In 1970 the Eurovision song contest was won by Ireland, and so the 1971 event was to be held in Dublin. There was controversy, as a Catholic from Northern Ireland, Clodagh Rodgers, was chosen to represent the UK. She went ahead with her performance despite death threats from the IRA.
There had been logistical problems, too, in the selection of her song, as viewers, who were supposed to choose the UK entry after she had performed the six possibilities on the It’s Cliff Richard television show, could not because of a postal strike, and a studio panel had to make the selection.
Rodgers, who has died aged 78, felt the panel had taken the easy option with Jack in the Box, a song in the boom-bang-a-bang Eurovision tradition. It echoed the theme of Sandie Shaw’s Puppet on a String, the UK winner from 1967, and, indeed, Rodgers’s first hit, Come Back and Shake Me (1969), where she describes herself as a plaything for her partner. She herself favoured Another Time, Another Place (later a hit for Engelbert Humperdinck).
At the Eurovision final, despite wearing sequined hotpants, possibly because she had been voted having the “best legs in show business”, Rodgers came fourth. The winner was Séverine for Monaco, with Un Banc, Un Arbre, Une Rue.
Born in Warrenpoint, County Down, Clodagh was the daughter of Gertrude and Louis Rodgers, a promoter who arranged bookings for stars such as Adam Faith and Michael Holliday. She went to a Catholic school run by nuns, but she wanted to be a singer and from the age of 13 began appearing as a support act on her father’s promotions.
A recording artist, Mike Preston, noticed her talent and recommended her to Decca. She started recording in 1962 and her first television appearance was on Adam Faith’s show, singing Brenda Lee’s Let Jump the Broomstick. She later said: “My voice was so strong at the time that I don’t sound like a young girl singing.”
Rodgers’s parents moved to London to support her, and her father organised shows for American servicemen in Germany. She recorded for Decca until 1965, admittedly hitless, but she did appear in the pop films Just for Fun (1963) and It’s All Over Town (1964).
Rodgers had also supported Jim Reeves on some Irish dates and he was so impressed that he invited her to Nashville to take part in a Grand Ole Opry radio show. She did sometimes record country songs, later releasing a cover version of Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man (1971).
In 1968 Clodagh married John Morris, a promotions man who had been at Decca, and he arranged a contract with EMI. Her first single with the label, an echo-drenched revival of Stormy Weather, was released under the name of “Cloda Rogers”. She returned to her original spelling but, although Morris found her work in clubs and on TV pop shows, the singles did not sell.
Everything changed when she met an American songwriter, Kenny Young, who had written Under the Boardwalk for the Drifters, and who had moved to the UK. He had written Come Back and Shake Me for Lulu, but after seeing Rodgers on the BBC show Colour Me Pop, he offered it to her, provided that he could produce the record. It reached No 3 in the UK and No 2 in Ireland.
The follow-up, Goodnight Midnight, was also a Top 10 hit, but Biljo, named after Rodgers’ dog, was less successful. However she had two solid-selling albums, Clodagh Rodgers and Midnight Clodagh (all 1969).
The following year came one of her best singles, Everybody Go Home (The Party’s Over), and a duet by Rodgers and Young recording as Moonshine, but neither made much of an impact on the charts.
Rodgers took part in international song festivals prior to Eurovision, so the experience was not new to her. Although she continued recording after Jack in the Box, the single Lady Love Bug reached only No 28 in the charts, and Get It Together (1974) attracted little attention. A change of record company made no difference; however she toured with the Lazy Band, emulating the sound of Linda Ronstadt, in club dates around the UK.
As well as her recording and singing career she appeared on TV variety shows, was the face of Bisto in their commercials, and starred in pantomime with Ronnie Corbett in Cinderella at the London Palladium (1971). Monty Python did a send-up of Jack in the Box, in a sketch in which Terry Jones thinks he is Rodgers after being in a car crash.
Morris had success managing the Rubettes, who in 1974 had a huge hit with Sugar Baby Love, and in 1977 Rodgers released the album Save Me. Their marriage ended in divorce two years later. In 1984 Rodgers played alongside Joe Brown in an entertaining West End musical about a roadside cafe in the American south, Pump Boys and Dinettes.
She married the guitarist Ian Sorbie in 1987, and the couple ran a restaurant in Paignton, Devon, until 1992, when they had to declare bankruptcy. Sorbie died from a brain tumour three years later.
Rodgers played Mrs Johnstone in Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers in the West End in 1994, and returned to this role in a touring version (1995-98). A part in the TV police drama The Bill followed, but Rodgers soon quit the business, settling in Cranleigh, then Cobham, in Surrey.
She is survived by her sons, Matt, from her first marriage, and Sam, from her second, and by three siblings, Lavinia, Louis and Frank.
• Clodagh Rodgers, singer, born 5 March 1947; died 27 March 2025
