ON HER 97TH BIRTHDAY, DAME VERA LYNN ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM
For immediate release
ON HER 97TH BIRTHDAY, DAME VERA LYNN ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM
· FIRST UK NO.1 SINGLE EVER – 1940
· FIRST BRITISH ARTIST TO TOP US CHARTS – 1952
· FIRST (AND ONLY) ARTIST OVER 90 TO TOP ALBUM CHARTS – 2009
20 March 2014 (Toronto, ON) - On 20March 2014, the original “Forces' Sweetheart”, Dame Vera Lynn, celebrates her 97th birthday by announcing the forthcoming release of a new album, 'Vera Lynn: National Treasure – The Ultimate Collection'. The new album will be released on June 03 by Universal Music Canada, the country’s leading music company to mark the 70th anniversary of the World War II D-Day Landings (6th June) and will feature not only her most memorable and morale-boosting hits that sustained Britons through the wartime years, but some previously unreleased tracks, recently discovered by her daughter Virginia. Dame Vera commented “I think it’s wonderful that my songs are still enjoyed, especially if it encourages people to commemorate what happened seventy years ago. It’s moving for me to relive those days, and humbling to know that people still think of me – after all, it was simply my duty to keep singing.” The inspiration behind this collection is the recently published 'British Hit Singles – The Missing Charts' from 1940 to 1952, which reveals that Vera Lynn had the first UK No.1 record, in 1940 with 'We'll Meet Again' on Decca Records. The official UK record charts have only been printed from 1952. Before this, there had been American charts, but none covering the British scene. Sales figures have since been obtained from all the major wholesalers, backtracking to 1940. It has taken years to analyse and only now this information is available giving, for the first time, an accurate picture of what the British public was buying during those years. This year, Dame Vera also becomes the first person in music history to celebrate 90 years of show business, her stage debut being at the age of seven. She was the first British performer to top the US official charts with 'Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart' in 1952 (included here as a bonus track). She then became the oldest living artist to have an official UK No.1 album, in 2009, making Dame Vera Lynn the only recording artist in the world to have spanned the pop charts from 1940s to the 21st century; an unprecedented achievement, breaking all records in the history of music. On ‘Vera Lynn: National Treasure’ over 40 top 25 chart hits from 1940 to 1945 are brought together for the first time, including five No.1 hits, two of which went on to become alternative national anthems: ‘We'll Meet Again’ (No.1 in 1940), ‘Yours’ (No.1 in 1941), ‘The White Cliffs Of Dover’ (No.1 in 1942), ‘You'll Never Know’ (No.1 in 1943) and ‘It Can't Be Wrong’ (No.1 in 1944). All of the recordings have been completely re-mastered for this release, using special state of the art audio transfer techniques, many of which being taken from the original un-played source, and several tracks have only ever been available on the original 78rpm.-30-