Bill Martin

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For other people by this name, see Billy Martin (disambiguation).

Bill Martin, born William Wylie Macpherson (b. November 9, 1938) is a Scottish songwriter, music publisher and impresario, born in Govan, a district of Glasgow.

He had his first song released on record in 1963 with “Kiss Me Now” by Tommy Quickly. In 1964 he entered into a writing partnership with Tommy Scott. As Scott & Martin he had success with such acts as the Irish group The Bachelors, Twinkle, the Irish folk band The Dubliners, Van Morrison, and Serge Gainsbourg.

In 1965 he met Phil Coulter and the two became established as a successful songwriting team that lasted more than ten years (Martin for the lyrics, Coulter for the music). They had records with such (mostly UK) performers as comedian and baritone Ken Dodd, American R&B artist Geno Washington, Los Bravos, Dave Dee, The Troggs, Mireille Mathieu, George Harrison, Dick Emery, Tony Blackburn, Cliff Richard, Sandie Shaw, and Elvis Presley.

Between 1967 and 76 they had four No. 1 hits in the UK: “Puppet on a String”, "Congratulations”, “Back Home” And “Forever & Ever”. There were also numerous Top 10 hits including the Bay City Rollers’ “Shang-A-Lang”, “Fancy Pants” by the glam rock band Kenny, “Requiem” by the Scottish pop group Slik, and “Surround Yourself with Sorrow” by the popular British songstress Cilla Black.

The Bay City Rollers had a No. 1 hit in 1976 in the US with “Saturday Night”, a song that was not released as a single in the UK. In all, there were three No. 1 hits in the US for the songwriters, the other two being “Thanks”, performed by Bill Anderson and “My Boy” performed by Elvis Presley. It Presley's last No. 1 song.

The songwriters also wrote for the films The Water Babies and Carry On and a number of television theme songs. In 1970 they won a second Eurovision Song Contest with “All Kinds of Everything” by the Irish singer Dana, which went on to another No 1 hit in the UK and Europe. "Puppet on a String" had been their first win of the prestigious contest.

As successful songwriters, record producers and music publishers Martin and Coulter became a wealthy and powerful partnership in the music industry. Apart from being writers/producers of their own songs, they started a publishing company called Martin-Coulter Music, and signed such other songwriters such as Van Morrison, Billy Connolly, Christie Moore, Donal Lunny, Eric Bogle, the Progressive rock band Sky, Midge Ure, and B.A. Robertson.

Though he continued to write music, Martin found himself gravitating to the business side of the music industry by the 1980’s. His partnership with Coulter ended in 1983 when Martin bought out Coulter’s share of the business. He later sold the company to EMI. In his business career, he successfully built up and sold numerous companies in such diverse fields as music publishing, marketing and properties. He once owned the rights for Van Morrison and East/Memphis Music Corp., which he sold respectively to Chappell Music and Rondor Music Catalogue.

In 1983 he produced the musical Jukebox, which had a six-month run in London’s West End and was acclaimed as The Royal Variety Performance of the year.

He continues as a songwriter, music publisher and producer with Angus Publications. In 2000 he associated with Sony/ATV Music which sub-publishes his catalogue while he acquires music catalogues for his partners.

In 2004 he became involved as a publishing partner and record adviser to Colin Frewin, responsible for the television company Sunset+Vine Plc. The company developed the animated series “Pilot of the Future” shown in numerous countries around the world. Sunset+Vine also produced another children’s animated television show called “Smartalecs” and was recently responsible for the Gumball 3000 television series featuring the 2004 race in Europe and Africa.

Over Christmas 2005, he found time to relax on a Saga Holidays cruise ship in the Caribbean, where he was a featured guest and gave talks on his career [1].

[edit] Honours and awards

Awarded three Ivor Novello Awards including one as Songwriter of the Year
Three ASCAP Awards
Award of Excellence (Rio de Janeiro, 1967 & 1969)
Yamaha Best Song Award (Japan, 1978)
Songwriter of the Decade (Scotland, 1980)
First British Winner (With Phil Coulter) of the Eurovision Song Contest with “Puppet On A String” (1967)
Numerous Silver, Gold & Platinum Discs.