Mary Hopkin
Credited as Mary Hopkin-Visconti
Singer-songwriter.
Born 5 May 1950 in Pontardawe, Glamorgan, in Wales, UK, Mary Hopkin's career as a singer took off when she appeared on the UK television talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1968.
She signed with the Beatles' Apple Records shortly afterwards, her most famous recording being Those Were the Days (APPLE 2), a Russian song composed by Boris Fomin with English lyrics written by Gene Raskin, who then claimed the song as his own. In 1970, she came second in the Eurovision Song Contest with Britain's entry Knock Knock Who's There. In the early 1970s, she partially withdrew from the pop music world to focus on child-rearing.