243 Goodbye Val Doonican - Heaven Is My Woman's Love

Chart  entered :  10  March  1973

Chart  peak : 34

I  don't  remember  this  one  either. Given  that  his  TV  show  ran  until  1986  this  is  a  surprisingly  early  exit  for  Val  but  I  suppose  his  audience  had  stopped  buying  singles.
Val's  biggest  hits  were  in  the  mid-sixties  but  the  TV  gig  hd  kept  his  chart  career  reasonably  buoyant  since  then.

"Heaven  Is  My  Woman's  Love"  was  written  by  S K  Dobbins  and  was  a   big  country  hit  for  Tommy  Overstreet  the  previous  year.  The  lyrics  are  as  chocolate  box  as  you'd  expect  from  the  title. Val's  musical  director  Ken  Woodman  takes  the  song  away  from  country  towards  MOR  pop  with  a  surprisingly  heavy  bassline  which  gives  the  song  more  heft  than  you'd  expect. Val  does  his  usual  relaxed  croon. It's  not  for  me  but  it's  certainly  not  a  bad  record.

Val's  fans  haven't  put  that  much  stuff  on  youtube  as  yet  so  it's  hard  to  hear  his  subsequent  singles  starting  with  "Oh  Woman"  in  November  1973. After  that  he  seemed  to  lose  interest  in  the  singles  market  and  his  next  one  wasn't  until  April  1976  when  he  lost  out  to  Canadian  J J  Barrie  in  the  battle  to  put  the  execrable  "No  Charge"  in  the  charts.

That  was  Val's  last  single  for  Philips. He  re-emerged  in  October  1980  on  RCA  with  "French  Waltz"  working  with   producer  Chris  Neil  ( Paul  Nicholas , Dollar )  then  "Light  The  Candles  Round  The  World" in  June  1981, a  sickly  peace  anthem  with  a  world  music  feel  that's  slightly  ahead  of  its  time. Next  came  "Mississipi  Mud"  in  May  1982  and  that  was  almost  it.
His  last  single  was  in  1990, a  version  of   "Somewhere  Out  There"  as  a  duet  with  Lynn  Clare  ( ? )  on  a  small  label.  She  actually  has  a  nice  voice  but  the  cheap  production  lets  it  down.

By  that  time  the  TV  series  had  ended  shortly  before  his  60th  birthday. Val  agreed  with  the BBC  that  it  had  come  to  the  end  of  its  shelf  life.  He  eschewed  any  TV  work  away  from music  saying  "that's  the  tail  wagging  the  dog" .  He  divided  his  time  between  family life , in   England  and  Spain , painting , golf , the  odd  CD  of  covers  and  re-recordings   and  a  sensibly  paced  touring  schedule. In  2009  at  the age  of  82  probably  the  most  level headed   of  all  performers  announced  his  retirement.