LITA ROZALita Roza, who died on 14 August, 2008, aged 82, was a singer of romantic ballads with Latin passion, but she was best known for the novelty hit How Much is That Doggie in the Window?She was coerced into performing the vaudeville-style record after it was a hit in America for Patti Page. Though she loathed the song and never performed it live, it was the biggest success of her career and put her into the records books as the first female number one.Nevertheless, mournful ballads - sang with Ted Heath's jazz band and as a solo performer - were her forte and she had a few hits that were more to her liking. She was consistently named by contemporary magazines like New Musical Express and Melody Maker as the leading British female artist of her era.She also had another distinction - that of being of the first artist from Liverpool to top the charts, a decade before the city became the centre of the musical universe. She was born Lilian Patricia Lita Roza, the eldest of seven children to a Spanish musician who entertained in the city's nightclubs and from whom she no doubt inherited her talents as well as her striking good looks.From an early age she was put to work in factories and shops to help support the family, but during her teens she showed talent as a dancer and by 15 was working in successful comedy shows.When she was old enough she went south and sang with various show bands, but after marrying a Canadian airman at 18, she decided to retire from the entertainment business and move to Miami.However, the marriage eventually collapsed and in 1950 she returned to England where she joined Ted Heath's outfit, one of the most prominent swing and jazz bands of the era. She distinguished herself as a singer of heart and bombast on up-tempo numbers like Oakie Boogie (1952) and Crazy Man, Crazy (1953) but it was on the ballads that she shone - her version of Allentown Jail (1951) with the band is arguably the finest recording of the sorrowful classic.After going solo in 1954 she largely performed other people's songs, but was successful in reinterpreting them in her own style, full of passion and zeal, but also melancholy. Like Shirley Bassey - a younger rival who also rose to fame with a novelty number, The Banana Boat Song - she owed the spark in her voice to foreign blood, but there was also something homely and British about her rendering of songs like This Is My Town and Let It Rain Let It Rain (both 1959).She had two UK top 20 hits during her solo years, 1955's Hey There and 1956's Jimmy Unknown. She became despondent with current trends music and, believing that no one would listen to her unless she sang rock 'n' roll, released her last record in 1965.She spent a decade in South Africa where she continued to perform, before returning to the UK in the '80s to occasionally perform with a reformed Ted Heath Band. She last performed at the Liverpool Empire Theatre in 2002 with the concert being broadcast by Radio Merseyside.
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