Mitch Murray
| Mitch Murray | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lionel Michael Stitcher |
| Born |
30 January 1940 Hove, Sussex, England |
| Genres | Pop music |
| Occupation(s) | Songwriter, record producer, author |
| Years active | 1960s-present |
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. He has also been awarded the Gold Badge of Merit by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
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.
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 ().
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