Mitch Murray

Mitch Murray
Background information
Born	January 30, 1940 (1940-01-30) (age 71)
Origin	Hove, Sussex, England
Occupations	Songwriter, record producer, author

Mitch Murray (born Lionel Michael Stitcher, 30 January 1940, Hove, Sussex), is an English songwriter, record producer and author.

Musical career

Murray’s first major songwriting success was "How Do You Do It?" It was picked up by producer George Martin, who insisted that The Beatles record it as their follow-up to "Love Me Do." Their lack of enthusiasm was clear in the recording, which remained officially unreleased until it appeared on Anthology 1 in 1995. Martin let them release a rearranged version of "Please Please Me" as a single instead, passing "How Do You Do It?" to another young Liverpool based group, Gerry & The Pacemakers. Their version—essentially a copy of The Beatles' recording—launched their career with a UK No. 1 single the following spring. Thus encouraged, Murray sent them another of his songs, "I Like It", which became their second single and also topped the UK Singles Chart.^[1]

He had further success throughout the next ten years, writing "You Were Made For Me" and "I’m Telling You Now" for Freddie and the Dreamers, the latter in collaboration with their frontman, Freddie Garrity. Murray's 1964 book, How To Write A Hit Song, famously inspired Sting - then a 12-year-old schoolboy - to start writing songs. Sting now refers to Mitch Murray as 'My Mentor' and wrote the foreword to 'Mitch Murray's Handbook For The Terrified Speaker (Valium In A Volume)', published by Foulsham.^{[citation needed]}

Most of Murray's subsequent hits were written with Peter Callander, among them "Even The Bad Times Are Good" (The Tremeloes), "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" (Georgie Fame), "Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha" (Cliff Richard), "Ragamuffin Man" (Manfred Mann), "Hitchin’ a Ride" (Vanity Fare), and "Avenues And Alleyways", "Las Vegas", and "I Did What I Did for Maria" for (Tony Christie).

Murray and Callander were also Tony Christie's producers, and produced "Is This the Way to Amarillo?" (written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield).

After writing many hits for other people, in October 1965 Murray had a hit single as a performer himself, with his humorous composition "Down Came The Rain", issued on Fontana Records under the moniker "Mr. Murray", with "Whatever Happened To Music" on the B side. It failed to chart. An Italian version of "Down Came The Rain", under the name Una ragazza in due (A girl for two), has been performed by various artists, among them I Giganti and Mina. Murray also wrote "My Brother" which became a children's favourite recorded by Terry Scott.

In 1971, Murray conceived and founded the Society Of Distinguished Songwriters (SODS). Current members include Sir Tim Rice, Les Reed, Guy Chambers, Gary Barlow, David Arnold, Mike Batt, Justin Hayward, Don Black, and more than thirty others.

Later Murray and Callander formed their own record label, Bus Stop, through which they launched the career of Paper Lace. Their first two singles, released in 1974, were both written by Murray and Callander, "Billy Don't Be a Hero" (No. 1 UK, with a cover version by Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods reaching No. 1 in the U.S.), and "The Night Chicago Died" (No. 1 U.S.). Another song Murray was involved in was "Sing Me", a UK Top Ten hit for one-hit wonders, The Brothers, in 1977.

Comedy

In the mid-1980s, just before the privatisation of British Telecom, Murray wrote and starred in a series of comedy programmes, The Telefun Show, which were only available for listening via the telephone (by dialling 01-246 8070 in the UK) in a similar way to the contemporary Dial-A-Disc service, which he also presented and which attracted up to 400,000 calls per day.^{[citation needed]}

Since his own outrageous single, "Down Came The Rain", Murray has built up a reputation for comedy in many areas, including voice characterisation for movies and radio commercials, as well as for after dinner speaking.

Author and speechwriter

Murray is now regarded as one of Britain’s leading professional humorous speechwriters, and has written several best-selling books on the subject including Mitch Murray's One-Liners For Weddings (1994), Mitch Murray's One-Liners For Business and Mitch Murray's One-Liners for Speeches on Special Occasions (1997).

References

1. ^ IMDB http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1098920/

Sources

• Chartwatch

External links

• The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame
• Mersey Beat

Persondata
Name	Murray, Mitch
Alternative names
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Date of birth	30 January 1940
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Date of death
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