Mitch Murray
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Mitch Murray (born 30 January 1940, Hove, Sussex), is an English songwriter, record producer and author.
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.
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 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'.[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 was also Tony Christie's producer, and was thus responsible for "Is This the Way to Amarillo?" (written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield).
After writing many hits for other people, in 1965 Murray had had a stab at a hit single as a performer himself, with his humorous composition "Down Came The Rain", issued under the moniker "Mr. Murray." Although it failed to chart, it is still remembered as one of the great novelty records of the 60s.
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.
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.
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).
