#27) which had been a US Top 40 hit for Annette.

The B-side of "Train of Love": "The 'I Love You' Bit", a duet with Oscar Nebish was, in fact, performed with Lionel Bart who was for a time considered Cogan's fiancé. Bart had written the musical Oliver! with Cogan in mind for the role of Nancy but as Cogan was reluctant to commit to the stage musical Oliver opened in the West End June 1960 with Georgia Brown in the Nancy role. (Cogan would contribute to a recording of the musical for EMI, produced by Norman Newell, released in 1965).

Cogan's next single "Just Couldn't Resist Her With Her Pocket Transistor" fell short of the UK Top 50 but found a receptive audience in Japan, the "pocketable" radio being the 1957 Japanese invention which as Sony's inaugural import to North America had generated Japan's rise as a global electronics giant. Reportedly Cogan's single topped the Japanese charts for ten months to a year – the first indication of the 1960s trend that would see Cogan's recordings scoring well internationally while being overlooked in the UK. Cogan returned to the Japanese Top Ten in the spring of 1961 via a release of "Train of Love" and that December "Just Couldn't Resist Her With Her Pocket Transistor" gave Cogan a #3 hit in India where her cover of "She's Got You" would reach the Top Ten in June 1962.

In February 1961 Cogan's contract to record for the HMV Pop label expired; although she initially planned to depart the parent EMI Group its managing director Len Wood negotiated for Cogan to move to EMI's Columbia subsidiary, making her the labelmate of Helen Shapiro who would shortly be established as the new queen of the UK charts. In contrast Cogan would have her final UK chart showing with her Columbia debut: "Cowboy Jimmy Joe". The track was an English version of the German hit "Die Sterne Der Prärie" by Lolita, whose "Sailor" had recently been rendered in English by Cogan's fellow '50s vocalistes Anne Shelton – a formative influence and friend of Cogan's – and Petula Clark with both versions reaching the UK Top Ten, Clark's version being her first ever #1. However, "Cowboy Jimmy Joe" would punctuate Cogan's UK chart career with a mild #37 showing.

Similar to Petula Clark, Cogan was a 1950s pop vocalist whose talent could be showcased by the music of the subsequent decade: that Cogan failed to register on the UK charts later than 1961 is attributable to the "party girl" image that had originally boosted her career coming across in the 1960s as "square", an opinion expressed by Lionel Blair the 1991 BBC documentary Alma Cogan: The Girl with the Giggle in Her Voice.

Cogan's friend singer, Eddie Grassham, told the BBC, that Cogan was especially disappointed that her 1963 cover of The Exciters' US hit "Tell Him" did not return her to the UK charts, while a rival cover by teenage mod Billie Davis would reach #10 ("Tell Him" gave Cogan her sole charting in France at #53 – the Exciters' version was a French #1).

After having only one long playing released in the 1950s, Cogan had one album released in both 1961 and 1962 entitled respectively With You in Mind and How About Love? which like the 1958 album I Love to Sing showcased Cogan with more substantial material that did her body of singles. How About Love? was picked up for US release by Vee-Jay Records but internal problems caused that label to temporarily suspend operations in 1963 and How About Love? was one of the releases consequently canceled.

Cogan's international success continued as she reached #1 in Israel in April 1963 with "Fly Me to the Moon" and #1 in Sweden for five weeks in the autumn of 1964 with her rock and roll ballad re-invention of "Tennessee Waltz". The latter track, conducted by Kathy Kirby's musical director Charles Blackwell, also reached the Top Twenty in Denmark in the summer of 1964 and would spend three months in the Top Twenty in Germany with a #9 peak in January 1965. Cogan returned to the German Top 20 that May when her reworking of "Home on the Range" entitled "Hillbilly Boy" reached #19. Also in 1965 Cogan consolidated her stardom in Sweden where she returned to #1 for three weeks that summer with her cover – unreleased in the UK – of Jewel Akens' US hit "The Birds and the Bees", which gave Cogan a #8 hit in Denmark that autumn when it also hit the Top 5 in Norway.

Beginning with "Tell Him", Cogan courted international success by recording up to seven versions of some tracks in different languages including German and Japanese. She also traveled extensively in the mid 1960s making personal appearances and appearing on television in Australia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain and Japan.

Hostess to the Beatles

By the mid 1960s, Cogan was a staple of the UK press less for her performing career than for the all-night parties she threw at the ground floor Kensington High Street apartment her father had purchased in 1951 (Mark Cohen died in 1952): 44 Stafford Court was the longtime residence of Cogan and her mother Fay Cohen and sister Sandra Caron.

Cynthia Lennon described Cogan's home as "decorated like a swish nightclub with dark, richly coloured silken fabrics and brocades everywhere. Every surface was covered with ethnic sculptures, ornaments and dozens of photographs in elaborate silver, gold and jewelled frames."

Regular visitors included such diverse figures as Noël Coward, Tommy Steele, Cary Grant, Sammy Davis, Jr, Danny Kaye, Audrey Hepburn, Princess Margaret, Michael Caine, Frankie Vaughan, Lionel Bart, Stanley Baker, Bruce Forsyth, Ethel Merman, Roger Moore and a host of other celebrities.

Lonnie Donegan recalls Cogan "told me Cary Grant proposed to her, and she said 'I don’t know what to do, Lonnie.' I said 'Well, love, if you have to ask the answer's got to be no.' She didn't accept, so I suppose she must have listened to me!"

Cogan was especially noted for her friendship with the Beatles, whom she met during rehearsals for Sunday Night at the London Palladium on 12 January 1964, John Lennon and Paul McCartney in particular being her frequent guests.

John Lennon's wife Cynthia Lennon would recall "John and I had thought of Alma [whom John dubbed 'Sara Sequin'] [as] out of date and unhip. We remembered her in the oldfashioned cinched-in waists and wide skirts of the Fifties. But in the flesh she was beautiful, intelligent and funny, oozing sex appeal and charm." In fact Cynthia detected sexual tension between her husband and Cogan to the point of believing the two were intimately involved and a longterm affair between Cogan and John Lennon is alleged by Sandra Caron (Paul McCartney acknowledges conducting a "slight romance" with Caron). The other three Beatles referred to Cogan as "Auntie Alma".

It was on the piano at Cogan's flat that McCartney first played the melody of "Yesterday" which had come to him in a dream: McCartney wished assurance his dream song was original and felt that Cogan with her vast musical knowledge would be the person to identify the tune if it did already exist. (Her response was: "I don't know what it is, but it's beautiful.")

Rumors that McCartney and Lennon contributed musically to Cogan's mid-60s recording sessions proved longstanding but only McCartney's playing tambourine on "I Knew Right Away" – the B-side of Cogan's 30 October 1964 release "It's You" – is verifiable. McCartney has said of Cogan: "We'd known Alma as the big singing star. We never interacted musically, she was a little too old for our generation, not much probably, but it seemed like an eternity, so I never took her seriously musically. She was old-school showbiz."

Final recordings

Cogan hoped to use her association with the Beatles to abet a recording comeback by cutting an album comprising Lennon–McCartney compositions. The concept was nixed by EMI because of the plethora of similar albums then on the market. However, Cogan did cut versions of "I Feel Fine", "Yesterday", "Eight Days a Week" and "Help", with the last two tracks being released as a single in 1965: the A-side "Eight Days a Week" was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, 4 October 1965. Although being considered one of Cogan's most distinguished tracks, it was not, as rumour would later have it, recorded in the presence of either John Lennon or Paul McCartney, neither of whom were then at the studio or, as has been suggested, played an instrument such as the tambourine.

Cogan also funded and recorded tracks for producer Andrew Loog Oldham including a remake of Barbara George's "I Know (You Don't Love Me No More)": these tracks which showcased Cogan as a much grittier vocalist than previously were dismissed by EMI as substandard and unreleasable.

In 1965 EMI's dissatisfaction with Cogan manifested itself in the label's decision to have her cut an album, the recording of which would satisfy the number of tracks remaining on Cogan's contract, after which EMI would not renew her contract. The production was assigned to David Gooch, the recently hired staff producer who had been responsible for the recording of several West End musical soundtracks for EMI's affiliate MFP label. With orchestrations by veteran Cogan associate Stan Foster, the recording of tracks for the final album began that summer in Studio 1 at Abbey Road Studios.

All of the songs were initially recorded without the presence of the singer because Cogan was unwell ("supposedly with a bad cold or the flu" – Gooch): the Musicians' Union gave permission for the backing tracks to be recorded to which she later added her voice.

The Abbey Road sessions featured a version of "A Lover's Concerto": a German language version of that song cut in Cologne would be Cogan's final recording which she recorded together with the orchestra.

Illness and death

Singer Anne Shelton attributed her friend Cogan's health decline to "highly experimental" injections she took to lose weight saying "after those injections, [Cogan] was never well again".

In early 1966 Cogan embarked on a series of club dates in the north of England: she collapsed after two performances suffering stomach pains and returned to London where she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She received treatment and planned to continue her career, even co-writing several songs with Stan Foster for other singers including "I Only Dream of You" recorded by Joe Dolan and Ronnie Carroll's "Wait For Me". Cogan used the pseudonym 'Al Western' for these titles while Foster was credited as 'Stephen Forest'.

Still hoping for a return to the UK charts, Cogan recorded the "Al Western"/"Stephen Forest" composition "Love Ya Illya" under the pseudonym Angela and the Fans. Released by Pye Records in April 1966, this salute to the David McCallum character on the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. received extensive airplay, especially on the offshore pirate radio stations, without mustering enough popularity to rank in the UK Top 50.

While touring Sweden in the summer of 1966 in support of her current Swedish hit single "Hello Baby", Cogan collapsed. She was hospitalized at London's Middlesex Hospital for three weeks before succumbing to ovarian cancer on 26 October 1966 at the age of 34.

Cogan had never been a practising Jew but in deference to her family her death was observed with traditional Hebraic rites concluding with burial at Bushey Jewish Cemetery in Hertfordshire.

Legacy

David Gooch oversaw the release of a posthumous single featuring Cogan's composition "Now That I've Found You" – originally issued as the B-side of the 1965 single "Love is a Word" – backed by Cogan's version of "More" which Gooch chose in recognition of its lyricist Norman Newell's contribution to Cogan's career. Cogan's final album Alma – comprising the tracks cut at Abbey Road in 1965 augmented with some of Cogan's final single releases – was released in 1967; its release was held back for several months to accommodate the release of the retrospective album Alma Cogan.

Cogan's death failed to significantly renew interest in her. Collections of Cogan's music have been released on CD, including a complete triple album anthology (A-Z of Alma, 1995). The novel Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn – in which a retired Cogan is still alive in the 1980s – won the Whitbread Book Award in 1991. The 1996 hit "Alma Matters" by Morrissey – who is known for his appreciation for cultural icons – has been interpreted as being about Cogan.

A blue plaque commemorating Cogan was installed by the entrance of her longtime residence, 44 Stafford Court, on 4 November 2001.

In the summer of 2002, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a series based on Cogan's life entitled Stage Mother, Sequinned Daughter; written by Annie Caulfield, the series featured Jessica Martin as Cogan and Alison Steadman as her mother Fay Cohen. Cogan's sister Sandra Caron unsuccessfully petitioned the High Court to block the airing of the series which she claimed misrepresented Cogan as a heavy drinker and Fay Cohen as a domineering stage mother. In December 2003, the Broadcasting Standards Commission ruled that the BBC apologize to Caron for failing to respect the feelings of Cogan's surviving family members in broadcasting Stage Mother, Sequinned Daughter.

Recordings

Singles

• 1952 – "To Be Worthy Of You" / "Would You"
• 1952 – "To Be Loved By You" / "The Homing Waltz" (duet with Les Howard)
• 1952 – "Meet Me on the Corner"
• 1952 – "Waltz of Paree" / "Pretty Bride"
• 1952 – "Half as Much" (cover of Rosemary Clooney) / "Blue Tango"
• 1952 – "I Went to Your Wedding" (cover of Patti Page) / "You Belong to Me" (cover of Jo Stafford)
• 1952 – "If'n" (duet with Denny Dennis)
• 1952 – "Take Me In Your Arms and Hold Me" / "Wyoming Lullaby"
• 1953 – "Till I Waltz Again with You" (cover of Teresa Brewer) / "Happy Valley Sweetheart"
• 1953 – "If I Had a Penny" / "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me" (cover of Karen Chandler)
• 1953 – "On The First Warm Day" / (Les Howard solo)
• 1953 – "Till They've All Gone Home" / "Hug Me A Hug"
• 1953 – "If I Had a Golden Umbrella" / "Mystery Street"
• 1953 – "My Love, My Love" (cover of Joni James) / "Wasted Tears"
• 1953 – "Over and Over Again" / "Isn't Life Wonderful" (duets with Les Howard)
• 1954 – "Ricochet (Rick-O-Shay)" (cover of Teresa Brewer) / "The Moon Is Blue"
• 1954 – "Bell Bottom Blues" (cover of Teresa Brewer) / "Love Me Again" – UK #4
• 1954 – "Make Love to Me" (cover of Jo Stafford) / "Said the Little Moment"
• 1954 – "Little Shoemaker" (cover of The Gaylords) / "Chiqui-Chaqui (Chick-ee Chock-ee)"
• 1954 – "Jilted" (cover of Teresa Brewer) / "Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do It Again" (duets with Frankie Vaughan)
• 1954 – "Little Things Mean a Lot" (cover of Kitty Kallen) / "Canoodlin' Rag" – UK #11
• 1954 – "Skinnie Minnie" (cover of Teresa Brewer) / "What Am I Going To Do, Ma"
• 1954 – "This Ole House" (cover of Rosemary Clooney) / "Skokiaan" (one of many versions of the song)
• 1954 – "I Can't Tell a Waltz from a Tango" (cover of Patti Page) / "Christmas Cards" – UK #6
• 1954 – "(Don't Let The) Kiddygeddin'" / "Mrs Santa Claus"
• 1955 – "Paper Kisses" / "Softly Softly"
• 1955 – "Mambo Italiano" (cover of Rosemary Clooney) / "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane" (cover of the Ames Brothers)
• 1955 – "Tweedle Dee" (cover of Lavern Baker) / "More Than Ever Now"
• 1955 – "Tika Tika Tok" / "Chee Chee Oo Chee"
• 1955 – "Dreamboat" / "Irish Mambo" – UK #1
• 1955 – "Where Will The Dimple Be?" (cover of Rosemary Clooney) / "Keep Me in Mind"
• 1955 – "Got'n Idea" / "Give A Fool A Chance"
• 1955 – "The Banjo's Back in Town" / "Go On By" – UK #17 / UK #16
• 1955 – "Hernando's Hideaway" (one of many covers) / "Blue Again"
• 1955 – "Never Do a Tango with an Eskimo" / "Twenty Tiny Fingers" – UK #6 / UK #17
• 1956 – "Love and Marriage" (cover of Frank Sinatra) / "Sycamore Tree"
• 1956 – "Willie Can" / "Lizzie Borden" – UK 13
• 1956 – "Don't Ring-A Da Bell" / "Bluebell"
• 1956 – "It's All Been Done Before" (duet with Ronnie Hilton) / "No Other Love" (Ronnie Hilton solo)
• 1956 – "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (cover of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers) / "The Birds and the Bees" – UK #22 / UK #25
• 1956 – "Mama, Teach Me to Dance" / "I'm in Love Again"
• 1956 – "In the Middle of the House" (cover of Rusty Draper) / "Two Innocent Hearts" – UK #20
• 1957 – "You, Me, and Us" / "Three Brothers" – UK #18
• 1957 – "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)" / "Lucky Lips" – UK #26
• 1957 – "Chantez, Chantez" (cover of Dinah Shore) / "Funny Funny Funny"
• 1957 – "Fabulous" / "Summer Love" (cover of Joni James)
• 1957 – "That's Happiness" / "What You've Done To Me"
• 1957 – "Party Time" / "Please Mister Brown"
• 1958 – "The Story of My Life" (cover of Marty Robbins / Michael Holliday) / "Love Is" – UK #25
• 1958 – "Sugartime" (cover of The McGuire Sisters) / "Gettin' Ready for Freddy" – UK #16
• 1958 – "Stairway of Love" (cover of Michael Holliday) / "Comes Love"
• 1958 – "Sorry Sorry Sorry" / "Fly Away Lovers"
• 1958 – "There's Never Been a Night" / "If This Isn't Love"
• 1959 – "Last Night on the Back Porch" / "Mama Says" – UK #27
• 1959 – "Pink Shoelaces" (cover of Dodie Stevens) / "The Universe"
• 1959 – "We Got Love" / "I Don't Mind Being All Alone" – UK #26
• 1960 – "Dream Talk" / "O Dio Mio" – UK #48
• 1960 – "The Train of Love" / "The 'I Love You' Bit" (duet with Oscar Nebish, aka Lionel Bart) – UK #27
• 1960 – "Just Couldn't Resist Her With Her Pocket Transistor" / "Must Be Santa"
• 1961 – "Cowboy Jimmy Joe" / "Don't Read The Letter" – UK #37
• 1961 – "With You In Mind" / "Ja-Da"
• 1961 – "All Alone" / "Keep Me in Your Heart"
• 1961 – "She's Got You" (cover of Patsy Cline) / "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree"
• 1962 – "Goodbye Joe" / "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby"
• 1963 – "Tell Him" (cover of The Exciters) / "Fly Me to the Moon"
• 1963 – "Hold Out Your Hand You Naughty Boy" / "Just Once More"
• 1964 – "The Tennessee Waltz" (cover of Patti Page) / "I Love You Too Much"
• 1964 – "It's You" / "I Knew Right Away"
• 1964 – "Snakes And Snails" / "How Many Nights, How Many Days"
• 1965 – "Eight Days a Week" / "Help!" (each a cover of a Beatles song)
• 1965 – "Love Is A Word" / "Now That I've Found You"
• 1966 – "Now That I've Found You" / "More"
• 1966 – "Love Ya Illya" / "I Know You" (under the name Angela and the Fans)

Albums

• 1958 – I Love to Sing
• 1961 – With You In Mind
• 1962 – How About Love?
• 1965 – Oliver! with Stanley Holloway and Violet Carson
• 1967 – Alma

In popular culture

• In Why Bother?, Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling described his lost love Lita Rosa as "like Alma Cogan but without the bounce".
• In a Monty Python audio sketch, from The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, John Cleese as a professor of logic in track 8 "A Lesson in Logic" states that "all of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan".

See also

• List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
• List of British Jewish entertainers
• Alma Cogan article in The Jewish Chronicle about a BBC Radio 4 drama based on her life but containing some inaccuracies according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - see Legacy section data for additional

Biography

• Alma Cogan: The Girl With The Laugh In Her Voice by Sandra Caron (Alma's sister) – ISBN 0-7475-0984-0

External links

• Alma Cogan International Fan Club
• UK Artists Biography page on Alma Cogan
• Alma Cogan page
• Bio of Alma Cogan with reference to her contacts with the Beatles
• Find-A-Grave profile for Alma Cogan