Brian Matthew on his excellent Sounds of the Sixties just revealed that Helen Shapiro recorded and released It's My Party BEFORE Lesley Gore's global monster hit version. True?

"In February 1963, after wrapping up her tour with the Beatles, she flew to America to record her third (and best) album, Helen in Nashville, with help from the Jordanaires. Columbia decided to release two of these Nashville tracks on her next single. The A-side was a Buddy Holly-esque number called "Woe Is Me," written by Americans Sharon Sheeley and Jackie DeShannon. The B-side was a bluesy song from one of Timi Yuro's writers, Joy Byers, called "I Walked Right In," with a simple arrangement based on Ketty Lester's "Love Letters Straight From Your Heart." It remains one of Helen's more powerful performances. But the single was only a modest hit. By the time Columbia was ready to release a follow-up, "It's My Party," also from the Nashville album, Leslie Gore's version of the song was already booming up the American and U.K. charts, so the company replaced it with "Not Responsible," a catchy rocker which nonetheless turned out to be Helen's first non-charting single."

www.electricearl.com/dawson/helenshapiro.html