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Biography
BLP sources|date=July 2008Infobox musical artist| name = Mike Batt|birth_name = Michael Philip Batt| background = solo_singer| image =Mike Batt 1971.JPG| caption =Batt in 1971.| birth_date = birth date and age|1949|02|06|df=yes Southampton , England | instrument = Guitar , piano , keyboard instrument|keyboards , Singing|vocals | genre = Pop rock , Pop music|pop , Classical music|classical | occupation = Singer-songwriter , musician , artist , Record producer|producer , Arrangement|arranger | years_active = 1969–present| label = Dramatico | associated_acts = Elton John , The Wombles (band)|The Wombles , Steeleye Span , Justin Hayward , Bond (band)|Bond , Katie Melua | website = http://www.mikebatt.com/ www.mikebatt.com| notable_instruments = Michael Philip "Mike" Batt (born 6 February 1949) is a British songwriter, musician, producer and Deputy Chairman of the British Phonographic Industry . He is best known for creating The Wombles (band)|The Wombles pop act, writing the chart-topping " Bright Eyes (Art Garfunkel song)|Bright Eyes ," and discovering Katie Melua .
Early life and career
Born in Southampton , Batt attended Peter Symonds College|Peter Symonds School , Winchester. His blog refers to his role as cadet Company Sergeant Major at the school .cite web|url= http://www.mikebatt.com/newsletter_2000.html |title=The Official Website |publisher=Mike Batt |date= |accessdate=2011-12-30
Batt began his career in pop music at the age of eighteen when he answered the same advertisement as Elton John and Bernie Taupin placed by Ray Williams (producer)|Ray Williams in the NME|New Musical Express on behalf of Liberty Records . Batt became part of Liberty's production team, and in 1969 he took over production duties from Noel Walker, on McKenna Mendelson Mainline 's first release, Stink . Walker and Batt were credited on the album only as "Liberty Staff". Also in 1969, Batt released as producer/artist a Liberty single, his cover version of The Beatles ' " Your Mother Should Know ". Batt subsequently became Head of A& R for Liberty.
1970s
In the early 1970s, aged 23, married, with children, and having spent £11,000 recording half of a rock orchestral album that was never released, Batt was asked by the producers of a new children's television programme to write the theme music. Instead of taking his £200 fee, Batt asked for the character rights for musical production. The choice produced his first hits as a singer/songwriter/producer by The Wombles (band)|The Wombles , in 1974. The collaboration produced eight hit singlescite book | first= David | last= Roberts | year= 2006 | title= British Hit Singles & Albums | edition= 19th | publisher= Guinness World Records Limited | location= London | isbn= 1-904994-10-5 | page= 608 and four music recording sales certification|gold albums.
Now financially successful, Batt moved on to work with various artists as a songwriter/producer, most successfully with Steeleye Span and their most successful single and album All Around My Hat (album)|All Around My Hat in 1975.cite book | first= David | last= Roberts | year= 2006 | title= British Hit Singles & Albums | edition= 19th | publisher= Guinness World Records Limited | location= London | isbn= 1-904994-10-5 | page= 527 Also in 1975, at the end of the summer, he entered the UK Singles Chart with the only hit under his own name (credited alongside the New Edition) with "Summertime City", which reached number 4.cite book | first= David | last= Roberts | year= 2006 | title= British Hit Singles & Albums | edition= 19th | publisher= Guinness World Records Limited | location= London | isbn= 1-904994-10-5 | page= 45
He produced the hit single " Lilac Wine " for Elkie Brooks in 1978. The song was a hit in the UK and across Europe. He wrote the song " Bright Eyes (Art Garfunkel song)|Bright Eyes " for the animated film version of Watership Down (film)|Watership Down . Recorded by Art Garfunkel , it reached number 1 in the UK Singles Chart.cite book | first= David | last= Roberts | year= 2006 | title= British Hit Singles & Albums | edition= 19th | publisher= Guinness World Records Limited | location= London | isbn= 1-904994-10-5 | page= 222 Batt also wrote the scores for Caravans (1978 film)
1980s
As a singer, his solo albums included Schizophonia and Tarot Suite (both with the London Symphony Orchestra ). From these albums came the European hit songs "Railway Hotel", "Lady of the Dawn" and " Ride to Agadir ". A version of "Introduction (The Journey of a Fool)" from Tarot Suite was used as the theme for the Sydney , Australia radio station, Triple M , from its first broadcast in 1980 until well into the 1990s. Over the course of May 2010, this theme tune, still based on the main central riff from "Introduction (The Journey of a Fool)" was re-recorded by Slash (musician)|Slash , former Guns'n'Roses guitarist, as a new theme to mark the 30th anniversary of Triple M in Sydney. This was released to air at the end of June 2010.
In 1980 Batt released his next album, entitled Waves (including the European hit "The Winds of Change"). In the same year, he went off with his family aboard his boat, 'Braemar', ending up in Australia after two and a half years, travelling via France, The West Indies, South America, Central America, Mexico, Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles , Hawaii and Fiji. At the end of that journey, he wrote for the 50th anniversary of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the musical Zero Zero. http://www.mikebatt.com/releases/zerozero.html Mike Batt - Zero Zero
Returning to the UK in 1983, Batt wrote and produced three more Top 40|Top Ten hits, "Please Don't Fall In Love" (for Cliff Richard ), " A Winter's Tale (David Essex song)|A Winter's Tale " (for David Essex , with lyrics co-written by Tim Rice ) and "I Feel Like Buddy Holly" (for Alvin Stardust ).In the same year, he helped write lyrics for Abbacadabra .
The album The Hunting of the Snark (musical)|The Hunting of the Snark , based on Lewis Carroll 's poem, was recorded in 1984.
Meanwhile, in the late 1980s, Batt also produced Justin Hayward 's album Classic Blue and the music for The Dreamstone , ITV 's fifty two part animated series, once again with the London Philharmonic Orchestra . A number of stars performed for the Dreamstone soundtrack; notably Billy Connolly, Ozzy Osbourne , former British heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno (all of whom performed on "The War Song of the Urpneys"), Bonnie Tyler (who sang a duet with Batt, "Into the Sunset". It was not used on the show, but it was meant to be Dreamstone's official love song). Joe Brown (singer)|Joe Brown performed "The Vile Brothers Mountain Band" along with Gary Glitter . Batt performed the theme song from the series "Better Than A Dream". The show was completed and finally aired in 1990.
1990s
In 1995 he made a solo album for Sony Records|Sony Germany , Arabesque . Batt was then commissioned to write the official anthem for the inauguration of the Channel Tunnel by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|the Queen , entitled "When Flags Fly Together". This was performed for the Queen and François Mitterrand|President Mitterrand , along with many senior politicians, by members of the choir of the Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone .
Batt composed and produced the four million-selling album, The Violin Player , with classical violinist Vanessa-Mae (EMI Classics, 1995) from which the Top Twenty single of J.S. Bach 's "Toccata and Fugue" was taken.cite book | first= David | last= Roberts | year= 2006 | title= British Hit Singles & Albums | edition= 19th | publisher= Guinness World Records Limited | location= London | isbn= 1-904994-10-5 | page= 581
In 1997 Batt produced an album for the soprano , Anna Maria Kaufmann, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra ; an original dramatic song cycle called Blame It On The Moon , from which his song, "Running With A Dream" was taken as the theme for Germany’s national football team at the FIFA World Cup|World Cup in June 1998.
Also in 1998, Batt produced, arranged and conducted the album, Philharmania (album)|Philharmania with the Royal Philharmonic and guest singers included Roger Daltrey , Marc Almond , Bonnie Tyler , Status Quo (band)|Status Quo , Huey Lewis , Kim Wilde , Justin Hayward and others. Later the same year Batt relaunched The Wombles pop group, with two hits, "Remember You’re A Womble" (at number 13) and "The Wombling Song" (at number 27). In 2000 he collaborated with Roy Wood for a single which combined new versions of previous Christmas hits by Wizzard and The Wombles, released as "I Wish It Could Be a Wombling Merry Christmas" - UK number 22).
Later he would work on the music for the 1999 Watership Down (TV series)|Watership Down TV series, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Art Garfunkel again performed a song for the TV soundtrack, "When You're Losing Your Way in The Rain" which was not used in the show. The song however originated from Batt's earlier album, Tarot Suite , and was originally performed by Colin Blunstone of 60's group "The Zombies". "Bright Eyes" was instead performed by the former Boyzone member Stephen Gately , although the new version was not as successful as Garfunkel's original. Other stars who were featured on the soundtrack included Cerys Matthews performing "Thank You Stars", (which would later be covered by Katie Melua on her album, Piece by Piece (Katie Melua album)|Piece By Piece ), Paul Carrack who performed "Winter Song" and Gary Martin provided the narration for "Frith's Blessing". Batt also performed an original song, "A View From A Hill".
2000s and current work
A Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party supporter, Batt was asked to write their 2001 UK General Election song "Heartland", thereby replacing Andrew Lloyd Webber as the Conservatives' official composer.cite news|url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1317687.stm|title=Wombles composer pens Tory poll hit|publisher=BBC News|date=2001-05-07|accessdate=2009-04-15
After conceiving and co-creating the all-girl string quartet Bond (band)|Bond and producing their first single, he then created the eight piece classical crossover band, The Planets (band)|The Planets . Their album Classical Graffiti was released in February 2002 and went straight to number one in the UK classical music chart on the day of release and remained there for three months.
Batt formed his own record label Dramatico in 2002, which has a small group of artists including Carla Bruni .cite news|url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3672443/Mike-Batt-he-cant-forget-hes-a-Womble.html|title=Mike Batt: he can't forget he's a Womble|publisher=The Telegraph|date=2008-04-16|accessdate=2009-04-15 | location=London | first=Neil | last=McCormick Since 2005, Dramatico has been one of the top three UK based independent record label|indie labels , based on official sales figurescitation needed|date=October 2011. Batt is presently dedicating most of his time to guiding the career of Katie Melua , whom he discovered in 2002 while scouting for a jazz musical project on which he was working. Melua's album Call Off The Search (containing six of Batt's songs including " The Closest Thing to Crazy ") was released on Dramatico in November 2003. After six weeks at number one in the UK Albums Chart , it sold six times platinum, over 1.8 million copies, in the UK and three million copies in total, making Melua the biggest selling UK female artist of 2004. Her second album, Piece by Piece (Katie Melua album)|Piece by Piece (including Batt's song " Nine Million Bicycles ") was released in September 2005, and to date has sold 3.5 million copies in Europe, going to number one in the UK, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and achieving top five chart positions in eight other countries.
In 2008, Batt started the year with one concert in Munich and a radio concert tour in Germany, to promote his new album, ''A Songwriter's Tale , a compilation album of his hits, some sung by himself and most of them newly recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Henry Spinetti , Ray Cooper , Chris Spedding , Mitch Dalton and Tim Harries .
His band toured with Spinetti (drums), Spedding (guitar), Harries (bass), Frank Gallagher (keyboards and violins), Luis Jardim (percussion) and Florence Rawlings (vocals and background vocals). After she completed her education, Batt signed Rawlings to Dramatico. He produced her album, A Fool In Love , and wrote six of its twelve songs http://www.dramatico.com/artists.html Dramatico.com ("The Only Woman In The World", "Jump On The Wagon", "Wolf Man", "Hard To Get", "Can't Hold Your Hand", and "Love Can Be A Battlefield").
;Notes ''Biography quoted from various sources, mostly from Batt's http://www.mikebatt.com official website Reflist|2
External links
http://www.mikebatt.com Official website
http://www.dramatico.com/ Dramatico website
http://www.mikebatt.de/ German fan website
http://sodajerker.com/episode-5-mike-batt Audio interview on the Sodajerker on Songwriting podcast
Discogs artist
Use dmy dates|date=August 2010 Persondata | NAME =Batt, Mike | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION =British songwriter, musician and record producer | DATE OF BIRTH =6 February 1949 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Southampton , England | DATE OF DEATH = | PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Batt, Mike Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:British music arrangers Category:English record producers Category:English songwriters Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:People from Southampton
