Kenny Clayton
Encyclopedia
Kenny Clayton is a British
music producer
, arranger
, conductor
and jazz pianist
.
Clayton studied piano
at the Trinity College of Music
in London
. In the late 1950s, by the age of twenty-one, Clayton firmly established himself as a working pianist and accompanied Alma Cogan
and Terry Dene
on a tour of the Empire Theatres, as well as working in cabaret with Shani Wallis
, Jeannie Carson
, Libby Morris
, and Joan Turner
.
Having achieved success on the popular UK variety circuit, Clayton was quickly signed to EMI/Parlophone
and released his first single, "Tenerife," which he introduced on the British TV music series Thank Your Lucky Stars.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s he was musical director and arranger for a number of popular singers, including Dick Haymes
, Shirley Bassey
, Matt Monro
, Robin Gibb
, Cilla Black
, Charles Aznavour
, Sacha Distel
, and Roger Whittaker
. He has been Petula Clark
's musical director and arranger since 1962, and also performs with his jazz group, The Kenny Clayton Trio.
, The 14
, Brother Sun, Sister Moon
, The Savage Hunt, and the final Morecambe and Wise
project, Night Train To Murder
. Clayton's stage credits include the scores for Bertie (with Mike Margolis), Oedipus
, Ring Your Mother, Box
, and The Mistress
(with Bruce Montague
). Clayton's theatre credits as musical director and arranger include The Sound of Music
and Someone Like You
(both with Petula Clark), No Strings
, Privates On Parade
, Billy
, Song & Dance, and Nightingale
.
Clayton has composed, scored and recorded incidental music for spoken word albums including such titles as The Secret Garden
(read by Glenda Jackson
), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (read by Tom Baker
), Puckoon
(read by Spike Milligan
), and Black Beauty
(read by Angela Rippon
). For Peter O'Toole
, he composed incidental music to accompany his readings of Shakespearean ballads and sonnets.
In television, Clayton has worked as a musical director and accompanist on several series and specials, including Shirley Bassey and Count Basie's Something Special (for NBC), Petula Clark's Traces Of Love (for ATV), The Vocal Touch - Anita Harris (for BBC2), and the original series Company & CO (for BBC2), Coming Next (for Channel 4), and Lilly Live (for LWT).
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
commissioned him to write the nine-minute tone poem, Il Palio Di Siena.
Clayton's most recent CD, Kenny Clayton Plays Tribute To Petula Clark & Matt Monro, was released on November 21, 2005. The Kenny Clayton Trio has released two albums of songs associated with Frank Sinatra
, Nice 'n Easy and All The Way.
He now divides his time between London and Menorca. In 2011 he has played on serval occasions at the Alley Cat venue in Denmark Street
London with long-time friend, crooner Paul Ryan.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
music producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, arranger
Arranger
In investment banking, an arranger is a provider of funds in the syndication of a debt. They are entitled to syndicate the loan or bond issue, and may be referred to as the "lead underwriter". This is because this entity bears the risk of being able to sell the underlying securities/debt or the...
, conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
and jazz pianist
Jazz piano
Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instrument's combined melodic and harmonic capabilities...
.
Clayton studied piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at the Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In the late 1950s, by the age of twenty-one, Clayton firmly established himself as a working pianist and accompanied Alma Cogan
Alma Cogan
Alma Cogan was an English singer of traditional pop music in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dubbed "The Girl With the Laugh/Giggle/Chuckle In Her Voice", she was the highest paid British female entertainer of her era...
and Terry Dene
Terry Dene
Terry Dene is a former British pop singer popular in the late 1950s. He achieved three Top Twenty hits between June 1957 and May 1958.-Career:...
on a tour of the Empire Theatres, as well as working in cabaret with Shani Wallis
Shani Wallis
Shani Wallis is an English actress and singer.Wallis was born in Tottenham, London. Making her first stage appearance at the age of four, she later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on a scholarship...
, Jeannie Carson
Jeannie Carson
Jeannie Carson is a retired English-born United States-based comedienne and musical theatre actress...
, Libby Morris
Libby Morris
Libby Morris is a Canadian comic actress and clown famous for her facial contortions and fast talking. She appeared in several BBC radio shows of the 1950s and moved into TV and film from the 1960s onwards. She then moved onto London, England, where she starred in her own show doing impersonations...
, and Joan Turner
Joan Turner
Joan Turner was a British comedienne and singer born in Belfast and brought up in London. She died of a heart attack.-Early years:...
.
Having achieved success on the popular UK variety circuit, Clayton was quickly signed to EMI/Parlophone
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
and released his first single, "Tenerife," which he introduced on the British TV music series Thank Your Lucky Stars.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s he was musical director and arranger for a number of popular singers, including Dick Haymes
Dick Haymes
Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....
, Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
, Matt Monro
Matt Monro
Matt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...
, Robin Gibb
Robin Gibb
Robin Hugh Gibb, CBE is a British singer and songwriter. He is best known as a member of the Bee Gees, co-founded with his twin brother Maurice , and elder brother Barry....
, Cilla Black
Cilla Black
Cilla Black OBE is an English singer, actress, entertainer and media personality, who has been consistently popular as a light entertainment figure since 1963. She is most famous for her singles Anyone Who Had A Heart, You're My World, and Alfie...
, Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour, OC is an Armenian-French singer, songwriter, actor, public activist and diplomat. Besides being one of France's most popular and enduring singers, he is also one of the best-known singers in the world...
, Sacha Distel
Sacha Distel
Sacha Distel was a French singer and guitarist who had hits with a cover version of the Academy Award-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" , "Scoubidou", and "The Good Life". He was born in Paris.-Career:Sacha Distel, born Alexandre Distel, was a son of Russian White émigré Leonid Distel...
, and Roger Whittaker
Roger Whittaker
Roger Whittaker is an Anglo-Kenyan singer-songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of over 55 million. His music can be described as easy listening. He is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability...
. He has been Petula Clark
Petula Clark
Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
's musical director and arranger since 1962, and also performs with his jazz group, The Kenny Clayton Trio.
Works
As a composer, Clayton has scored the films Ragman’s Daughter, The Pied PiperThe Pied Piper (1972 film)
The Pied Piper is a 1972 British-American directed by Jacques Demy and starring Jack Wild, Donald Pleasence and John Hurt and featuring Donovan and Diana Dors. It is loosely based on the legend of the Pied Piper.-Cast:* Donovan ... The Piper...
, The 14
The 14
The 14 is a 1973 British film directed by David Hemmings. It was also released as Existence and, in the USA, as The Wild Little Bunch. It was entered into the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear.-Cast:...
, Brother Sun, Sister Moon
Brother Sun, Sister Moon
Brother Sun, Sister Moon is a 1972 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Graham Faulkner and Judi Bowker. The film is a biopic of Saint Francis of Assisi.-Plot:...
, The Savage Hunt, and the final Morecambe and Wise
Morecambe and Wise
Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, usually referred to as Morecambe and Wise, or Eric and Ernie, were a British comic double act, working in variety, radio, film and most successfully in television. Their partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambe's death in 1984...
project, Night Train To Murder
Night Train To Murder
Night Train To Murder is a 1984 British comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath and starring Morecambe and Wise. It was the last work that Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise worked on together before Eric's death in 1984...
. Clayton's stage credits include the scores for Bertie (with Mike Margolis), Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
, Ring Your Mother, Box
Box
Box describes a variety of containers and receptacles for permanent use as storage, or for temporary use often for transporting contents. The word derives from the Greek πύξος , "box, boxwood"....
, and The Mistress
The Mistress
The Mistress is a British sitcom that aired on BBC2 from 1985 to 1987. Starring Felicity Kendal and Jane Asher, it was written by Carla Lane....
(with Bruce Montague
Bruce Montague
Bruce Montague is a British actor, best known for his role as Leonard Dunn in the television sitcom Butterflies. In 2000, he guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio adventure The Genocide Machine and, in the following year, he starred alongside Paul McGann in the Doctor Who story Sword of...
). Clayton's theatre credits as musical director and arranger include The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
and Someone Like You
Someone Like You (musical)
Someone Like You is a musical with a book by Robin Midgley and Fay Weldon, lyrics by Dee Shipman, and music by Petula Clark.Based on a concept developed by Clark and Ferdie Pacheco over a period of several years, it is set in West Virginia immediately after the end of the Civil War...
(both with Petula Clark), No Strings
No Strings
No Strings is a musical drama with a book by Samuel A. Taylor and words and music by Richard Rodgers, his only Broadway score written without a collaborator. The musical opened on Broadway in 1962 and ran for 580 performances...
, Privates On Parade
Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade: A Play with Songs in Two Acts is a 1977 farce by English playwright Peter Nichols , with music by Denis King.-Plot:...
, Billy
Billy (musical)
Billy is a musical based on the novel and play Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall. The book was written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, the music is by John Barry, and the lyrics are by Don Black.-Production:...
, Song & Dance, and Nightingale
Nightingale
The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...
.
Clayton has composed, scored and recorded incidental music for spoken word albums including such titles as The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's...
(read by Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (read by Tom Baker
Tom Baker
Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...
), Puckoon
Puckoon
Puckoon is a comic novel by Spike Milligan, first published in 1963. It is his first full-length novel, and only major fictional work. Set in 1924, it details the troubles brought to the fictional Irish village of Puckoon by the Partition of Ireland: the new border, due to the incompetence of the...
(read by Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
), and Black Beauty
Black Beauty
Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only...
(read by Angela Rippon
Angela Rippon
Angela M. Rippon, OBE, born 12 October 1944, Plymouth, Devon, England, is an English television journalist, newsreader, writer and presenter. Rippon presented radio and television news programmes in South West England before moving to BBC One's Nine O'Clock News, becoming a regular presenter in 1975...
). For Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
, he composed incidental music to accompany his readings of Shakespearean ballads and sonnets.
In television, Clayton has worked as a musical director and accompanist on several series and specials, including Shirley Bassey and Count Basie's Something Special (for NBC), Petula Clark's Traces Of Love (for ATV), The Vocal Touch - Anita Harris (for BBC2), and the original series Company & CO (for BBC2), Coming Next (for Channel 4), and Lilly Live (for LWT).
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
commissioned him to write the nine-minute tone poem, Il Palio Di Siena.
Clayton's most recent CD, Kenny Clayton Plays Tribute To Petula Clark & Matt Monro, was released on November 21, 2005. The Kenny Clayton Trio has released two albums of songs associated with Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Nice 'n Easy and All The Way.
He now divides his time between London and Menorca. In 2011 he has played on serval occasions at the Alley Cat venue in Denmark Street
Denmark Street
Denmark Street is a short narrow road in central London, notable for its connections with British popular music, and is known as the British Tin Pan Alley. The road connects Charing Cross Road at its western end with St Giles High Street at its eastern end. Denmark Street is in the London Borough...
London with long-time friend, crooner Paul Ryan.