Bill Martin
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Bill Martin |
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Bill Martin (born William Wylie Macpherson,
9
November 1938,
Govan, Glasgow) is a Scottish songwriter,
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 & Co, The Troggs, Mireille Mathieu, George Harrison, Dick Emery, Tony Blackburn, Cliff Richard, Sandie Shaw, and Elvis Presley.
Between 1967 and 1976 they had 4 No. 1 hits
in the UK: "Puppet on a String", "Congratulations",
"Back
Home" and "
The Bay City Rollers had a No. 1 hit in 1976 in the U.S. with “Saturday Night”, a song that was not released as a single in the UK. In all, there were 3 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,
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
In 1983 he produced the musical
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
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].
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