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Mitch Murray (born Lionel Michael Stitcher, 30 January 1940, Hove, Sussex, England), is an English songwriter, record producer and author. He has won two Ivor Novello Awards, including the Jimmy Kennedy Award. Murray has written, or co-written songs, that have produced five UK and three US chart-topping records.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=PRS for Music: Mitch Murray - Writer Director )〕 He has also been awarded the Gold Badge of Merit by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. ==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 and the Pacemakers. Their version - essentially a copy of The Beatles' recording - launched their career with a UK Number 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.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1098920/ )〕 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; and "I Knew It All The Time" recorded in 1964 by The Dave Clark Five. Murray's 1964 book, ''How to Write a Hit Song'', inspired Sting, then a 12-year-old schoolboy, to start writing songs. Sting now refers to Murray as "My Mentor", and wrote the foreword to ''Mitch Murray's Handbook for the Terrified Speaker (Valium in a Volume)'', published by Foulsham (ISBN 0572024592). 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), "Turn On The Sun" (Nana Mouskouri) and "Avenues and Alleyways", "Las Vegas", and "I Did What I Did for Maria" for Tony Christie. Murray and Callander were also Christie's producers, and produced "Is This the Way to Amarillo?" (written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield). In an interview in ''The Times'' in which Christie described another Murray-Callander penned tune, "Las Vegas", he noted that the two "were the star songwriters of the day". After writing many hits for other people, in October 1965 Murray had a hit single as a performer, with his humorous composition, "Down Came the Rain", issued on Fontana Records under the moniker Mister Murray, with "Whatever Happened to Music" on the B-side. It missed the ''Record Retailer'' Top 50, but reached number 30 in the ''NME'' 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 when recorded by Terry Scott. 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 and The Heywoods reaching Number 1 in the US), and "The Night Chicago Died" (Number 1 US). Another song Murray was involved in was "Sing Me", a UK Top Ten hit for one-hit wonders, The Brothers, in 1977. In 1968, Murray became the youngest ever director of PRS for Music.〔 In 1971, he 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, Bill Martin and more than thirty others. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mitch Murray」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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