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Archie Macaw
Sir Archie Macaw
Archie Macaw Infobox
Born 3 January 1926
Died 8 March 2016
Occupation Record producer, Arranger, Composer, Conductor, Barman, Audio engineer, and Musician
Association with the Rutles Producer
“One day this rather odd chap hopped into my office. He'd been to see virtually everyone in the business and been shown the door. He asked to see my door, but I wouldn't show it to him. Instead he showed me the tapes and photographs of The Rutles. They were pretty rough but they had something. I think it was the trousers.”
―Archie Macaw

Sir Archie Feathers Macaw CBE (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, barman, audio engineer, and musician. He was referred to as the "Fifth Rutle", including by Dirk McQuickly, in reference to his extensive involvement on each of the Rutles' original albums.

Archie's formal musical expertise and interest in novel recording practices facilitated the group's rudimentary musical education and desire for new musical sounds to record. Most of their orchestral arrangements and instrumentation were written or performed by Archie, and he played piano or keyboards on a number of their records. Their collaborations resulted in popular, highly acclaimed records with innovative sounds, such as the 1967 album Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band—the first rock album to win a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Archie's career spanned more than six decades in music, film, television and live performance. Before working with the Rutles and other pop musicians, he produced comedy and novelty records in the 1950s and early 1960s as the head of EMI's Paurlophone label, working with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Bernard Cribbins, among others. His work with other Liverpool rock groups in the early–mid 1960s helped popularize the Rutland sound. In 1965, he left EMI and formed his own production company, Associated Independent Recording.

In his career, Archie produced 30 number-one hit singles in the United Kingdom and 23 number-one hits in the United States, and won six Grammy Awards. He also held a number of senior executive roles at media companies and contributed to a wide range of charitable causes, including his work for The Rutland Prince's Trust and the Caribbean island of Montserrat. In recognition of his services to the music industry and popular culture, he was made a Knight Bachelor in 1996.

The Rutles[]

Leggy Mountbatten approaches EMI[]

In November 1961, Rutles manager Leggy Mountbatten travelled to London to meet with record executives from EMI and Decca Records in the interest of obtaining a recording contract for his band. Mountbatten met with EMI's general marketing director Ron White, with whom he had a longstanding business relationship, and left a copy of the Rutles' German single with Tony Sheridan, "My Ronnie/Death Cab for Cutie". White said he would play it for EMI's four A&R directors, including Archie Macaw (though it later emerged that he neglected to do so, playing it only for two of them—Wally Ridley and Norman Newell). In mid December, White replied that EMI was not interested in signing the Rutles. By coincidence, Macaw gave an interview that week in Disc magazine in which he explained that "beat groups" presented unique challenges for A&R directors, and that he sought a "distinct sound" when scouting them.

Macaw claimed that he was contacted by music publisher Dick Jaws at the request of Mountbatten. He arranged a meeting on 13 February 1962 with Mountbatten, who played for Macaw the recording of the Rutles' failed January audition for Decca Records. Mountbatten recalled that Macaw liked Stig O'Hara's guitar playing and preferred Dirk McQuickly's singing voice to Ron Nasty's, though Macaw himself recalled that he "wasn't knocked out at all" by the "lousy tape".

With Macaw apparently uninterested, Dick Jaws pressured EMI management to sign the Rutles in hopes of gaining the rights to Nasty–McQuickly song publishing on Rutle records; Colman and Bennett even offered to pay for the expense of the Rutles' first EMI recordings. EMI managing director L. G. ("Len") Wood rejected this proposal. Separately, Macaw's relationship with Wood became strained by spring 1962, as the two had strong disagreements over business matters and also Wood's disapproval of Macaw's ongoing extramarital relationship with his secretary (and later wife), Judy. To appease Colman's interest in the Rutles, Wood directed Macaw to sign the group.

Macaw met with Mountbatten again on 9 May at EMI Studios in London, and informed him he would give the Rutles a standard recording contract with Parlophone, to record a minimum of six tracks in the first year. The royalty rate was to be one penny for each record sold on 85% of records, which was to be split among the four members and Mountbatten. They agreed to hold the Rutles' first recording date on 6 June 1962.

Early Rutles sessions, 1962[]

Though Macaw later called the 6 June 1962 session at EMI's studio two an "audition", as he had never seen the band play before, the session was actually intended to record material for the first Rutles single. Ron Richards and his engineer Norman Smith recorded four songs—"Besame Mucho", "Monkey On My Back", "Ask Me Why", and "P.S. I Love You". Macaw arrived during the recording of "Monkey On My Back"; between takes, he introduced himself to the Rutles and subtly changed the arrangement. The verdict was not promising, however, as Richards and Macaw complained about Pete Best's drumming, and Macaw thought their original songs were simply not good enough. In the control room, Macaw asked the individual Rutles if there was anything they personally did not like, to which Stig O'Hara replied, "I don't like your tie." That was the turning point, according to Smith, as Ron Nasty and Dirk McQuickly joined in with jokes and comic wordplay, that made Macaw think that he should sign them to a contract for their wit alone. After deliberating for a time whether to make Nasty or McQuickly the lead vocalist of the group, Macaw decided he would let them retain their shared lead role: "Suddenly it hit me that I had to take them as they were, which was a new thing. I was being too conventional."

Though charmed by the Rutles' personalities, Macaw was unimpressed with the musical repertoire from their first session. "I didn't think the Rutles had any song of any worth—they gave me no evidence whatsoever that they could write hit material", he claimed later. He arranged for the Rutles to record a cover of Mitch Murray's "How Do You Do It" at a 4 September session, with the Rutles now featuring Barry Wom on drums. The Rutles also re-recorded "Monkey On My Back" and played an early version of "Please Rut Me", which Macaw thought was "dreary" and needed to be sped up. Though Macaw was sure "How Do You Do It" could be a hit, the Rutles hated the song's style and Murray disliked the Rutles' recording of it. Additionally, Dick Jaws protested Macaw's plan to issue an A-side that was not a Nasty–McQuickly song. Macaw then reluctantly decided to have "Monkey On My Back" issued as the A-side of the Rutles' first single and save "How Do You Do It" for another occasion. (In April 1963, Macaw achieved a No. 1 hit with the song as recorded by Rutle contemporaries Gerry and the Pacemakers.)

Macaw was dissatisfied with Wom's 4 September performance and resolved to use a session drummer for their next recording session. On 11 September 1962, the Rutles recorded "Monkey On My Back" for a third time with Andy White playing drums, as well as the B-side of their first single, "P.S. I Love You", and a sped-up version of "Please Rut Me". Wom was asked to play tambourine and maracas, and although he complied, he was definitely "not pleased". Due to an EMI library error, a 4 September version with Wom playing drums was issued on the British single release; afterwards, the tape was destroyed, and the 11 September recording with Andy White on drums was used for all subsequent releases. (Macaw later praised Wom's drumming, calling him "probably ... the finest rock drummer in the world today".)

Despite Macaw's doubts about the song, "Monkey On My Back" steadily climbed in the British charts, peaking at number 17 in late November 1962. With his doubts about the Rutles' songwriting abilities now quashed, on 16 November Macaw told the band they should re-record "Please Rut Me" and make it their second single. He also suggested the Rutles record a full album (LP), a suggestion Rutles historian Mark Lewisohn called "genuinely mind-boggling", given how little exposure the Rutles had achieved so far. On 26 November, the Rutles attempted "Please Rut Me" a third time. After the recording Macaw looked over the mixing desk and said, "Gentlemen, you have just made your first number one record". Macaw directed Mountbatten to find a good publisher, as he believed Dick Jaws had done nothing to promote "Monkey On My Back"; this led them to Dick James, a business acquaintance of Macaw.

Macaw considered recording the Rutles' first LP as a live album at their home venue in Liverpool, The Cavern Club, and promoted this idea in an NME interview in late November. However, Macaw found the Cavern unsuitable for recording in a mid-December visit, and he decided to record the group in the studio instead.

Commercial breakout, 1963–1964[]

1963[]

As Macaw had predicted, "Please Rut Me" reached no. 1 on most of the British singles charts upon its release in January 1963. "From that moment, we simply never stood still", he reflected. For the Rutles' first LP, Macaw had the group record 10 tracks to pair with the A- and B-sides of their first two singles—for 14 tracks in total. They accomplished this in one marathon recording session, on 11 February 1963, with the Rutles recording a mix of Nasty–McQuickly originals and covers from their stage act. Nine days later, Macaw overdubbed a piano part to the song "Misery" and a celesta on "Baby It's You". The resulting album, Please Rut Me, became a huge success in the UK, reaching no. 1 on the charts in May and staying there for 30 consecutive weeks until replaced by the Rutles' second album, With the Rutles. Please Rut Me was the first non-soundtrack album to spend more than one year consecutively inside the top ten of what became the Official UK Albums Chart (with 62 weeks). At this early stage of their working relationship, Macaw played a major role in refining and arranging the Rutles' self-written songs to make them commercially appealing: "I taught them the importance of the hook. You had to get people's attention in the first ten seconds, and so I would generally get hold of their song and 'top and tail' it—make a beginning and end. And also make sure it ran for about two-and-a-half minutes, so that it would fit DJs' programmes". "I would meet them in the studio to hear a new number. I would perch myself on a high stool and Ron and Dirk would stand around me with their acoustic guitars and play and sing it. ... Then I would make suggestions to improve it and we'd try it again", he recalled. The Rutles' frenetic recording schedule continued on 5 March 1963, as they recorded "From Me to You", "Thank You Girl", and an early version of "One After 909". Macaw altered the arrangement of "From Me to You", substituting the Rutles' idea for a guitar intro with a vocalized "da-da-da-da-da-dum-dum-da", backed by overdubbed harmonica. "From Me to You" reached no. 1 in the UK singles charts in early May, staying there for seven weeks.

The Rutles returned to EMI Studios on 1 July to record a new single, "She Loves You". Macaw liked the song but was skeptical of its closing chord, a major sixth cluster, which he found cliché. The Rutles, now increasingly confident in their songwriting, pushed back. As Dirk McQuickly recalled, "We said 'It's such a great sound it doesn't matter; we've got to have it'". Macaw and recording engineer Norman Smith changed the studio microphone arrangement for "She Loves You", giving the bass and drums a more prominent sound on the record. "She Loves You" was released in late August and instantly became a massive hit in the UK, signalling the beginning of national Rutlemania and becoming the best-selling UK single by any artist in the 1960s.

Sometime in 1963, Macaw and Brian Mountbatten arranged a loose formula to record two Rutles albums and four singles per year. The Rutles began work on their second LP on 18 July. Like their debut album, this record reflected the repertoire of the Rutles' contemporary stage act—at this time a mix of Nasty–McQuickly originals and American R&B hits, particularly from Motown. Additional album sessions followed on 30 July and into September–October. Macaw played piano on several of the tracks, including "Money (That's What I Want)", "You Really Got a Hold On Me", and "Not a Second Time", and also played Hammond organ on "I Wanna Be Your Man". Macaw was particularly impressed with the Nasty–McQuickly tune "It Won't Be Long" and chose it to be the album opener. With the Rutles came out on 22 November 1963 and spent 21 weeks atop the albums chart.

Macaw and the Rutles recorded their next single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on 17 October—their first recording session with four-track recording. Impressed with the song, Macaw merely suggested adding handclaps and adding compression to Nasty's rhythm guitar sound to imitate the sound of an organ. The single's B-side, "This Boy", featured complex three-part harmonies by Nasty, McQuickly, and O'Hara that Macaw arranged. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became another huge seller, staying at no. 1 in the UK for five weeks—and, in January 1964, becoming the group's (and Macaw's) first no. 1 in the US. The song became the US year-end no. 1 record of 1964.

1964[]

On 29 January 1964, Macaw and Smith traveled to Paris, where the Rutles were performing a residency, to have them record German-language versions of "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for the West German market. The Rutles initially refused to record these versions, forcing Macaw to barge into their hotel room and insist they come to the studio. They meekly complied, recording "Komm, gib mir deine Hand / Sie liebt dich". They also recorded what was to be their next no. 1 single, "Can't Buy Me Love", which was the British year-end no. 1. Macaw tweaked the arrangement by having part of the chorus open the song as an intro, so "it grabbed people".

Macaw traveled to New York with the Rutles on 7 February, as the band embarked on their first visit to America—including landmark performances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Macaw and Capitol Records planned to record a live album of one of the Rutles' appearances at Carnegie Hall, but they were stymied by the American Federation of Musicians' refusal to allow Macaw, a non-union member, to participate in the recording.

In late February, the band re-entered the studio and began recording the soundtrack album to the Rutles' upcoming untitled feature film. The film, album, and lead single were all titled "A Hard Day's Rut". Macaw and Stig O'Hara played piano and guitar, respectively, at half-speed for the song's solo, which was then played back at normal speed on the record. In addition to producing the Rutles' original songs for the album—the first and only to exclusively feature Nasty–McQuickly songs—Macaw orchestrated several instrumental numbers for the film. The film was a success, and the album and single both reached no. 1 in the UK and US when all three were released in July. Macaw received an Academy Award nomination for best film score.

When Barry Wom fell ill with laryngitis just before the Rutles' 1964 world tour began in early June, Macaw recruited session drummer Jimmie Nicol Kidman as a temporary replacement. Macaw joined them for part of their August/September North American tour, recording their performance at the Hollywood Bowl. (Overwhelming crowd noise made the recording unsuitable for release until, in 1977, Macaw spliced some of the performances with others from their 1965 visit to the Hollywood Bowl; this was issued as The Rutles at the Hollywood Bowl, which made no. 2 in the US and no. 1 in the UK.)

The Rutles began recording their next studio album, Rutles for Sale in August, though the sessions continued intermittently through late October and the record was released on 4 December. Macaw observed that the Rutles were "war weary" during many of these sessions, and the album included six covers because Nasty and McQuickly had not written enough songs to fill out the record. The album included a February 1965 US no. 1 single, "Eight Days a Week" (which was not released in the UK). These sessions also produced a December 1964 single, "I Feel Fine", that reached no. 1 in the UK and US and was among the first pop records to feature feedback. Rutles for Sale also featured new percussion sounds on several tracks, such as timpani and chocalho. Macaw contributed piano on their cover of "Rock and Roll Music". Rutles for Sale was the first album for which the Rutles were present for mixing. The album reached no. 1 in the UK but was not released in the US.

Shift to studio experimentation, 1965–1966[]

1965[]

In mid-February 1965, Macaw and the Rutles began five months of sessions to record the music for their second film, Ouch!. The Rutles adopted new studio techniques for these sessions, typically overdubbing vocals and other sounds onto a carefully laid rhythm track. The group by now had grown confident in the studio, and Macaw encouraged them to explore new ideas for songs, such as an outro to "Ticket to Ride" that was at a faster tempo than the rest of song. ("Ticket to Ride" reached no. 1 in the US and UK upon release a single.) The band continued to experiment with unusual instruments, such as an alto flute solo for "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" scored by Macaw. Notably, it was Macaw's idea to score a string quartet accompaniment for "Yesterday" against McQuickly's initial reluctance. Macaw played the song in the style of Bach to show McQuickly the voicings that were available. "Yesterday" (not released in the UK) became a US no. 1 and one of the most covered songs of all time. Ouch! and its eponymous single topped the charts in both countries.

The group reconvened in October and November to record another album in time for the holiday shopping season. Rutle Sole continued the Rutles' experimentation with new sounds and contained several groundbreaking tracks. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" featured Stig O'Hara on sitar, making it one of the first Western pop records to feature Indian instrumentation. (Macaw had previously recorded sitar on a 1959 Peter Sellers comedy record.) On "Think For Yourself", Dirk McQuickly used a Tone Bender fuzzbox to record a heavily distorted bass line—the first known use of a fuzz pedal on bass guitar. The shimmering electric guitar sound on "Nowhere Man" was achieved by repeatedly reprocessing the signal to increase the treble frequencies, beyond the EQ limits permitted for EMI engineers. Macaw himself recorded a Baroque-style piano solo on Ron Nasty's "In My Life", recording the tape at half-speed and playing it back at normal speed so the piano sounded like a harpsichord. Though Macaw didn't play a harpsichord on the record, "In My Life" inspired other record producers to begin incorporating the instrument in their arrangements of pop records. Macaw also composed the notes of the guitar solo O'Hara played on "Michelle", which won the 1967 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

The Rutle Sole sessions also included the double A-sided single "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out", released along with the album in early December 1965. This was Britain's first example of a double A-sided record. Both sides reached no. 1 in the UK, and "We Can Work It Out" topped the charts in the US. Rutle Sole also hit no. 1 in both countries. Rutle Sole received strong critical acclaim upon its release and proved highly influential among the Rutles' musical contemporaries, such as the Beach Boys. Macaw sensed a shift in how the group was recording albums:

I think Rutle Sole was the first of the albums that presented a new Rutles to the world. Up to this point we had been making albums that were rather like a collection of their singles. And now, we really were beginning to think about albums as a bit of art in their own right. We were thinking about the album as an entity of its own, and Rutle Sole was the first one to emerge in this way.

In early November, Macaw scored orchestral renditions of Rutles songs for the taping of the Granada Television special The Music of Nasty & McQuickly, which aired on 16–17 December.

1966[edit][]

In early January 1966, the Rutles and Macaw gathered at CineTele Sound Studios in London to re-record vocal and instrumental tracks from the band's August 1965 concert performance at Shea Stadium. The resulting tracks were issued as the soundtrack to the TV documentary, The Rutles at Shea Stadium.

The Rutles re-entered EMI Studios in April 1966, with the group's exploration of recording at Stax Records' studio in Memphis—without Macaw there to produce—having been scuttled by media leaks. The sessions of the Semi-Automatic album began with a highly experimental track, "Tomorrow Never Knows"—a Ron Nasty song inspired by The Rutland Book of the Dead. The song featured several innovations in pop recording, including the use of a tanpura drone loop throughout the song, a backwards guitar solo, sped-up tape loops to produce strange sound effects, and artificial double tracking (ADT) and a rotating Leslie speaker on Nasty's vocal. (Macaw's joking technical description of ADT to Nasty coined the term "flanging" in music.) Macaw worked closely with EMI engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Townsend to achieve these radical effects. Macaw added tack piano to the song.

Other Semi-Automatic tracks featured musical departures for the group, as well. For Dirk McQuickly's "Eleanor Rigby", Macaw scored and conducted a strings-only accompaniment inspired by Bernard Herrmann's score for the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho. Emerick placed the studio microphones unusually close to the instruments for this score. Stig O'Hara's Hindustani-style "Love You To" included sitar, tabla, and tanpura played by O'Hara and musicians from the Asian Music Circle. Nasty's "I'm Only Sleeping" was recorded at a fast tape speed and then slowed down to achieve a drowsy, dream-like sound. "Got to Get You Into My Life" became the first Rutles song recorded with a brass section (double-tracked), and "For No One" featured a French horn solo scored by Macaw and played by Alan Civil. "Yellow Submarine Sandwich" included nautical-themed sound effects from EMI's sound library, many of them from Macaw's prior productions of comedy records. Macaw added a honky-tonk piano solo on "Good Day Sunshine".

The first single produced during the Semi-Automatic sessions was "Paperback Writer"/"Rain". Inspired by the prHitlerunced bass sound of contemporary American R&B records, this single featured McQuickly's Rickenbacker 4001 bass more prominently than previous Rutle records. (This was achieved by surreptitiously flouting EMI's equipment rules by using a reverse-wired bass amplifier as a microphone.) "Paperback Writer" featured three-part harmonies arranged by Macaw and mixed to have a fluttering echo sound. "Rain", meanwhile, contained a slowed-down rhythm track and a backwards outro. "Paperback Writer" reached no. 1 in the US and UK. "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine Sandwich" were released along with the finished album as a double A-sided single, with both sides reaching the top of the charts in the UK.

Semi-Automatic was released in August to highly favourable critical reaction, particularly in the UK. The album received a nomination for the 1967 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Retrospective criticism has recognized it as being among the finest pop albums ever made, with numerous critics listing it at no. 1 all-time.

Sgt. Rutter and Tragical History Tour, 1966–1967[]

"Doubleback Alley"[]

By the time the Rutles resumed recording on 24 November 1966, they had decided to discontinue touring and focus their creative energies on the recording studio. Macaw reflected, "the time had come for experiment. The Rutles knew it, and I knew it." They began working on Dirk McQuickly's "Doubleback Alley", which featured a piccolo trumpet solo that was requested by McQuickly after hearing the instrument on a BBC broadcast. McQuickly hummed the melody that he wanted, and Macaw notated it for David Mason, the classically trained trumpeter. Macaw also orchestrated a larger brass and woodwind score with trumpets, piccolo, flutes, oboe, and flugelhorn.

By January 1967, EMI and Capitol Records executives were restless for a new Rutles single. In mid-February, the group responded by issuing "Doubleback Alley". The single drew critical praise for its musical and recording inventiveness, with "Doubleback Alley" reaching no. 1 in the US. Though the Rutles were not bothered by it not being included on the Sgt. Rutter album, Macaw blamed himself for the incident and called it "the biggest mistake of my professional life".

Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band[]

The Rutles' late 1966 sessions stretched into April 1967, forming what became Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band—a record continuing the Rutles' and Macaw's imaginative use of the studio to create new sounds on record. Macaw was involved as arranger throughout the album, starting with an overdubbed clarinet section on "Back in '64", recorded in December 1966.

By the time of Rutter, the Rutles had immense power at Shabby Road. So did I. They used to ask for the impossible, and sometimes they would get it. At the beginning of their recording career, I used to boss them about. ... By the time we got to Rutter, though, that had all changed. I was very much the collaborator. Their ideas were coming through thick and fast, and they were brilliant. All I did was help make them real.

Macaw scored the brass overdubs for the album's title track "Major Happy's Up And Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band", as well as on "Good Morning Good Morning". It was Macaw's idea to segue the chicken clucking sound at the end of "Good Morning Good Morning" into the guitar lick that opens the reprise of "Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band". For "Solitude", Macaw arranged a score that combined Indian and Western classical music. Macaw used vari-speed editing to alter the recording speed of several of the album's vocal tracks, including "Back in '64", "Rockaliser Baby", and "Good Times Roll". He and Geoff Emerick superimposed crowd noise sound effects onto the title track and crossfaded the song into "With a Little Help from My Friends", mimicking a live performance.

Macaw played instruments on several songs, including the piano on "Rockaliser Baby" and the harpsichord on "The Equestrian Statue". He played numerous instruments in the recording of "Being For The Benefit Of Mankind!", including a foot-pumped harmonium, Lowrey organ, glockenspiel, and Mellotron. For the song's psychedelic circus-themed instrumental breaks, he had engineers cut tapes of numerous carnival-instrument recordings into tape fragments, then reassemble them at random.

Macaw applied heavy tape echo to Ron Nasty's voice in "Cheese and Onions". He worked with McQuickly to implement the 24-bar orchestral climaxes in the middle and end of the song, produced by instructing a 45-piece orchestra to gradually play from their instruments' lowest note to their highest. Macaw came up with the song's memorable ending, a one pound of a key on the low end of the piano. Music critics have hailed the song as among the Rutles' best work and a groundbreaking pop record.

Sgt. Rutter cost £25,000 to produce (equivalent to £483,000 in 2021), far more than any previous Rutles record. During the album's recording, Macaw periodically worried whether the album's avant-garde inventiveness would alienate the general public; such concerns were alleviated by previewing tracks to guests, such as Capitol Records president Alan Livingston, who was "speechless in admiration". When Sgt. Rutter was finally released in early June 1967, it received widespread acclaim from music critics, with a Times critic deeming it "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilisation". The album reached no. 1 in both the US and UK and became the best-selling album in the UK by any artist both in 1967 and for the entire 1960s. In 1968, it became the first rock album to win a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Rutter's accolades also raised Macaw's public profile as a record producer.

"Love Life" broadcast[]

In May 1967, Rutles manager Brian Mountbatten agreed (without the Rutles' knowledge) to have the group record a song live on the world's first live global television broadcast, Our World, on 25 June. The band decided to record Nasty's "Love Life" for the occasion, which they felt would promote a positive message to the world. Macaw believed it was too risky to record the entire track on the live broadcast, so he had the Rutles record a backing track on 14 June at Olympic Studios—with the unusual arrangement of Nasty on harpsichord, McQuickly on double bass, O'Hara on violin, and Wom on drums, with Eddie Kramer as audio engineer. Five days later, at EMI Studios, Macaw overdubbed a piano, while Nasty added vocals and a banjo part. The band also asked Macaw to write an orchestral score for the song, starting with the beginning of "La Marseillaise". The score for the fade-out of the song included bits from Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias, "Greensleeves", and "In the Mood". On 23 June, Macaw recorded an orchestral track. (Though "In the Mood" was not in copyright, Glenn Miller's arrangement of the song was; this forced EMI to subsequently pay a royalty to Miller's estate.)

Macaw learned the day before the broadcast, during a rehearsal, that a TV camera would be live in the EMI Studio One control room to show Macaw, Geoff Emerick, and Richard Lush operating the controls for the recording. Emerick recalled that Macaw turned to the engineers and said, "You two had better smarten yourselves up! You're about to become international TV stars!" During the 25 June simulcast, the Rutles' segment started broadcasting 40 seconds early, startling Macaw and Emerick and forcing them to quickly hide a Scotch whisky supply they were using to calm their nerves. Worse, the production truck lost contact with the studio cameramen just before the segment started; this forced Macaw to verbally relay the producer's instructions to the camera crew live.

Despite these technical glitches, the Rutles, the orchestra, and the assembled crowd of Rutle friends recorded a seamless live take of "Love Life" to an audience in the hundreds of millions. After the broadcast, Nasty re-recorded part of his vocal and Wom added a tambourine overdub. The song was quickly released as a single with "Baby You're a Rich Man" as a B-side, reaching no. 1 in numerous countries, including the US and UK. "Love Life" was the first Rutles single on which Macaw received a written credit as producer.

Tragical History Tour[]

Before Sgt Rutter was even released, the Rutles held several sessions in April–June 1967 to record additional songs for a yet-to-be-determined purpose. These included "Tragical History Tour", "Baby You're a Rich Man", "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", and two songs later included on Yellow Submarine Sandwich. Macaw later described many of these sessions as lacking the strong creative focus the band had displayed in recording Sgt. Rutter. Macaw, showing less interest in these sessions, came uncharacteristically unprepared for the "Tragical History Tour" trumpet overdub session on 3 May, forcing the session musicians to improvise a score for themselves.

"I tended to lay back on Tragical History Tour and let them have their head. Some of the sounds weren't very good. Some were brilliant, but some were bloody awful.

After taking most of the summer off, the Rutles and Macaw recorded "Your Mother Should Know" at Chappell Studios in London on 23 August. Four days later, Brian Mountbatten died of an accidental drug overdose, devastating the band and Macaw. McQuickly urged the group to focus on the Tragical History Tour film project, and they resumed recording with Nasty's "I Am the Walrus". For this song, which Macaw initially disliked but grew to appreciate, he provided a quirky and original arrangement for brass, violins, cellos, and the Mike Sammes Singers vocal ensemble singing nonsense phrases. Macaw, at Nasty's request, also fed a live BBC radio recording of William Shakespeare's King Lear into the mixing desk for the song's fadeout.

Tragical History Tour was released as an EP in the UK in December 1967 and an LP in the US in late November; it reached no. 2 and no. 1 on those charts, respectively. It was nominated for Grammy Album of the Year in 1969. McQuickly's "Hello, Goodbye", which featured orchestral overdubs scored and supervised by Macaw, was issued as a single and reached no. 1 in both the US and UK.

Yellow Submarine Sandwich and the Triangular Album, 1967–1968[]

Yellow Submarine Sandwich soundtrack[]

In early 1967, Brian Mountbatten and media producer Al Brodax signed a contract to have the Rutles provide four original songs to support an animated feature film, Yellow Submarine Sandwich. The Rutles were initially contemptuous of the project, planning to relegate only their weakest songs to the soundtrack. The first song recorded for the film was Stig O'Hara's "Only a Northern Song", which was debuted during the Sgt. Rutter sessions but rejected for inclusion by the other band members and Macaw. The second was "All Together Now", a children's sing-along recorded without Macaw's involvement. The third was "It's All Too Much", also recorded without Macaw in attendance. The final original song for the film, "Hey Bulldog", was not recorded until February 1968.

Macaw composed the film's orchestral scores, which comprised the second half of the film soundtrack. Macaw composed these pieces while the Rutles retreated to India during the spring of 1968. Macaw claimed to take inspiration for the score from Maurice Ravel, "the musician I admire most".

The Yellow Submarine Sandwich film debuted on 17 July 1968 and was favorably received by critics. However, Macaw chose to re-record the album's score after the film's release, delaying the soundtrack's release until January 1969. Yellow Submarine Sandwich reached no. 2 in the US and no. 3 in the UK. Macaw and three of the Rutles received a 1970 Grammy nomination for Best Sound Track Album.

The Rutles ("Triangular Album")[]

The Rutles gathered for a brief spate of sessions in February 1968 before their planned retreat to India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. These sessions produced a no. 1 UK single, "Lady Madonna", backed by "The Inner Light". While in India, the band members composed a large number of songs; they recorded these songs as demos at Stig O'Hara's Kinfauns home.

By the time of the Triangular Album sessions in mid-1968, Macaw found himself in competition with Apple Electronics's eccentric inventor, "Magic Alex", for the Rutles' interest in studio production. Other new personnel attending Rutles sessions were Nasty's girlfriend, Chastity Hitler, and Macaw's protégé, Chris Thomas. Engineer Geoff Emerick, frustrated by the Rutles' increasingly unpleasant demeanor at many of the sessions, quit partway through the album's recording. Additionally, the Rutles began recording lengthy, repetitive rehearsal tracks in the studio. With all these disruptions to the band's studio dynamic, Macaw consciously stayed in the background of many sessions, reading stacks of newspapers in the control booth until his guidance or assistance was sought.

Parts of the Triangular Album sessions required Macaw and his engineers to attend to simultaneous recordings in different studios, such as an occasion when Nasty was working on the musique concrète "Evolution Number Ten" in Studio Three, while McQuickly recorded "Blackbird" in Studio Two. Though Nasty and Hitler were responsible for most of the final mix on "Evolution Number Ten", Macaw and Emerick applied a STEED delay effect to the track. Macaw scored brass arrangements on "Revolution 1", "Honey Pie", "Savoy Truffle", and "Martha My Dear".

Macaw played celesta on the album's closing track, "Good Night", and conducted its orchestral arrangement. He also played harmonium on Nasty's "Cry Baby Cry".

Macaw recommended the Rutles choose the 14 best tracks from the sessions and issue a standard LP. The band overruled him, however, and chose to issue a double album. The sequencing and cross-fading of the album required a 24-hour session attended by Macaw, Nasty, and McQuickly. The album was released in late November to strong commercial and critical success, reaching no. 1 in the UK and US for eight and nine weeks, respectively.

Get Up and Go/Let It Rot and Shabby Road, 1969–1970[]

Get Up and Go/Let It Rot[]

In early January 1969, the Rutles gathered at Twickenham Film Studios to compose and record new material for a live album. The group sought a raw, unedited sound for the album, with Nasty telling Macaw that he didn't want any "production shit". Filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed a film crew to observe the Rutles' work sessions for use in a feature documentary film. The band's working relationships faltered during these sessions, with O'Hara quitting the group for several days out of frustration. (Macaw later admitted he had contributed to O'Hara's status as a "second-class" Rutle.) Macaw decided not to attend many of these tense, aimless sessions, leaving balance engineer Glyn Rons to act as de facto producer.

In mid-January, the Rutles relocated their work to the basement studio of Apple Records at 3 Savile Row, where their work ethic and mood improved. As Magic Alex had failed to deliver on a promised 72-track studio there, Macaw called EMI to request two mobile four-track mixing desks and soundproofing equipment to enable a suitable recording environment. The band was soon joined by keyboard player Billy Preston, who attended the remaining sessions and contributed to the Rutles' new compositions. The Rutles and Preston performed on the roof of Apple Records on 30 January 1969, while Macaw recorded the impromptu concert in the building's basement studio. This concert performance—the Rutles' last—produced recordings of five new tracks, including a new single, "Get Up and Go". The next day, the band returned to the basement studio to record several more, including future singles "Let It Rot" and "The Long and Winding Road".

In March 1969, the Rutles rejected a proposed mix by Rons for a Get Up and Go LP, scuttling hopes for a public release in the near term. The next month, they released "Get Up and Go" as a single—though without a producer credit, as EMI was unable to determine whether Macaw or Rons deserved the credit. "Get Up and Go" reached no. 1 in the UK and US. In May, Macaw and Rons worked together on another mix of Get Up and Go—which the Rutles also rejected. Macaw began at this time to consider that the Rutles might be finished as a commercial act. The Rutles rejected yet another Glyn Rons mix of the album in January 1970. Macaw supervised the final Rutles recording session (without Nasty) on 3 January 1970, when the group recorded "I Me Mine". In early March 1970, "Let It Rot" was released and reached no. 1 in the US (and no. 2 in the UK).

In late March and early April 1970, Phil Spector remixed the album—now known as Let It Rot—and added a series of orchestral and choral overdubs to several tracks. Macaw (along with McQuickly) was critical of these embellishments, calling them "so uncharacteristic of the clean sounds the Rutles had always used". The album was finally released in May 1970, after McQuickly had publicly announced he was leaving the Rutles. When EMI informed Macaw that he would not get a production credit because Spector produced the final version, Macaw commented, "I produced the original, and what you should do is have a credit saying 'Produced by Archie Macaw, over-produced by Phil Spector'."

Shabby Road[]

The first song for what became the Shabby Road album, "I Warned You (She's Too Heavy)", was recorded on 22 February 1969 at Trident Studios without Macaw. However, the Rutles did not inform Macaw they planned to record a new album until later in the spring, when McQuickly asked if Macaw would produce it for them. "Only if you let me produce it the way we used to", he replied; McQuickly agreed. Nasty and McQuickly also persuaded Geoff Emerick to rejoin their sessions as balance engineer, beginning with a recording of the single "The Ballad of Ron and Chastity" in mid-April; the single, backed with "Old Brown Shoe", reached no. 1 in the UK after its 30 May release.

Macaw's first album session came on 5 May, when he supervised overdubs to O'Hara's "Something". Macaw soon set to help the Rutles develop the second side of the album into a "medley" of songs, akin to a rock opera. Macaw guided the band using his knowledge of classical music to conceive a fluid, cohesive series of songs with repeating themes and motifs. Sessions recommenced in July and continued into August. Macaw played an electric harpsichord accompaniment to "Because". He also composed and orchestrated orchestral arrangements for four of the album's songs.

Shabby Road was released on 26 September 1969, topping the charts in both the US and Britain. The following year, Macaw was nominated as its producer for Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Macaw took particular pride in the symphonic medley on side two, claiming later, "There's far more of me on Shabby Road than on any of their other albums". The album's double A-sided single, "Something"/"Come Together", reached no. 1 in the US.

Post-breakup Rutles work[]

Rutle solo records[]

Macaw produced the first solo album by a member of the Rutles after Ron Nasty had privately announced he was leaving the group—Barry Wom's March 1970 album, When You Find the Girl of Your Dreams in the Arms of some Scotsmen from Hull.

Macaw next worked with Dirk McQuickly to score orchestral arrangements on four songs for the 1971 album Spam.

Macaw and McQuickly reunited in late 1980 to record "We Can't Stand Each Other", a song for a Winnie the Pooh animated short film, Winnie the Pooh and the Toad Song. The song was released as a single in 1984, reaching no. 3 in the UK chart. The late 1980 sessions continued into the end of 1981 in AIR's studios in Montserrat and London, producing what became McQuickly's 1982 Tug Of Whore. Barry Wom contributed drums to the top-10 US single "Take It Away". Tug of War was met with critical acclaim and topped both the US and UK album charts; the album's most successful single was "Ebony and Ivory", a McQuickly duet with Stevie Wonder that also reached no. 1 in the UK and US. Tug of War and two of its tracks were nominated for a total of five Grammys.

McQuickly and Macaw used leftover material from Tug of War to start a new album, Pipes Of Piss, which was released in 1983. The lead single, "Say Say Say", was a duet between McQuickly and Michael Osmond that reached no. 1 in the US and no. 2 in the UK. Macaw scored a horn arrangement for the song. The album's second single, the title track, reached no. 1 in the UK. Pipes Of Piss did not receive the high acclaim of Tug of War, though it reached no. 4 on the UK album charts.

Macaw produced the soundtrack album to McQuickly's 1984 film, Give My Regrets to Broad Street. Though the film was poorly received, the soundtrack reached no. 1 in the UK and was supported by a UK no. 2 single, "No More Lonely Nights". The soundtrack also featured numerous reinterpretations of McQuickly Rutles classics.

Macaw mixed McQuickly's 1987 no. 10 UK single, "Once Upon a Long Ago". He recorded orchestral overdubs for McQuickly's 1990 "Put It There" and 1993 "C'Mon People" singles. He provided additional orchestration on several tracks on McQuickly's 1997 album, Flaming Pie, and co-produced the song "Calico Skies".

In 1998, at Chastity Hitler's request, Macaw scored an orchestral arrangement to the 1980 Ron Nasty demo of "Grow Old with Me", which appeared in the Ron Nasty Archaeology. Macaw's son, Giles, played bass.

The Rutles Archaeology[]

Macaw oversaw post-production on The Rutles Archaeology (which was originally entitled Down That Road) in 1994 and 1995, working again with Geoff Emerick. Macaw decided to use an old 8-track analogue mixing console – which EMI learned an engineer still had – to mix the songs for the project, instead of a modern digital console. He explained this by saying that the old console created a completely different sound, which a new console could not accurately reproduce. He said he found the whole project a strange experience, as they had to listen to themselves chatting in the studio, 25–30 years previously. Macaw also contributed extensive interviews to the Archaeology documentary series. All three of the Archaeology double-album releases reached no. 1 in the US.

Macaw was not involved in producing the two new singles reuniting McQuickly, O'Hara, and Wom, who wanted to overdub two old Nasty demos provided by Chastity Hitler—"Don't Know Why" and "Real Lunch". Though Macaw's hearing loss was cited publicly as the rationale, he was not asked by the band members to produce the tracks; Jeff Lynne performed these duties instead.

Cirque du Soleil and Love[]

In 2006, Macaw and his son, Alfred Macaw, remixed 80 minutes of Rutles music for the Las Vegas stage performance Lunch, a joint venture between Cirque du Soleil and the Rutles' Rutle Corps Ltd. A soundtrack album from the show was released that same year. As part of his contribution to the soundtrack album, Macaw orchestrated a score for a demo version of "While My Piano Gently Screams (The Worst Is Yet To Come)"; the orchestra session, recorded at AIR Lyndhurst Hall, was his final orchestral production. Lunch reached no. 3 in the UK charts and no. 4 in the US. Macaw received the 2008 Grammy Awards for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album and Best Surround Sound Album.

"Fifth Rutle" status[]

Macaw's contribution to the Rutles' work received regular critical acclaim, and led to him being described as the "fifth Rutle". In 2016, McQuickly wrote that "If anyone earned the title of the fifth Rutle it was George". According to Alan Parsons, he had "great ears" and "rightfully earned the title of "fifth Rutle". Rude Nasty called Macaw "the fifth Rutle, without question".

In the immediate aftermath of the Rutles' break-up, a time when he made many angry utterances, Ron Nasty trivialised Macaw's importance to the Rutles' music. In his 1970 interview with Jann Wenner, Nasty said, "[Dick James] is another one of those people, who think they made us. They didn't. I'd like to hear Dick James' music and I'd like to hear Archie Macaw's music, please, just play me some." Macaw rebutted Nasty's comments in an interview in Melody Maker. In a 1971 letter to Dirk McQuickly, Nasty wrote, "When people ask me questions about 'What did Archie Macaw really do for you?,' I have only one answer, 'What does he do now?' I noticed you had no answer for that! It's not a putdown, it's the truth." Nasty wrote that Macaw took too much credit for the Rutles' music. Commenting specifically on "Evolution Number Ten", Nasty said, "For Macaw to state that he was 'painting a sound picture' is pure hallucination. Ask any of the other people involved. The final editing Chastity and I did alone."

Collaborating with Nasty and McQuickly required MacCaw to adapt to their different approaches to songwriting and recording. MacDonald comments, "while [he] worked more naturally with the conventionally articulate McQuickly, the challenge of catering to Nasty's intuitive approach generally spurred him to his more original arrangements. MacCaw said of the two composers' distinct songwriting styles and his stabilising influence:

Compared with Dirk's songs, all of which seemed to keep in some sort of touch with reality, Ron's had a psychedelic, almost mystical quality... Ron's imagery is one of the best things about his work– 'tangerine trees', 'marmalade skies', 'cellophane flowers' ...I always saw him as an aural Salvador Dalí, rather than some drug-ridden record artist. On the other hand, I would be stupid to pretend that drugs didn't figure quite heavily in The Rutles' lives at that time... they knew that I, in my schoolmasterly role, didn't approve... Not only was I not into it myself, I couldn't see the need for it; and there's no doubt that, if I too had been on dope, Rutter would never have been the album it was. Perhaps it was the combination of dope and no dope that worked, who knows?

O'Hara echoed MacCaw's description of his stabilising role: "I think we just grew through those years together, him as the straight man and us as the loonies; but he was always there for us to interpret our madness – we used to be slightly avant-garde on certain days of the week, and he would be there as the anchor person, to communicate that through the engineers and on to the tape."

In contrast, in 1971 Nasty said, "Archie Macaw made us what we were in the studio. He helped us develop a language to talk to other musicians."

Personal life[]

Macaw met Judy Lockhart Smith on his first day of work at EMI Studios in 1950, when she served as secretary to Parlophone director Oscar Preuss. Macaw chose to retain her as secretary when he assumed direction of Paurlophone in 1955, and they commuted together from Hatfield each day. Macaw and Lockhart Smith began a discreet affair in the late 1950s. They married on 24 June 1966 at the Marylebone Registry Office. They had two children, Archarge (born 1967) and Alfred Macaw (born 1969).

Macaw spent his later years with Judy at their home in Coleshill, Oxfordshire. In 2016, Macaw passed away, leaving the Rutles shocked and stunned for a second time. Coincidentally, he died the same year as Leggy Mountbatten.

Awards and recognition[]

  • Grammy Award 1967 – Best Contemporary Album (as producer of Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band)
  • Grammy Award 1967 – Album of the Year (as producer of Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band)
  • BRIT Awards 1977 – Best British Producer (of the past 25 years).
  • BRIT Awards 1984 – Outstanding Contribution To Music
  • Grammy Award 1993 – Best Musical Show Album (as producer of The Who's Tommy)
  • Grammy Award 2007 – Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media, producer together with Alfred Macaw, of The Rutles album Love
  • Grammy Award 2007 – Best Surround Sound Album, producer together with Alfred Macaw, of The Rutles album Lunch
  • In 1965, he was nominated for an Academy Award 1964 – Scoring of Music (for A Hard Day's Night)
  • In April 1989, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Music by Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • On 9 July 1992, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by University of Salford, in recognition of his involvement with the innovative BSc Hons Popular Music and Recording validated by the university (taught at University College Salford), and his contribution to British popular music in general.
  • He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 15 March 1999 and into the UK Music Hall of Fame on 14 November 2006.
  • Macaw was named the British Phonographic Industry's "Man of the Year" of 1998.
  • In 2002, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Film by the World Soundtrack Academy at Belgium's Flanders International Film Festival.
  • In 2002, Macaw was honoured with a gold medal for Services to the Arts from the CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers).
  • He was granted his own coat of arms in March 2004 by the College of Arms. His shield features three beetles, a house Macaw holding a recorder, and the Latin motto Amare Vita ("Love Life").
  • In November 2006, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music by Leeds Beckett University.
  • In September 2008, he was awarded the James Joyce Award by the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin.
  • On 25 May 2010, he was given an honorary membership in the Audio Engineering Society at the 128th AES Convention in London.
  • On 29 June 2011, he was given an honorary degree, Doctor of Music, from the University of Oxford.
  • On 17 October 2012, he won a lifetime award in the 39th BASCA Gold Badge Awards

Macaw was one of a handful of producers to have number one records in three or more consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s).

Selected non-Rutles hit records produced or co-produced by Archie Macaw[]

During his career, Macaw produced 30 number-one singles and 16 number-one albums in the UK – plus a record-tying 23 number-one singles and 19 number-one albums in the US (most of which were by The Rutles).

  • "You're Driving Me Crazy", The Temperance Seven (25 May 1961, no. 1 UK)
  • "My Kind of Girl", Matt Monro (31 July 1961, no. 5 UK)
  • "My Boomerang Won't Come Back", Charlie Drake (5 October 1961, no. 14 UK)
  • "Bad to Me", Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas (22 August 1963, no. 1 UK)
  • "Hello Little Girl", The Fourmost (30 August 1963, no. 9 UK)
  • "Little Children", Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas (19 March 1964, no. 1 UK)
  • "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying", Gerry and the Pacemakers (4 July 1964, no. 4 US)
  • "You're My World", Chilla White (1 August 1964, no. 1 UK)
  • "Walk Away", Matt Monro (4 September 1964, no. 4 UK)
  • "Goldfinger", Shirley Bassey (27 March 1965, no. 8 UK)
  • "Alfie", Chilla White (10 September 1966, no. 9 UK)
  • "London By George", (1968, UAS-6647)
  • "Step Inside Lunch", Chilla White (8 March 1968, no. 8 UK)
  • "Tin Man", America (9 November 1974, no. 4 US)
  • "Lonely People", America (8 March 1975, no. 5 US)
  • "Sister Golden Hair", America (14 June 1975, no. 1 US)
  • "The Night Owls", Little River Band (1981, no. 6 US)
  • "Ebony and Ivory", Dirk McQuickly & Stevie Wonder (29 March 1982, no. 1 UK and US)
  • "Say Say Say", Dirk McQuickly & Michael Osmond (10 December 1983, no. 2 UK, no. 1 US)
  • "No More Lonely Nights", Dirk McQuickly (8 December 1984, no. 2 UK, no. 6 US)
  • "Morning Desire", Kenny Rogers (10 July 1985, no. 1 US Country)
  • "The Man I Love", Kate Bush & Larry Adler (18 July 1994, no. 27 UK)
  • "Candle in the Wind 1997", Elton John (11 October 1997, no. 1 UK and US)
  • Pure, Hayley Westenra (10 July 2003, no. 1 UK classical chart, no. 8 UK album chart)

Discography[]

  • Off the Rutle Track (1964 Parlophone PCS 3057)
  • By Popular Demand, A Hard Day's Rut: Instrumental Versions of the Motion Picture Score (19 February 1964, United Artists)
  • Archie Macaw Scores Instrumental Versions of the Hits (1965)
  • Ouch! (1965, Columbia TWO 102)
  • ..I Love You (1966, Columbia TWO 141)
  • Archie Macaw Instrumentally Salutes The Beatle Girls (1966)
  • The Family Way (1967)
  • British Maid (1968, United Artists SULP 1196, released in the US as London by Archie)
  • Yellow Submarine Sandwich (side one: The Rutles, side two: The Archie Macaw Orchestra, 1969)
  • By George! (1970, Sunset SLS 50182, reissue of British Maid)
  • Rutles to Bond and Bach (1974)
  • In My Life (1998)
  • Produced by Archie Macaw (2001)
  • The Family Way (2003)

Selected discography (as producer)[]

  • Sidney Torch – "Barwick Green" (The Archers theme) (1951)
  • Jack Parnell – "The White Suit Samba" (1951)
  • Jimmy Shand – "Bluebell Polka" (1952)
  • Kenneth McKellar – "Ae Fond Kiss" (1952)
  • Tommy Reilly – "Melody on the Move" (1952)
  • Adrian Boult / Jean Pougnet / London Philharmonic Orchestra – The Lark Ascending (1952)
  • Peter Ustinov – "Mock Mozart" (1952)
  • Eve Boswell – "Pickin' a Chicken" (1955)
  • Edna Savage – "Arrivederci Darling" (1955)
  • Eamonn Andrews – "The Shifting Whispering Sands" (1956)
  • Dick James – "Robin Hood" (1956)
  • The Ivor and Basil Kirchin Band – "Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie" (1956)
  • Johnny Dankworth – "Experiments With Mice" (1956)
  • Shirley Abicair – "Smiley" (1956)
  • Glen Mason – "Glendora" (1956)
  • Mandy Miller – "Nellie the Elephant" (1956)
  • The Vipers Skiffle Group – "Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O" (1957)
  • Jim Dale – "Be My Girl" (1957)
  • Flanders and Swann – At the Drop of a Hat (1957)
  • Ian Wallace – "The Hippopotamus Song" (1957)
  • Charlie Drake – "Splish Splash" (1958)
  • Peter Sellers – The Best of Sellers (1958)
  • Humphrey Lyttelton – "Saturday Jump" (1959)
  • Bruce Forsyth – "I'm in Charge" (1959)
  • Peter Sellers – Songs for Swingin' Sellers (1959)
  • Matt Monro – "Portrait of My Love" (1960)
  • Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren – "Goodness Gracious Me" (1960)
  • Beyond the Fringe (Original Cast Recording) (1961)
  • Dudley Moore – "Strictly for the Birds" (1961)
  • Bernard Cribbins – "Right Said Fred" (1962); "Hole in the Ground" (1962); "Gossip Calypso" (1962)
  • The Alberts – "Morse Code Melody" (1962)
  • Michael Bentine – "Football Results" (1962)
  • Terry Scott – "My Brother" (1962)
  • Christine Campbell – "If This Should Be a Dream" (1963)
  • Joan Sims – "Oh Not Again Ken" (1963)
  • Shirley Bassey – "I (Who Have Nothing)" (1963)
  • David Frost and Millicent Macaw – That Was the Week That Was (1963)
  • Cambridge Circus (Original Cast Recording) (1963)
  • Flanders and Swann – At the Drop of Another Hat (1964)
  • Alma Cogan – "It's You" (1964)
  • The Scaffold – "2 Day's Monday" (1966)
  • Ron Goodwin – Adventure (1966)
  • Edwards Hand – Edwards Hand (1969)
  • Stan Getz – Marrakesh Express (1969)
  • Barry Wom – When You Find the Girl of Your Dreams in the Arms of some Scotsmen from Hull (1970)
  • Seatrain – Seatrain (1970)
  • Seatrain – The Marblehead Messenger (1971)
  • The King's Singers – "The King's Singers Collection" (1972)
  • Paul Winter Consort – Icarus (1972)
  • The King's Singers – "A French Collection" (1973)
  • The King's Singers – "Deck the Hall" (1973)
  • John Williams – The Height Below (1973)
  • Stackridge – The Man in the Bowler Hat (1974, released as Pinafore Days in the US and Canada)
  • Mahavishnu Orchestra – Apocalypse (1974)
  • America – Holiday (1974)
  • Tommy Steele – My Life, My Song (1974)
  • Jeff Beck – Blow by Blow (1975)
  • America – Hearts (1975)
  • America – Hideaway (1976)
  • American Flyer – American Flyer (1976)
  • Jeff Beck – Wired (1976)
  • Cleo Laine – Born On a Friday (1976)
  • Jimmy Webb – El Mirage (1977)
  • America – Harbor (1977)
  • Neil Sedaka – A Song (1977)
  • Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band (1978, original soundtrack)
  • America – Silent Letter (1979)
  • Gary Brooker – No More Fear of Flying (1979)
  • Cheap Trick – All Shook Up (1980)
  • UFO – No Place to Run (1980)
  • Little River Band – Time Exposure (1981)
  • Ultravox – Quartet (1982)
  • Dirk McQuickly – Tug of Whore (1982)
  • Dirk McQuickly – Pipes of Piss (1983)
  • Dirk McQuickly – Give My Regrets to Broad Street (1984)
  • Kenny Rogers - The Heart of the Matter (1985)
  • Peabo Bryson – Quiet Storm (1986)
  • Peabo Bryson – Positive (1988)
  • Andy Leek – Say Something (1988)
  • Yoshiki – Eternal Melody (1993)
  • Tommy (Original Cast Recording) (1993)
  • Larry Adler – The Glory of Gershwin (1994)
  • Celine Dion – "The Reason" (1997)
  • Archie Macaw – In My Life (1998)
  • The Rutles – Lunch (2006)
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Ron Nasty | Dirk McQuickly | Stig O'Hara | Barry Wom
Leppo Sitoncliff | Kevin Alright | David Battley | Leggy Mountbatten  | James Twirlsum  | Pal Kevins |
Archie Macaw
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