Product Description

The memoir of the small girl (5 foot 1 inch tall) with the huge voice. At the age of 15, in 1964, Lulu - born Marie Lawrie in Glasgow - was already a star with her international hit song "Shout". At 18 she stole hearts as an English schoolgirl to Sidney Poitier's teacher with the movie hit "To Sir With Love". At 21, she married a Bee Gee, Maurice Gibb, and tied as winner of the Eurovision Song Contest with "Boom-Bang-a-Bang". Yet in 1993 she reached No.1 with "Relight My Fire" (with Take That). Nearly 40 years at the top of the showbiz tree, Lulu has never been afraid to experiment with new trends, and her book reflects the daring that took a girl from a Glasgow tenement to international stardom - or as "To Sir With Love" says, "from crayons to perfume". "I Don't Want to Fight" (the title of a song Lulu wrote and Tina Turner recorded) is the candid autobiography of a singer who has never shirked from facing anything.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23617 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
I Don't Want to Fight is Scottish pop diva Lulu's candid autobiography. It's the familiar but no less heartening "rags to riches" story of how a wee girl from the Glasgow slums became one of the world's most popular (and enduring) singing sensations. (After more than 30 years in the music business her last album, Together, earned her a gold disc.)

Christened Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, Lulu's upbringing in post-war Glasgow was more Rab C Nesbitt than The Broons. Her father, an offal dresser, was a hard drinker and her parents regularly fought. By the age of 12, Lulu was already performing on stage. At 13 she happened to catch the legendary rocker Alex Harvey (later of Sensational Band fame) performing a stirring Isley Brothers number in Scotland's answer to the Cavern. The song was called Shout. Two years later Lulu was singing it on Ready Steady Go!. Her record company, Decca, actually had to wait until she turned 15 before they could legally release the single. This still didn't prevent a school's inspector calling on her parents' six months later and demanding to know why she hadn't been attending school. Her mother, Lulu maintains, retorted; "Do ye nae read the papers or watch TV? She's a pop star."

And indeed she was; and then a film star with a lead role in To Sir With Love and then a television personality with her own series Happening for Lulu and when, in 1969, Eurovision beckoned, Lulu did not shirk, notching up a rare, if tied, victory for Britain with the evergreen Boom Bang-a-Bang. In 1972, at the grand old age of 23, she was honoured by Eamonn Andrews who presented her with a big red book and boldly claimed: "This is Your Life". As this autobiography shows, he proved to be somewhat premature. The break-up of her marriage to Maurice Gibb, motherhood and collaborations with David Bowie, Elton John and Take That were all yet to come. --Travis Elborough

Review
'Her life story reads like a Catherine Cookson novel' MICHAEL PARKINSON

About the Author
Born in 1948, Lulu is one of the most recognisable popular singers in the world, in a career stretching from 'Shout' in 1962 to 'Together' in 2002.

Customer Reviews

The ups and downs of Lulu's life
Lulu's career in music has had its ups and downs, just like her life. The sixties were famous for love, drugs and rock'n'roll, but although Lulu enjoyed life back then, she was a late starter on the first, only sampled the second a couple of times, and her music deviated from the third fairly quickly. Nevertheless, Lulu's story is interesting in its own way. I read the whole book in one day and I never got bored. Each aspect of her life is covered in just enough detail so that I wasn't left thinking that I needed to know more.

The book begins telling us about her parents and her childhood, explaining that they had more money than most of the families around them and why. Throughout the book, it is obvious that her parents, her sister and her two brothers are all very important to her.

Lulu traces her career in music, television and on stage and screen, explaining how she was sometimes persuaded to do things against her better judgement. As I always suspected, she is much more interested in R+B than some of the fluffy pop music she was sometimes expected to record. Lulu describes some of the different records she made and the different people she worked with.

Fans will be particularly interested to know about some of the music that is sitting in record company vaults, as yet unreleased. No specifics are given, but it's clear that there is some more music (apart from the tracks that were released) that Lulu did with David Bowie in the seventies, plus an album of new recordings that would have been released in 1997 but for record company personnel changes.

Lulu also talks about her two failed marriages - the first to Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees and the second to a leading London hairdresser. It was this second marriage that yielded her only child, her son Jordan. It appears that Lulu still gets on well with both men despite their past problems.

Apparently, Lulu nearly lost her life twice, once as a child when the rowing boat she was in drifted out to sea, and once in the eighties when she was in a head-on collision driving in thick fog. Later, she had a problem with her voice and at one time it seemed that she would never sing again. Fortunately, she made a full recovery.

Lulu deliberately did not write her autobiography until both her parents had died, and it becomes clear early on why. If you have any interest in Lulu's music, there is enough packed into her life to make the book worth reading.

A great book from an icon of pop!!
Lulu is a legend, a hell of great singer who has been hitting the charts and the headlines since 1964.
In her best selling autobiography the diva finally puts the record straight in this hugely entertaining book.
If you are a Lulu fan then i recommened you pick up a copy of "I Don't Wanna Fight" as well as her "The Best Of Lulu" Crimson lable CD as it's the perfect soundtrack.

a good read
i must admit that i found this book a good read. lulu comes across as a warm frendly lady with no large ego, she has kept her feet well on the ground and never let her fame go to her head ( unlike cilla black i might add, please read her life story to know what i am talking about) lulu tells her story of her life , the highs and the lows clearly and down to earth.....well wrote lulu !!