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“She was such a sweet person: very funny, great sense of humour. “It was just incredible how she handled it,” said Blackwell. In America Millie rode the slipstream of the British Invasion started by the Beatles six months earlier in New York she stepped off a plane – dubbed the Lollipop Special by a clever publicist – from the UK to a 30-strong police guard fans screamed as she was presented with what was said to be the world’s largest lollipop.īy then a four-year veteran of the Jamaican music business, and trained to be an utter professional, Millie rose to her sudden brief superstardom with graceful aplomb. In both the UK and the US, My Boy Lollipop was a No 2 hit, kept off the top slot respectively by the Searchers and the Beach Boys. In May 1964, two months after the release of My Boy Lollipop, Millie was given a guest appearance on the ITV special Around the Beatles. Millie’s shrill, joyful vocals, married to a galloping ska rhythm in Olympic Studios in London in an arrangement by the Jamaican master guitarist Ernest Ranglin, were beamed out all that summer from the new pirate radio stations, such as Caroline, that were instrumental in helping promote the record.
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He had flown the 16-year-old Millie Small from Kingston to London to manage her career. With international sales of 5m copies in 1964, the year of its release, the hit single My Boy Lollipop, sung by Millie, who has died aged 72, “opened the door for Jamaican music to the world,” said the producer Chris Blackwell.