Mary Hopkin, the 1960s pop star from Pontardawe, is set to release a brand new album of duets, featuring her daughter Jessica Lee Morgan.
Having sung together at home and on each other's albums, they finally committed to an album of their favourite covers and some new jointly-written and performed songs.
The new album, ‘Two Hearts’, will be released on 3 May - Mary’s 73rd birthday.
Made famous by her UK hit ‘Those Were The Days', Mary competed in the 1970 Eurovision Song Competition and came second with ‘Knock, Knock, Who’s There’.
The track reached number two on the Official Charts, but she lost out to Ireland’s Dana singing ‘All Kinds Of Everything’.
Mary was also one of the first artists to be signed to The Beatles label Apple Records, after appearing on X-Factor television style programme ‘Opportunity Knocks’ in 1968.
Twiggy recommended Hopkin to Paul McCartney, who then signed her to the label. Hopkin’s other hits include ‘Goodbye’, ‘Temma Harbour’, and ‘Think About Your Children’.
Mary and her daughter Jessica learned some covers together back when Jessica got her first guitar as a teenager.
These included 'Eternal Flame' by The Bangles, 'My Town' by the McGarrigles, and 'Why Worry' by Dire Straits.
They sang on stage together when Mary performed with The Chieftains in 1999.
They moved on to writing together and Jessica included some of these songs in live shows and on her albums, such as 'Here It All Comes Again' and 'The Less Said The Better'.
The mum-and-daughter combo have previously collaborated on each other's albums, but this is the first time they will release a completely joint record.
Born in 1976, Jessica Lee Morgan is an established musician and songwriter in her own right. She is the daughter of Hopkin and David Bowie/T.Rex producer Tony Visconti.
Mary and Tony married in 1971 and had two children before their divorce in 1981.
Mary and Jessica play most of the instruments on the album, though Mary's son and Jessica's brother Morgan Visconti plays electric guitar on three tracks, and engineer Christian Thomas has provided additional guitar and bass.
Jessica said: “I started a record label for her in 2005 called Mary Hopkin Music so she could make music how she wanted.
"We had a lot of stuff to clear out the loft and over time she started making new music and writing songs.
"We have worked on each others recordings and we have been singing together all of my life really.
"We started learning some of the covers that are on the album when I was 13 on my first guitar.
"We started writing after that, I don’t know why it’s taken so long but here we are now finally!.
"It’s very much an album with equal contribution, so some of the songs were written together or maybe I wrote the music first or others where she wrote them first and we would finish each others lyrics.
"It’s very much an album where we have equal shares on the vocals this time which is really nice.
“It’s a varied album in different styles but the unifying voice is basically us singing together, obviously.
“Mary is happiest now working with me and my brother Morgan. My partner Chris helps us with the technology, engineering, mixing and everything. She’s very comfortable, it’s what she’s always wanted”.
You can pre-order ‘Two Hearts’ on CD at maryhopkin.com/albums/two-hearts.
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