Legendary British artists Lulu and Peter Noone will work with the Top 11 finalists next week on “American Idol” Tuesday, March 20 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), and both will perform on the “American Idol” results show Wednesday, March 21 (9:00-9:30 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on Fox. On Tuesday night, the contestants will sing hit songs from the 1960s British pop invasion.
Lulu will perform her hit song “To Sir, with Love” on Wednesday’s results show. She is a songwriter, actor and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business since the 1960s. In 1981, Lulu returned to the U.S. charts with “I Could Never Miss You (More Than I Do),” a Top-20 hit that also reached No. 2 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Lulu re-recorded a number of her songs, including “Shout,” which reached the Top 10 in 1986 in the UK, securing her a performance spot on the popular BBC music program “Top of the Pops.” Lulu made her debut as a film actress in “To Sir, with Love,” a film with Sidney Poitier. She also had a major hit with the title song “To Sir, with Love,” which shot to No. 1 in the United States. Her 2003 autobiography is called “Don’t Wanna Fight No More” after a hit song she and her brother wrote for Tina Turner. Lulu herself released the song in 2003, along with her “Greatest Hits” album. Lulu is in her fourth decade as an international star and recently released an album of duets with artists such as Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, Sir Elton John and Bobby Womack.
Noone will perform his hit “There’s a Kind of Hush” on the results show. Noone is a songwriter, guitarist, pianist and actor who became a pop music star in the 1960s, at the height of the British Invasion spearheaded by the phenomenal success of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Herman’s Hermits. Noone was lead singer, spokesperson and front man of the now-legendary 1960s rock group Herman’s Hermits, which sold over 65 million records and had 11 Top-10 hits. As “Herman,” the photogenic Noone graced the cover of nearly every international publication, including TIME magazine. More recently, he was the host of VH1’s “My Generation” from 1989 to 1993, and in 2001 he was voted VH1’s Sexiest Artist. Noone has appeared in two Broadway hits, including “The Pirates of Penzance,” and still does approximately 150 live concerts a year.
