What is "petula"

Petula is a female given name of only occasional usage but well-known on account of British entertainer Petula Clark.

Petula may also refer to:
Namesakes

• Petula Louise "Patty" Brard, Dutch-Indonesian entertainer
• Dawn Petula Butler, British Labour Party politician
• Petula Dvorak, columnist for The Washington Post

Fictional characters

• Petula, lead character played by Rachel Weisz in the 2000 film Beautiful Creatures
• Petula, character played by Hayley McFarland in three episodes of the Showtime dramedy United States of Tara
• Petula, Disney comic character being the sister of Pete and hostess of the cooking show Petula's Pantry
• Petula, lead character and iconic image for the Molly Moon series of children's novels by Georgia Byng, being the title character's pet pug
• Petula Giordino, character played by Julie Walters in the BBC One sitcom dinnerladies
• Petula Lorry, one-shot character in the DC comic series Batman, being featured in Issue 287 (May 1977)
• Petula the Parrot, African parrot in the Belgian cartoon series 64 Zoo Lane

In music

• Petula, 1968 album release by Petula Clark
• "It's Up to You, Petula", 1971 single by Edison Lighthouse

Petula is a 1968 Pye Records album release by Petula Clark leased to Warner Bros. in the USA.

The two albums precedent to Petula: These Are My Songs and The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener had been primarily produced by Sonny Burke with Tony Hatch, the producer/songwriter who'd established Clark as a top recording star in 1964, contributing only one track to each album. With Petula Hatch again became Clark's exclusive producer overseeing all the album's tracks. Petula would prove to be the last Petula Clark album of original material produced by Hatch.

The first advance single from Petula: the Les Reed/ Barry Mason composition " Kiss Me Goodbye" had reached #15 US in April 1968, becoming the first hit single for Clark produced but not written by Hatch. Of the eleven additional tracks which would comprise Petula, seven were written by Hatch and Jackie Trent. Hatch also had Clark cover " Days", " The Good Life" and " This Girl's in Love with You" and recorded Clark singing "Why Can't I Cry" which had been written by arranger Johnny Harris and wife Kim Clark. The song was also recorded by Tom Jones.

The Hatch/Trent composition "Don't Give Up" - described by Hatch as a homage to " Can't Take My Eyes off You" - was released as the album's second advance single in July 1968 and failed to sustain Clark's Top 20 comeback peaking at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100 becoming Clark's final US Top 40 hit.

The track "Have Another Dream On Me" was referred to as "my latest" by Clark on her April 1968 NBC TV special. For reasons unclear, the song never came out on single, but "Don't Give Up" did.

Petula rose significantly higher on the US album charts than the preceding The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener reaching #51 as opposed to #93.

Clark's UK label Pye Records released the album in the UK and Ireland (cat# NPL 18235) and also in New Zealand (cat# NSPL 18235). In France the Petula album was issued by Vogue Records with cat# CLD 723.

• The titles of the singles "Kiss Me Goodbye" and "Don't Give Up" were displayed with the name "Petula" on the album's cover but the official title of the album is simply Petula.
• "Don't Give Up" ranked in the Top 30 in both Cash Box and Record World with respective peaks of #27 and #23. The track reached #5 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart.