When Cilla sung softly she had a sweet voice but when she started building a ballard up that awful nasally tone always kicked in. The worse part of her voice was when she reached the finale of a song and had to 'belt it out', then there was a horrible roughness that went right through you.

Singer V Entertainer? Singer for me.

Certainly not the best, but I don't really get the negative comments on her vocal talent, usually I'd be the first to point this out to people being a cynical so-and-so. She, or her advisors her at the time, did have a knack of picking the right songs in my opinion.

However if anyone is still in doubt I urge you to look up a You Tube upload

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KyvGnJn5Ms

it's a fantastic rare peice of recording which has Paul McCartney and Cilla, in the studio sessions either demo-ing or actaully recording Step Inside Love. There's some great interaction between the two of them, but more importantly shows what a good voice she did actaully have.

Anway, give me Cilla over the likes Cheryl Cole etc any day of the week!

I agree, I prefer Alfie to anything else Cilla did.

And I disagree with those who say Cilla didn't have a great voice. While she may not have been the most technically competent of singers compared to the Arethas et al, what she did have was the ability to convey emotion in a song, which is clearly evident on Alfie as well as Anyone Who Had A Heart. For me, this quality is far more important than the ability to hit every note bang on and have a massive vocal range, and I much prefer the purity of how Cilla sang to the annoying riffing around notes, or warbling, that the likes of Whitney got up to.

well Anyone Who Had A Heart is currently at number 25 in the iTunes chart, not sure if it is still going up as I haven't checked for a couple of days. Doubt it will be number one, but who knows ??

I have never really checked out her music and I am ashamed to say and I am doing something I never do but I have become one of those who is checking out an artists music just because they died. However I nearly did when the Cilla biopic was on but I never got around to it. But i already liked Anyone who had a heart, Alfie, and You're my world anyway.

depends on your age i would say. i only ever knew her for blind date and finding out she hada singong career was a revelation. Mind yiu the younger generation probably wont even know of her since her retiremnt.

Cilla was always a better entertainer than singer IMO.

Infact I think Sherridan was a far better singer than Cilla especially when singing anyone who had a heart.

Singer versus entertainer?

Has to be singer for me. I don't rate her too highly as a singer, there were several sixties female singers who were better (imo), but she did a decent enough job with the very good songs that were chosen for her, songs written by top notch songwriters like Lennon and McCartney, Burt Bacharach and Randy Newman.

As far as entertainer is concerned, she never entertained me. I hated her presenting style. "Surprise Surprise" and "Blind Date" are two of my least favourite TV programmes of all time, although to be fair to Cilla they would be whoever presented them.

Yes, I agree with this. I could never take to Cilla's voice.

That really is very nice. She had a beautiful tone when she sang softly.

My favourite re discovery of hers is It's For You which I'd long forgotten about until someone posted a link on another thread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqwUz4RQETg her voice is full of character - I know what people mean when they say her voice can be a bit harsh when it kicks in to the powerful stuff, but it really suits this song. Gotta love the Austin Powers dancers too

On TV she tried to be the common bird, but all I could pick up was champagne and Surrey

I think she combined both, certainly she lived a comfortable life but then she worked hard for it. She was an ordinary girl made good, some might say that she made a little go a long way.

She was in the right place, at the right time.

Er... Elkie Brooks?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkmje83iCA0

What a fantastic performance, it takes me back to the days of good music. I loved Dusty and Elkie, both wonderful singers.