WINIFRED ATTWELL – "The Poor People Of Paris"

Right about the title – and the mistranslation. My book of French song lyrics confirms the story. The French version was sung by Edith Piaf and its full title was ‘La goualante du pauvre Jean’ (poor John’s song), ‘goualante’ being a not terribly widely used term meaning a popular song. The moral of the song was: without love, we are nothing whether rich or poor, so poor John, on leaving us, instructs us to love one another “…Aimez-vous!”

also a spelling pedant writes: it’s Winifred ATWELL with one T.

My entry point for the special sound of Winifred (and quite a few fifties pre-rock hits) was Instrumental Gold, a comp on Warwick in ’75 or ’76. It sold tons, always racked in every Woolies, and included Popcorn and Telstar as well as Poor People Of Paris, Blue Tango, Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White, Limelight, and others I can’t remember. A bit early for Autobahn, unfortunately.

The weird jumble of eras meant that Poor People Of Paris, taken out of austerity knees-up context, and with its evocative name, came across to me in the same cinematic and genuinely thrilling way that Les Baxter would when I discovered his music a good 15 years later.

The magic of the cheap 20 track comp for a kid – your preconceptions take longer to form. I blame K-Tel for my catholic taste.

The peculiar thing about Instrumental Gold’s huge success was that (I think) most versions weren’t even the originals.

Woolies’ record label was Embassy, of course, and it churned out cover versions for sale cheaply. One’s parents (well my thrifty ones anyway) would want you to buy the cheap Embassy version of your current favourite, or sometimes to your chagrin bought it for you. This was all right in the days when it was the song and not the singer that mattered – you can see this from the double hits where many people didn’t care whether it was Tommy Steele or Guy Mitchell they bought, or Eddie Calvert/Prez Prado. But times were changing, and perhaps the dawn of pop as we know it was when the performer became paramount.

Some of the Embassy recordings weren’t too bad, if you weren’t fussy. I believe one of their anonymous singers was a certain Mr Dwight.

Oh yes, Embassy, that was it.

I too have that Warwick One Hit Wonders compilation due to its handy inclusion of otherwise near-impossible-to-get-on-CD tracks (Sunny’s “Doctor’s Orders,” the Gun’s “Race With The Devil” etc. And, er, “Ballad Of The Green Berets” but never mind)…

Generally though I think Warwick specialised in nostalgic MoR – the Bachelors, Russ Conway, Vera Lynn, that sort of thing.

That whistling noise is just plain weird. Not surprised to hear Joe Meek had a hand in it. It makes it sound like she’s been caught warbling along with the microphone on (either that or there’s a ghost in the studio).

What a fun record! As Tom says, “it’s hard to be harsh on tireless jollity like this”. Although I think I enjoyed it a bit more than he did. So pleasing to think that a ‘traditional’ entertainer like Winnie could still have massive hits in the age of Bill Haley. Of course, Edith Piaf makes it sound highly dramatic, without a trace of Winnie’s light fluff. But hers has that whistling thing too…

Just curious, what’s the source for Joe Meek engineering this? I’d never heard it before going on this site. I’ve never seen it on any list, such as this one:
http://www.joemeekpage.info/55-59.htm
Although of course, Joe’s ‘engineering’ activities aren’t as well documented as his producing.

The strange warbling noise is someone playing a saw with a violin bow. A Joe Meek special!

Another enjoyable record from Winnie in my view. 7/10.