Matt Monro
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Matt Monro (December 1, 1930 (or 1932, say some sources) - February 7, 1985) was a ballad singer of the 1960s and one of great international postwar entertainers. Throughout his 30-year career he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls and stadiums across the globe, from Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. He sold more than 25 million records during his lifetime, imbuing each one with his elegant blend of majesty, sincerity, and superior technique.
He was born Terence Parsons in Shoreditch, London. Affectionately nicknamed "the singing bus driver" (because one of his many occupations prior to achieving fame was driving the Number 27 bus from Highgate to Teddington), he got his first break in 1956 when he became a featured vocalist with the BBC Show Band. An important influence on his early career was pianist Winifred Atwell, who became his mentor, provided him with his stage name, and helped him sign with Decca Records.
In 1957 Monro released "Blue and Sentimental," a collection of standards that, according to legend, he recorded in his bus driver's jacket after rushing to the studio after work. Despite the album's critical acclaim, Monro languished among the many young male singers trying to break through at the end of that decade, many of them emulating Frankie Vaughan by trolling for success with home-grown covers of American hits. (Monro himself even did a "Garden of Eden.") A short contract with Fontana followed, and those recordings find Monro still trying to find the right commercial touch.
By the end of the 1950s, Monro's mid-decade flash of fame had burned out, and he returned to relative obscurity. He and his wife Mickie lived from her wages as a song plugger and his royalties from a "Camay" TV jingle. In 1959 he recorded a country pastiche song, "Bound for Texas," for The Chaplin Revue, a feature-length film released by Charlie Chaplin compiling three of his old First National shorts. It would be the first of many Matt Monro soundtrack themes.
In 1960, George Martin was looking for a singer to record the Sinatra-style ditty that opened the album "Songs For Swinging Sellers," to be used strictly as a guide for Sellers to imitate. Martin offered it to Monro, and when Sellers heard the recording he decided to use it as-is, but bill Monro as "Fred Flange." Though it was a demoralizing experience at the time, the incident developed into a lifelong friendship with Martin, who subsequently asked Monro to begin recording with him for EMI's Parlophone. Their second single, "Portrait Of My Love," reached number two in the British charts and finally established Monro as a star.
The following year, he was named Top International Act by Billboard magazine. His follow-up hits included "My Kind Of Girl" (1961), "Softly As I Leave You" (1962) and the title song from the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963). In 1964, he represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest, singing "I Love the Little Things." (He finished second behind Italy's 16-year-old Gigliola Cinquetti.) He had a major hit with the The Beatles' "Yesterday" in 1965, releasing the first single of the most recorded song of all time (The Beatles demurred), and in 1966 he sang the Oscar-winning title song for the film, Born Free, which became his primary signature tune.
Monro achieved notoriety in the U.S. when "My Kind Of Girl" (1961) and "Walk Away" (1964) hit the Top 40. In 1966, following the death of Nat "King" Cole, EMI moved Monro from Parlophone to Capitol to maintain an A&R balance on the L.A.-based label. (He had been released by EMI in America previously on the Liberty label). After relocating to California and recording several albums with American arrangers, Monro returned to England and began appearing on EMI's Columbia label, his final U.S. album release being Close To You (1970). He continued touring and recording until just before his death, releasing a single and promoting it throughout England and Australia in 1984. In one of his final appearances he praised Boy George, noting the importance of quality recordings in all musical genres.
Monro died from liver cancer in 1985 aged 54, leaving a widow, Mickie, and three children: Mitchell, Michele, and Matthew. The 20th anniversary of his passing spotlighted the continuing interest in his music, with a Top 10 tribute compilation CD (UK), a No. 1 concert DVD (UK), a BBC documentary, and an official Web site [1] all appearing in 2005. His daughter Michele has driven many of these projects.
In Fall 2005 Matt Monro Jr. toured the United Kingdom with a tribute concert commemorating the anniversary. Also, EMI rereleased Matt Sings Monro, a 1995 "duets" album that combined his voice with the senior Monro's. Mitchell, a professional pilot, died of a heart attack in 2004.
In recent years, many singers riding the resurging wave of retro-pop have cited Matt Monro as a strong influence, including Michael Buble, Monica Mancini, and Rick Astley. Musicians' biographies regularly note his stylistic influence on their subjects, including Cass Elliot and Karen Carpenter.
Most of Monro's recordings were produced or overseen by Martin, ensuring a timelessness to both the artistic and technical qualities of the singer's discography. Unlike his contemporaries, Monro sang very few of the Tin Pan Alley standards popular in today's repertoires. Instead, he and Martin searched for material written by promising newcomers and commissioned English lyrics for super-melodies by innovative European composers. One of the most in-demand soundtrack singers of his time, he also covered many of the most popular stage and screen songs of the 1950s and 1960s. Over the years, his recordings featured arrangements by Johnnie Spence, Sid Feller, Billy May, John Barry, Buddy Bregman, Kenny Clayton, Colin Keyes, and Martin himself. Monro also teamed with Nelson Riddle and Billy May for classic BBC concerts.
While Monro's sometime nickname as "the British Sinatra" lingers on, there is a quite marked difference in the two singers. Much of that talk was because Monro popped on the music scene at the same time as the other Sinatra disciples, and it was easy to use his Britishness as a lazy differentiator. It also has been noted by critic Will Friedwald that Monro sang many more Sinatra numbers than Sinatra covered Monro ones ("Softly As I Leave You," "My Kind Of Girl," "Born Free," and a reportedly abandoned "Walk Away"), but the fact is that Monro recorded very few songs "associated" with Sinatra..."My Way," "Strangers In The Night," "This Is All I Ask," "Fly Me To The Moon." True, there were popular songs that they both covered, but Monro never went after Sinatra's material as Friedwald implies. Rather, Monro sought material from the alternate sources described above. He did, however, freely and regularly hail Sinatra as the very best at what they did.
Vocally, there was a wide gulf: Sinatra famously approached songs with an evenly aggressive attitude, while there was a disarming humility in the Englishman's delivery that allowed his big notes to explode with breathtaking drama. For that reason, a music critic recently used the unlikely term "edgy" to describe the singer's style. Monro's 1968 recording of "September Song" is a perfect example of this actual differentiating quality in Monro's style.