Shapiro’s parents supported music in their home even though they were too impoverished to purchase a record player (she had…
In the East End neighborhood of Bethnal Green, London, Shapiro was born in Bethnal Green Hospital. Up until Christmas 1961, she attended Northwold Primary School and Clapton Park Comprehensive School while growing up in a Clapton council home in the London borough of Hackney. She is the grandchild of Russian Jewish immigrants; her parents attended Lea Bridge Road Synagogue while working as piece laborers in the clothing business. When she was nine years old, the family relocated from Clapton to the Parkside Estate in Hackney’s Victoria Park neighborhood. “In a 2006 interview, she stated that it was and still is a beautiful spot.”
Shapiro’s parents supported music in their home even though they were too poor to purchase a record player (she had to borrow a neighbor’s player to hear her first single). When Shapiro was younger, she sang occasionally in her brother Ron’s youth club skiffle ensemble and played the banjolele. Her school friends called her “Foghorn” because of the deep tone of her voice, which was unusual for a girl who was not yet in her teens.
At the age of 10, Shapiro performed as a vocalist with “Susie and the Hula Hoops,” a school band that featured guitarist Marc Bolan (then going by his own name, Mark Feld) and her cousin, 60s singer Susan Singer. After the school produced singing star Alma Cogan, she enrolled at the age of 13 in vocal classes at The Maurice Burman School of Modern Pop Singing, located on Baker Street in London. “Singing has always been my dream job. In a 1962 interview, she stated, “I did not want to blindly adopt Alma’s approach; I just choose the school because of Alma’s accomplishment.” Through her connections, Burman finally met John Schroeder, a young A&R representative at Columbia Records, who recorded a sample of Shapiro singing “Birth of the Blues.”
