A Personal History of the British Music Industry – 106. Tony Hiller

Tony Hiller with The Brotherhood of Man (and if anyone can identify the man to his right,I can complete the line-up!) John Poole thinks it’s Alyn Ainsworth – I think he’s` right!

Tony Hiller, whose death in November 2018 at the age of 91, seems to have totally passed me by, came from a long but today almost impossible key part of the music business, unless you work in Nashville! – songwriting. Songwriters were the life blood of the music business for decades. The song was always key to success, and pre-Beatles and Stones, the song was everything. British record producers rushed to hear the latest American hits, record them with their own singers and hope the song worked its magic. The song still is the vital ingredient, but today the singer and the song are almost always the same person. Tony was a songwriter whose finest hour was, as shown above, ‘Save Your Kisses for Me’, the 1978 Eurovision winner by a group created specifically for the contest – Brotherhood of Man. Such was the power of songwriting. This fairly short interview dates from December 1998

How did it start?

It goes back to the Hiller Brothers – my brother Irving and myself. We were a double act. We worked in night clubs and variety shows, with people like Tommy Cooper. We weren’t big stars but we had a lot of fun – it was a great time….meeting all those fine entertainers on the road and becoming friendly,

Were you singers or comedians?

Both – we were comics, a double act. We did very good impressions as well… the Everly Brothers, then the Beverley Sisters. At that time there was a very big show – The Perry Como Show. Well, we did the Perry Slowmow Show! We did Nat’King’Cole and lot of comedians, and good dancers. Whoever had a hit at the time, we’d go to the publishers, learn and sing the song

Were you being plugged in those days?

Of course. It was wonderful going down Denmark Street (the home of music publishing) and people saying ‘have you got a broadcast?’, like I did later on. We saw all sides of the business then. It was a great experience being plugged by the song pluggers. The first song they plugged was Mais Ouis which was a minor hit for The King Brothers, and we did that on a couple of occasions.

The clever pluggers were presumably the ones who knew which songs suited your act?

A good plugger should always do some research. If they give you a song for a tenner it should be a comedy song. We were selling songs ourselves yes at that time – Irving, Danny Newman and me – the three of us started songwriting. We would go down Denmark Street and publishers were asking us to to demo songs as we were good singers. We were there most days. This was in about 1954

Who were the best pluggers?

Stuart Reid, Don Agnes, the Mills people, Freddie Poser, Pat Sherlock and young Ronnie Beck. It was a different ball game then – the main thing was to get your broadcast. The song was the most important thing. It was a lot more fun. It was a people’s business – it still is, but it has changed. I also enjoyed the publishers’ “do’s” more than the record companies’

With Lord Grade going, that’s the last of the great entrepreneurs

I knew him very well. I had a company with him at ATV. He was a pro – he’d dance at the drop of a hat. He was one of the boys. The business has changed. When I started you could go and see George Martin, Norrie Paramor, Johnny Franz- these were record people but they loved music.

Did you have any success with your brother and Danny Newman?

The first year that the BBC gave the Eurovision Song Contest to the record companies instead of the publishers – and they only did it once – was in 1962, when we had Kenny Lynch, Dickie Valentine and Jill Day, and I remember going to the session with Dickie. (for completists, the UK entrant was sung by Ronnie Carroll and the winning country was France). It was never easy to get a hearing, but I plugged. I used to love going in and hustling. As performers the only time we were handled was when we were managed by Dick James as a double act. Dick was working for Sidney Bron – Gerry was a kid then. That was a big business. Dick James was our manager and a nicer chap you couldn’t hope to meet.

Sidney(top) and Gerry Bron (I think!) Might Sidney be with Gene Pitney?

Was it more important to you to get the song performed or recorded?

Records. The performance was in essence part of the promotion. For instance, Russ Conway’s Side Saddle sold 300,000 sheets of music…the sheet music would be this, the records would be that (lower) and then they turned. and a hit would do well. Later on I had a big hit with Save Your Kisses for me which sold 300,000.

One of the key things in those days seemed be to get Donald Peers to sing and then everyone would want the sheet music (I think I got this from Kay O’Dwyer!)

Absolutely. But if Donald Peers had recorded your song and sang it on ‘Workers’ Playtime’ for example it was all part and parcel of promotion. I remember when I first started in the promotion department of Mills Music, I used to plug the organists and go to the cinemas.

Did The Hiller Brothers reach a natural conclusion?

We gave up the act after a while because we got signed up as writers, first to Boosey and Hawkes – Maurice Taylor was a very good professional manager and we signed to him. We went on to Mills Music and became writers, and Cyril Gee said ‘I like what you’re doing- why don’t to come into the business. I joined Mills in 1961 and was with them until I had my first world hit, then I left. I was also a producer for Decca Records in that period.

I didn’t know you were involved with The Big Three and The Dennisons

The Big Three

The Dennisons

In your days of plugging, who were the key people?

In those days it was very difficult to plug your own songs. I had to be very careful. I had Greenaway & Cook, Howard Spiro, Val Avon. Rogers Cook and Greenway were phenomenal. I knew Greenaway from The Kestrels, Cook was a bit later. I was in at the beginning. I was seeing every radio producer, every A&R man – these were all with demos. Greenaway and Cook were fantastic writers. So you’d go into a producer. I’d phone up Mickie Most or Johnny Franz. You knew you were going in with a good song, because I’d made the demos – that’s how I got to be a producer. We’d go into Regent Sound, cut about six backing tracks, put the voices on, make them all in a day with a four-five piece band. When you’re running with hot stuff, doors opened. Everyone wanted a Greenaway/Cook song

Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway

They were being four or five different groups at the same time

I remember on one Top of the Pops, they had United we stand, Love grows as Edison Lighthouse, White Plains and Pipkins. That’s how I got Brotherhood of Man

That was a golden period for British Songwriters

When we think of Tony Macaulay, Les Reed, Peter Callander, Mitch Murray… as a member of SODS (Society of Distinguished Songwriters) you’re sitting in a room of 30 guys and you look around and think ‘these people here wrote some of the greatest standards of all time.’ Before The Beatles very few people used to write their own songs, and The Beatles did also open the door to America. It was amazing what they did. All the Dave Clarks, Herman’s Hermits, and others, they all followed. It made our producers and publishers strong. We were all very well sought after and of course we also hit Europe. Previously it was once every ten years that a foreign song, other than American, would sell over here. Now every other song is Swedish, German or French. The middle of the road songs are getting stronger.

A lot of people said that about rock’n’roll

In those days music wasn’t categorised. It wasn’t Country; it wasn’t this or that. Most of Elvis’s old hits came from Country, but you wouldn’t say they were country songs. A song was a song was a song. I mourned that. I mourned it when the BBC became Radios 1, 2 and 3.

I think this business and this country are too small to merit categorisation

I don’t understand it. The listening public misses too much. Sub- divisions like garage, hip-hop etc.

How did you get to produce the Liverpool groups?

I was not an exclusive producer – I did it under contract. I was getting hits with I was Kaiser Bill’s Batman. As a writer my first world hit was United we stand which I also produced. The act (Brotherhood of Man) was Roger Greenaway, Tony Burrows, John Goodison, and Sue & Sunny – all sessions singers.

First of all, Tony Hall started Deram, then Wayne (Bickerton) took over. I was signed to Decca as a producer, I wasn’t working for them in-house. I wrote United we Stand with the late great Johnny Goodison. We did a song called Love One Another which we thought was the greatest thing in the world, but it sold zilch. The second one was United we Stand. Dick Rowe was my boss and I had Wayne on my side as well. The first time Dick was away on holiday. I went to Wayne with Love One Another, and he said ‘great, go ahead’. But Dick Rowe was my boss. I was working for Cyril Gee as a publisher at the same time. Imagine the hours I was working – writing, plugging…

Wayne Bickerton

Dick Rowe.

Did you have those people in mind to sing that song?

Oh yes! Love One Another was a sort of spiritual song, and then we did United we Stand at Decca studios – great session singers, big choral songs. Dick heard the songs and said ‘OK, we’ll go with ‘United we stand’. I had the publishing. Despite being my writers – Roger Greenaway was, and Tony Burrows I knew well – my problem was that they were the top session singers in the country, getting lots of money without having to go outside London. They didn’t really want to tour. We did the big shows of the day. I kept the name alive and put other people together. We won Eurovision with another set of people – Save Your Kisses for Me. In those days, the BBC would choose the artists . I had the first year when we chose our own acts.

You picked two boys and two girls to do the song

Terry King phoned and said ‘do you fancy doing a TV in Belgium?’ I had already signed Lee Sheridan and Martin Lee as writers to Tony Hiller Music , and they were also good singers, then we had Sandra and Nicky and we had an act. I did the original Brotherhood of Man again with Decca and with the second version we had two number ones – Figaro and Angelo.

Who did the deal with Pye?

I did. I sold the act before we won Eurovision. We did nothing really. I got a couple of singles and an album out of the (Decca) deal. I wrote a song with the boys called Lady which charted in Belgium, Holland and France. Then I cut a Barry Blue song –Kiss Me Kiss You Baby. Eddie Levy brought it to my attention because I was then with ATV. It was the B-side of a record that was doing nothing, so we cut it and it was enormous in Europe. That was just before the Euros, so they were known in Europe. We’d done all the TV so that audience knew them. We had an enormous run. I had to sell it before we had a deal, but we did extremely well.

How did you find the relationship with record companies

Even the record men of my era were nicer. That sounds awful, but they were song men. I remember recently going to a certain A&R person and she said ‘would you sit there?’ and her back was to me and I was humiliated.

The business is in trouble

I can tell you when it all went wrong – when the song wasn’t the most important thing. The song had to stand up. You didn’t have to spend £3 1/2 million on it. You had that entree to the producers, you knew them. What they have done is crowd out the creative talent.

There must be thousands of kids who love writing songs but can’t sing

I don’t want to counteract that, but there is a machine now where you can sing badly and still be in tune. But you can’t do it live, though where’s the live work gone?

There’s no incentive to write for writing’s sake, except in Nashville

That’s why I’ve bought a place out there. I started to write with Roger Cook, Bobby Murphy, Byron Hill – all those great writers. For a writer like me it’s a joy. It’s not easy. The one thing about Nashville that differs from here – if you get in eventually and the song is right, politics go out of the window – a song is a song there. It’s a shame here that we’re not getting the songs.

Bobby Murphy

Byron Hill

Can you pinpoint when the business changed?

The Seventies were open. There were people then who had ears and could hear the songs. The personnel changed. People were coming into the business – the so-called giants of today – they understood records. It became a record business, not a song business. Solo artists today write their songs. Bryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen . They are not hearing or wanting the best songs from the writers who can deliver, because they don’t want them. They want to write their own because they known that if they sell a million they’ll get 500 grand. Lyrics don’t mean too much today – kids still want melody and lovely songs like from Boyzone, Take That, and the lovely Bee Gees songs. Arrangers are over, you know. I remember session musicians doing four sessions a day..a jingle and then three full tracks, working day and night. Every record label had orchestras. We’ve lost the musicianship. Things have changed. The thing that bugged me was that they lost the song. Our business was about songs. Look what they’re spending . If you get a great song it stays in the charts for six weeks and does genuine figures. It’s very hard for me to go to a record company today with a song. They say ‘a song for whom’. We can’t get a song to anyone.

What keeps you busy now?

America, I’ve had Bruce, Margot Smith, Anne Murray, Glen Campbell (record my songs) I used to go there 18 weeks a year, but I’ve sold the house now. Right now United we Stand is a jingle for United Airlines. They re-recorded it and it was a very big ad for them. I’m still a working writer. In Nashville it’s different. Most writers are signed. I write with one, so I pay my own expenses and half the demos, so in essence they are working for me and I keep the publishing. But there, everyone is a writer – it’s unbelievable. It’s a music town, so I’m still active.

Have you got a favourite song?

United we Stand – 30 years old (in 1998!)

Was music in your family?

My father worked with Irving Berlin. He went to America in 1914 – all his brothers went to live in America and my Uncle Joe was one of the most famous promotion men in America – Joe Hiller. My father then got a job as a trade boy. He came back here to join the army in 1917. I met some of the great old pluggers. I remember the Brill Building. Jack Dempsey had a bar there. My first trip to America was with United we Stand. I loved it.

Never tempted to tread the boards again?

I love to sing. I sing all day. It’s a shame that variety’s gone. I used to go to the Hackney Empire – that’s how you learnt the business. We were the new kids on the block for publishing – we were writers and artists as well.

You were never tempted to start a label?

I did start the label, Dazzle. Les Reed had Chapter One, Roger Greenaway’s was Target, but he lost a lot of money – you need so much bread. I always had a production company. All I own now is one Johnnie Ray album, Wild Fantasy and some bits and pieces. I was never a builder. I built up something and then sold it and I’m glad I did. Even today people are dying to buy publishing companies and catalogues. That is also one of the problems of our business – the egos of the people in charge. Old songs are fresh money – that’s how most of my peers live. If you’ve got an act and you’re successful, they’re never really satisfied. They always think they need a change. Everything is problematic . They want to be what they think is cool. It’s a constant fight keeping your artists in line. You’ll have hit after hit and they want to become the producer.

For our first retainer, the three of us got £2 a week each, £300 a year, signed to Boosey and Hawkes. When we signed to Mills Music we got £500 a year. It was unusual back then for writers to be signed with a retainer. They started signing writers around 1960. The big names from that period – the 1930’s onwards – were Jimmy Kennedy, Michael Carr, Tommy Connors – they were the beginning of the great pop writers. Then it went really fast.

Jimmy Kennedy

Michael Carr

From the mid fifties, it was the start of people like us going round, good songwriters. You could stand on the corner of Denmark Street and see every singer there was, looking for songs. On radio you had Workers Playtime, Variety Bandbox – no one wrote songs so you had to go to a publisher. That was the era of the publisher . The pianist would play the song – ‘oh, I like that song’ – do the arrangement (£8). We had three arrangers, Ken Woodman, Cy Payne and paid £8 for each one. It was a very busy time.

And there the interview ended, but if you Google tonyhiller.com you’ll find lots of facts and figures about his work and output. Also The Jewish Chronicle has a obituary which duplicates a lot of the information he provided me some 20 years earlier.

© David Hughes 2024. All illustrations come from Google search and are there to bring the copy to life.