Alma Cogan was one of the most successful and tragic figures in English pop music of the '50s and early '60s. Her 18 chart hits were a record for a female singer at the end of the '50s in England, and despite being part of the prerock roll era, Cogan seemed capable of working with the new music when her life was cut short. \r \r The daughter of a haberdasher, Alma Cogan was born in St. John's Wood and educated at St. Joseph' Convent School. It was Cogan's mother who pushed her toward a career as a singer and onto the stage. In 1948, at age 16, she was spotted in the chorus of High Button Shoes by EMI staff producer Walter J. Ridley (also responsible, a decade later, for signing Johnny Kidd & the Pirates), who subsequently signed her to the HMV label. Around this same time, she began appearing with cabaret at the Cumberland Hotel. Cogan began her career doing ballads, but her first hit was a novelty tune called "Bell Bottom Blues" (not the Dere...