I’ve wondered if one could consider Lulu as part of the British Invasion. For one thing, she’s Scottish and by 1967, the British Invasion had slowed down quite a bit. But, there’s no denying that Lulu made a splash when she did record.

Lulu was born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie in 1948 in Stirlingshire, Scotland and grew up in Dennistoun, Glasgow, Scotland. She was singing by the time she was fourteen. Discovered in a Glasgow nightclub, she came under the tutelage of Marian Massey, a manager who took her on as a client. The first thing Marian did was change Marie’s name. They tried several different names but nothing seemed to fit. When Marian was just about to give up, she muttered, almost under her breath, “She’s a real lulu of a girl.” and everybody sat up and said, “That’s it, we’ll call her Lulu. And so, the name was born. Like Cher and Madonna, Lulu has since then been known by just the one name.

She had actually made the British Top 10 a couple times before the song “To Sir With Love” came along. They knew Lulu could act and when the script came along for the movie “To Sir With Love,” they thought Lulu could get a part in the movie. It was a small part, but it was a break though and Lulu actually spent more of her life in theater and movies than she did singing.

She remembers being intimidated by Sidney Poitier who was six foot four, while Lulu was five foot two. But, not only did she get the part in the movie, they asked her sing the title song. The song was written by Don Black and Mark London and the rumor is, that the song was written in five minutes. To Lulu’s dismay, the single “To Sir With Love” was released as the B-side of the record but when the record got to America, the disk jockeys turned it over and played the B-side, quickly causing the single to go to the number one. The song never did chart in Britain.

Lulu didn’t do much recording after this. She only put three hits into the Top 40 over the next few years, the last time being in 1981. That was it. She did much better as the host of her own television show and appearing on stage. She was married to Bee Gee Maurice Gibbs from 1969 until 1973.

“To Sir With Love” debuted in the United States on September 23, 1967 and spent an amazing five weeks at the top of the chart. When the end of the year came, Billboard announced that the song was the top selling record of the entire year, narrowly beating out the Monkees, “I’m a Believer” which spent seven weeks at number one, but some of them were in 1966, so it only got second place for 1967.