( CNN ) -- My participation in the British Invasion came as a total surprise to me . I am indeed British , with an English dad and a Welsh mum . In the mid-1960s , having married a Frenchman , I was living in Paris with two small children and enjoying a highly successful career in Europe , singing in French and other languages . But despite all that , when Tony Hatch , also a Brit , presented me with a song called `` Downtown , '' I knew I wanted to record it . So we went into the studio in London and came out with a hit . It was rapidly picked up by Warner Brothers in the United States , and without any promotion from me , took off to the prized No . 1 spot . And so I was propelled into this amazing and exciting `` love in '' with America . Of course , it changed my life . Suddenly , I was juggling two careers and a family . It was exhilarating , too . I loved performing to American audiences , and I still do . They are the most generous in the world . I was spending more and more time in the States , working with some of the best American musicians and certainly listening to the great American bands of the day : The Beach Boys , The Mamas and the Papas and more . It was wonderful to feel I was in some way part all that was happening at that iconic moment . The spearhead of the `` Invasion '' was of course the Beatles . They opened the floodgates , and the world became aware of British talent almost overnight . Americans seemed to embrace us Brits with something close to a passion . How could we resist ? Of course `` Downtown '' was only the beginning . There was `` I Know a Place , '' `` Do n't Sleep in the Subway , '' `` Colour My World , '' `` Days '' and more . Tony Hatch went on to write a dozen more hits for me . These songs have survived the '60s , and I still sing them today with much affection . Those days were pretty hectic . I seemed to be constantly bouncing around between the United States and Europe and was jet-lagged most of the time ! As for `` the scene '' in the Sixties , I did n't get too involved in it . Of course , there were the inevitable parties and general madness , but I could take it or leave it . I mostly left it . Probably that I was married with a young family kept me on an even keel . For me , the buzz was and still is all about the music and being around people who feel the same way . The British Invasion came and went , but left behind a body of music that lives on today . For those of us who were there , how could we ever forget it ?
Petula Clark was living in London with her family and had a successful European career . When she got the song ` ` ' , '' she decided she wanted to sing it . That ' 60s song shot her to fame in the United States , where it reached No . 1 . Other hits followed ; she calls American audiences the most generous in the world .