TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Recognising that the modelling work that made her an international star would only appeal to so many people Lesley Hornby aka Twiggy made sure that she would broaden her appeal and be seen and heard elsewhere. Signing to UK indie label Ember Records in 1966 her singles were also released worldwide, including the much larger Capitol Records in the USA. It seemed that singing would bring her another audience, and maybe one that would be more inclined to stick around if the modelling work ever dried up.

After taking a singing role in Ken Russell's musical movie of The Boyfriend in 1971 she made a one-off 45 with Cook and Greenaway for Bell. She also appeared as a singer on Cilla Black's BBC1 show in January 1974, despite having no record deal at the time. A couple of years later she signed to Mercury Records, scoring a couple of UK hits with Country Joe McDonald's Here I Go Again and Jackie De Shannon's Vanilla Olay.

Her Mercury deal was probably signed as the result of her BBC2 show, Twiggs. Being shown by BBC2 rather than the more Lulu and Cilla friendly BBC1 suggested that this would be a slightly different take on the Light Entertainment format, with singers, dancers and comedy sketches, but it wasn't, it just meant a smaller budget. However, her guests were more note-worthy. Tim Hardin, David Essex, Jimmy Ruffin and a slightly bizarre encounter with Bryan Ferry duetting on Sam Cooke's What A Wonderful World as lovelorn school-kids in a classroom. She was back the following year for the second series, now re-named Twiggy, this time with Linda Lewis, Demis Roussos, Gary Benson, The Doctors of Madness, Albert Hammond and Roger Cook who sang the title song to Twiggy's album Please Get My Name Right, released two years' later. This would be her final series. She would spend 1976 and 1977 playing TV shows around the world promoting her two albums which sold respectfully and both reached the UK chart, but despite their success neither are available on CD at time of writing.

Twiggy continued her successful career as an actress and occasional singer, releasing two further albums for EMI in 2009 and 2011.

By the way, she shouldn't have worried about the modelling work. By the early 2020's she was still working.

TWIGGS / TWIGGY

BBC2

19th September 1974 - 17th December 1975