Her father, a dancehall tour promoter, helped her sign with
Decca in 1962, where her earliest singles were produced by
Shel Talmy. Although none of her Decca or Columbia singles made the
UK Singles Chart, Rodgers became a regular face on British television and appeared in the musical films
Just for Fun (1963) and ''
It's All Over Town'' (1964). – "Come Back and Shake Me" was the first hit, reaching #3 (the song reached #2 in Ireland) and "Goodnight Midnight" followed later in the year reaching #4 – the two songs made her the best-selling female singles artist of 1969. The same year, she won 'The Best Legs' in British showbusiness and
insured her voice for one million
pounds. Her next two single releases "Biljo" and "Everybody Go Home, The Party's Over" were both hits, "Biljo" being Rodgers third Top 20 hit. She also recorded "Scrapbook", penned by
Billy Ritchie, which appeared on her 1969 album
Midnight Clodagh. In 1970, she
recorded the Labi Siffre song "Give Me Just a Little More Line" with Young under the name Moonshine; though it achieved airplay and critical notice, it failed to chart. Rodgers picked this track as one of her eight favourite discs when she appeared as the featured castaway on the BBC's
Desert Island Discs in March 1971. In May 1970, Rodgers appeared on the bill at the
NME poll-winner's concert, hosted by presenters,
Tony Blackburn and
Jimmy Savile. She was voted favourite female singer for 1969.
Eurovision Rodgers became a television
star and a household name and in 1970, she was asked to represent the
UK in the 1971
Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. The
BBC were concerned over the reaction the UK entrant would get on the stage from the Irish public. As a
Roman Catholic female from Northern Ireland, she received death threats from the
IRA who regarded her as a traitor, as a result of her appearing for the UK. Heralded by two separate front-cover features on the BBC listing's magazine, the
Radio Times, Rodgers appeared as the resident guest on ''
It's Cliff Richard'', a prime-time variety show hosted by
Cliff Richard on
BBC1 from January 1971, performing one shortlisted song a week for six weeks, followed by a performance of all six on week seven and with a repeat of the six songs immediately after. Viewers would normally have been asked to send in postcard votes for their favourites, but because of a postal strike, regional juries decided the winner, with "
Jack in the Box", written by
John Worsley and David Myers, being named the winner the following week. For the first time in the Eurovision Song Contest, broadcasters were required to prepare a 'preview'
video of the song for broadcast in all the participating Eurovision countries to help promote the songs before the contest. For the performance in Dublin, Rodgers wore a pink frilly top and spangled
hot pants. She finished in fourth place, behind
Monaco, Spain and Germany. After Eurovision, the single reached #4 on the
UK Singles Chart, her third UK Top 10 success. It remains her most famous hit. The record was also successful all over Europe. At Eurovision, Rodgers' sister Lavinia joined
The Breakaways as her four backing vocalists. Lavinia was almost part of a backing group called Three’s a Crowd. In
1982, Lavinia and brother Louis attempted to represent the UK in the contest with "Every Day of My Life" as part of the group Good Looks, but finished second to
Bardo in the
A Song For Europe contest.
Post-Eurovision career Rodgers admitted to
Ken Bruce during his eponymous
BBC Radio 2 show in an interview broadcast on Friday, 25 May 2012, that the intention had been to release "Another Time, Another Place", which had placed fourth of the six entries in the
Song for Europe contest as the follow-up single to "Jack in the Box" and she began promoting it whilst in Dublin for the Eurovision final. However,
Engelbert Humperdinck released a cover version before her track was available, denying her the opportunity to release it, but gaining himself a #13 hit single. Despite only one more Top 30 chart single, "Lady Love Bug" in autumn 1971, Rodgers continued to be a major TV star in the UK, guesting on many shows (including playing herself in the BBC sitcom
Whack-O!), and appearing successfully in the biggest cabaret clubs throughout the country. Rodgers also became the face of
Bisto gravy, in a series of television advertisements. On Irish television,
The Clodagh Rodgers Show won an award at the
Golden Rose TV festival in
Montreux. She starred in many other shows, including
Sunday Night at the London Palladium in 1974, singing three songs, including her latest single "Get It Together". Rodgers also appeared in
Seaside Special for
BBC Television in 1975 and
The Morecambe and Wise Show in 1970. She was a regular guest of
The Two Ronnies. In August 1973, Rodgers hosted the first edition of BBC2's
Show Of The Week: The Young Generation Big Top, the forerunner of the later BBC1 series
Seaside Special. Rodgers also made a mark with her
impressions of fellow artists such as
Cilla Black, often working with
Mike Yarwood,
Des O'Connor,
Tommy Cooper,
Bob Monkhouse, and
Dickie Henderson in variety. She was a regular performer in UK
resorts'
summer seasons, sharing the bill with
Mike and Bernie Winters in Blackpool and
Matt Monro in Great Yarmouth among others. This success was mirrored on stage, where she starred in London's
West End in her own show at the
Talk of the Town (breaking
Sammy Davis Jr.'s box office record), and in
Cinderella at the
London Palladium in 1971, which was also a success and ran for months. The Cinderella show (co starring Ronnie Corbett) then ran at the Manchester Palace in 1972 and at the Bristol Hippodrome in 1973. As part of BBC1's celebration of the UK and Republic of Ireland both joining the European Economic Community on 1 January 1973, Rodgers appeared on
Top Of The Year on 31 December 1972, alongside
Bruce Forsyth and with
Jimmy Tarbuck in
The Tarbuck Follies on 1 January 1973 to see in the new year. Having left RCA in early 1974 (after two well received albums ''It's Different Now
and You are my Music
, Rodgers then released a single for the Pye label, "Saturday Sunday" later that year. Numerous TV work supported all these three releases, including Top of the Pops
and Pebble Mill At One''. She signed to
Polydor Records in 1976. Her 1977 single "
Save Me" was in Capital Radio's Top 30, reaching #21. The track was
covered in the U.S. by
Louise Mandrell, who took it to #6 on the U.S.
country chart in 1983. "Save Me" was also covered by the South African
all-female band Clout (an SA no. 7 hit in 1979). Other artists who recorded this song included
Merrilee Rush and
Helen Reddy. In 1978, Rodgers hosted UK
ITV's
St. Patrick's Day variety show for the first time, appearing on the cover of the
TVTimes to promote the show and at the same time was confirmed as the host for the 1979 show. Later in 1978, Rodgers teamed with
Terry Wogan on the ITV game show
3-2-1 in the programme's first Christmas Special Celebrity edition. She split from her manager/husband not long after their son's birth and opted for motherhood over a musical career; although she released two singles on the Precision label in 1980. One of these tracks was "My Simple Heart", which was placed on a
B-side. Shortly after its release,
The Three Degrees released their version of it, which reached the UK Top 10. Similarly, Rodgers had released "
Stand by Your Man" as the B-side of her 1971 single "Lady Love Bug." "
Stand by Your Man" (co-written by Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill) had previously been a hit for Tammy Wynette in the United States.
Later years Rodgers appeared in two hit musicals in the West End,
Pump Boys and Dinettes at the
Piccadilly and
Albery Theatres (co starring with Joe Brown) and in the lead role of Mrs Johnstone in the long-running hit
Blood Brothers at the
Phoenix Theatre. She appeared in the UK tour of
Blood Brothers between 1995 and 1998. This included shows in York, Liverpool, Bromley and Bristol. Rodgers co-starred with
David Cassidy in the Bristol production. In 1996, the first of two CD retrospectives was issued, bringing Rodgers back into the limelight. In 1998, she made a TV appearance with other former Eurovision artists such as
Johnny Logan and
Lynsey de Paul, (one of her co stars in
Pump Boys and Dinettes) performing on comedian
John Shuttleworth's Eurovision
parody Europigeon on BBC Two, just before the 1998 contest in
Birmingham. In 1999,
Mint Royale issued the track "Shake Me," which
sampled Rodgers' original recording of "Come Back And Shake Me"; it was featured on the British television programme
Queer As Folk. In 2001, Rodgers played a recurring character in the ITV police drama series
The Bill. In 2012, Rodgers released a CD
The Kenny Young Years. It features all Rodgers' recorded highs with Young. == Personal life, illness and death ==