Cyril Watters
Настоящее имя: Cyril Watters
Об исполнителе:
British composer, arranger and pianist. Born: 13 February 1907 London, England. Died: 24 November 1984 London, England. From an early age, Cyril had a strong desire to write music. At the age of 12 he cajoled his sister and friends to assist him in staging an operetta. In his teens he became known locally, playing the piano at dances, concerts and social events, and was a member of the New Shaftesbury Dance Band. Cyril sent songs to various publishers, but he kept getting them rejected. In 1932 he won £50 in a Daily Mail ‘New Rhythm’ contest, and a year later he devotde himself full time to music. In 1935, when he signed a contract with music publishers Francis, Day and he joined the Performing Rights Society, while performing piano as his main source of income. After serving in the war, Cyril joined Lawrence Wright’s Music Publishers as an arranger, where he remained until 1950. He was mostly a staff arranger with publishers such as Chappell (working on music by Robert Farnon and others), Watters wrote over 250 mood music compositions for many London publishers’ recorded music libraries, especially for the exclusive use of radio, television and film companies. From this source came his ‘Willow Waltz’ (used by BBC Television as the signature tune for the television serial The World Of Tim Frazer). The song won him an Ivor Novello Award in 1960. He also wrote the music for ‘White Wedding’ which sold over 100, 000 copies when recorded by S for HMV by Sheila Southern with the Mike Sammes Singers and Frank Cordell and his Orchestra in 1962. During the 1960s he served as Secretary of the Light Music Society, in which capacity he generously assisted many fellow writers. Cyril went into semi-retirement during the 1970s, although he continued to compose and arrange.