Geoff Stephens
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Geoff Stephens (born 1 October 1934, New Southgate, North London [1]), was one of the top British songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s.
[edit] Career
He began this career during his amateur theatrical days when he wrote songs and sketches for musical revues presented by his own company, the Four Arts Society, while working as a school teacher, air traffic controller and silk screen printer. This led to BBC Radio accepting some of his satirical sketches for their Monday Night At Home programme.
Subsequently becoming involved with music, in 1964 he had his first hit "Tell Me When", co-written with Les Reed, a Top 10 hit for The Applejacks. That year he and Peter Eden discovered and managed Donovan, producing his first hit single and debut album, What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid.
In 1965, Stephens wrote the haunting "The Crying Game", a Top 5 hit for Dave Berry (and later the title song of the film and a hit for Boy George). In 1966 he formed The New Vaudeville Band, writing and recording songs in a 1920s musical style. Their debut single "Winchester Cathedral" was a No. 1 hit in the U.S., and covered by others including Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Sinatra. It was followed by further hits for the band, "Peek A Boo", "Finchley Central" and "Green Street Green".
With John Carter, Stephens wrote "Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James" for Manfred Mann and, with Les Reed, "There's a Kind of Hush" for The New Vaudeville Band. A year later, a cover version of "There's a Kind of Hush" was a hit for Herman's Hermits, and it was also later a hit for The Carpenters. Over the next few years he wrote, or co-wrote, hits for The Hollies ("Sorry Suzanne"), Ken Dodd ("Tears Won’t Wash Away These Heartaches"), Cliff Richard ("Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha"), Tom Jones ("Daughter of Darkness"), Mary Hopkin ("Knock Knock, Who's There" - the 1970 UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest), Scott Walker ("The Lights of Cincinnati"), Dana ("It's Gonna Be a Cold Cold Christmas"), The Drifters ("Like Sister And Brother"), Crystal Gayle ("It's Like We Never Said Goodbye"), Hot Chocolate ("I'll Put You Together Again") and, most successfully of all, UK number one hits for David Soul, ("Silver Lady"); and The New Seekers (the Ivor Novello Award-winning, "You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me").
In 1983 Stephens and Don Black composed the songs for the West End musical Dear Anyone, followed a year later by The Magic Castle with Les Reed. He received a BASCA Gold Badge award in 1995 and the Jimmy Kennedy Ivor Novello Award for Services to British Songwriting in 2000. More recently he wrote "To All My Loved Ones", to be featured as the centrepiece of the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall.
