Tony Hazzard

Professional

• Genre: Songwriter

Biography

Tony Hazzard graduated from Durham University in 1966 with a BA in Latin, English, and Philosophy and, by a quirk of fate, went straight into the music business.

He began as a solo singer featuring in classic sixties television shows such as Ready Steady Go and Thank Your Lucky Stars, but it soon became clear that his forte was songwriting and, during a three year period, from 1966 to 1969, he wrote six top twenty hits for the likes of Manfred Mann (Fox On The Run & Ha Ha Said The Clown), The Hollies (Listen To Me), The Tremeloes (Hello World), Lulu (Me The Peaceful Heart), and Herman's Hermits (You Won't Be Leaving). He also had songs recorded by Gene Pitney (Maria Elena), Dave Berry (Love Has Gone Out Of Your Life), Simon Dupree and The Big Sound (The Eagle Flies Tonight), Nana Mouskouri (Mamma), Cliff Richard (The Sound Of The Candyman's Trumpet), Hall & Oates (The Princess And The Soldier) and The Yardbirds (Fade Away Maureen & Ha Ha Said The Clown), culminating in 1974 with another Top Twenty hit for Andy Williams (I Think I'm Over Getting Over You).

During this time he also wrote and produced television jingles, and wrote theme tunes for BBC and ITV series respectively. One jingle won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. He also sidelined as a session singer and guitarist working with the likes of James Last, Long John Baldry and Elton John, featuring on three of the latter's albums (Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection & Honky Chateau) and appearing on stage with him at his first Royal Festival Hall concert.

In 1969 he recorded his first album, mainly a collection of the demos of the hits, entitled Tony Hazzard sings Tony Hazzard. A version on CD was released earlier this year by Revola Records.

1971 saw the release of his second album Loudwater House followed in 1973 by Was That Alright, Then? A double CD of these albums was released on the Sanctuary label in 2004, under the title Go North – The Bronze Anthology. During the early seventies he also toured extensively with his band, featuring musicians who had played on the albums.

In 1974 he moved to Cornwall and contemplated leaving the music business, but a visit to Nashville and Los Angeles in the late seventies sparked another creative period during which he wrote many songs which have never been published. In 1977 he won a Citation Of Achievement from BMI, one of the American equivalents of The Performing Right Society in the UK, for one of his sixties hits, Fox On The Run, which, in the intervening years, had traversed the atlantic and become a bluegrass standard. It has since been recorded by the majority of bluegrass and country artistes, including Tom T. Hall, Bill Monroe, The Country Gentlemen, George Jones, Ricky Skaggs, Flat & Scruggs, Doc Watson, and Bare Naked Ladies.

A whirlwind tour of the world in 1980, aimed at re-kindling an active life in the music business, proved fruitless and he resolved to leave the business for good and move in a different direction. He retrained as a counsellor and therapist, gaining a Diploma in Humanistic Psychology and training in Transpersonal Psychology, and began a private practice alongside some writing work. In 1990 he was invited to become the Treatment Director of Broadreach House, a drug and alcohol rehab, where he worked for seven years. Between 1997 and 2005 he worked freelance, occasionally returning to Broadreach as a support counsellor and working as a consultant for another treatment centre. In 2005 he was asked to take over the management of Closereach, a seventeen-bed drug and alcohol rehab for men, where he still works.

A founder member of Sterts Arts Centre, he has written music for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello, and acted and sung in many productions, most notably as Othello, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and Fagin in Oliver. He has been a Sterts board member on and off for many years. Despite the day job, the music business still has a hold: he is still writing songs and currently recording another album.