Hephzibah Goldblatt

‘Doggy Dentist’ c/w ‘Eventually There Is You’
Released 22nd April 1959. Parlophone R4021

The daughter and protégé of popular bandleader Harry Goldblatt, Hephzibah ‘The Girl with the Cough in Her Voice’ Goldblatt was only fourteen when this, her first single, hit the top ten in May 1959.

Despite her tender years, Hephzibah had a mature, deep singing voice somewhere between the normal male ranges of bass and baritone. She was inclined to cough when attempting higher notes, hence her charming soubriquet.

This cough was partly caused by smoking seventy-a-day Capstan Full Strength. The habit had been encouraged by father Harry in an attempt to compete with the influx of deep-voiced Jamaican calypso singers who monopolised the UK charts in the late nineteen fifties. Singers like The Mighty Lord General Sir Captain Prince Charles with ‘How Many Fingers, Darlin’?’.

At a time when the lyrics of popular songs were taken literally, Hephzibah’s first single caused some controversy when she sang :

‘I want to be a doggy dentist
Holding dog jaws open with my knees
I’ll drill their teeth with a doggy drill
Then find me a man that I can please – yee-hah!

“I was never really sure what that song was about", says ‘Doggy Dentist’ arranger Dennis Vaccari. “I just thought that if I stuck enough pizzicato strings on it, nobody would care. Reading those words today, they don’t really make much sense and rarely rhyme. At the time, veterinary surgeons all over the country were up in arms about the inference that a fourteen year old singer could easily do their job, but I think they missed the point. There’s something deeply disturbing going on here”.

We decided to ask composer Harry Goldblatt about his unusual lyrics but he is dead, so we can’t.

Hephzibah’s only album ‘The Girl with the Cough in Her Voice’ went gold on Christmas Day 1961 and was the first long player to spin at 113 rpm.

Sadly, Hephzibah was not around to enjoy this success; she had died of an overdose of laxatives in early 1960. Strangely, her death was kept secret by father Harry. It was only when he passed away in 1983 that his papers revealed Hephzibah’s death and the lengths he had gone to in order to avoid disappointing her fans.

This included answering the phone pretending to be her, kissing souvenir photographs while wearing her lipstick, wearing her clothes and recording many waxings under her name, doing the singing himself.

Hephzibah was secretly buried in Harry Goldblatt’s back garden by her father. Thanks to a resurgence of interest in this wonderful, jaunty single, fans have marked where she is buried with a statue of a dog having its teeth fixed – a fitting tribute to a much loved teen star.