It
was the British supermodel Twiggy who alerted Paul McCartney
to the Welsh singer Mary Hopkin when Apple Records was looking
for talent in 1968. The waifish soprano scored a huge, worldwide
smash with her first Apple single, the melancholy but rabble-rousing
ballad Those Were the Days, in late 1968; it actually
knocked the Beatles' own Hey Jude out of the number
one position in the U.K. Paul McCartney lent Hopkin a further
hand by producing her first album and writing her second
single, Goodbye, which was also a hit. More comfortable
with refined, precious ballads and folky pop than rock,
Hopkin scored several more hit singles in the U.K., although
she never entered the American Top 40 again. Her commercial
success diminished as Apple's fortunes dwindled in the early
'70s.
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