Lawrence Wright

b. 15 February 1888, Leicester, England, d. 19 May 1964, London, England. Wright was a leading pioneer in UK popular music and a music publisher under his own name. He also wrote songs under the pseudonym, Horatio Nicholls. Wright's father owned a music shop, and taught his son to play violin, banjo and piano. After leaving school at the age of 12, Wright worked for a printing company, before joining a concert party and learning the art of public performance. He wrote the first of his many songs, Down By The Stream, when he was 17, and later hired a stall in the local market to demonstrate his own compositions, and those he had bought from other songwriters. In 1910, he published Don't Go Down The Mine Daddy, by William Geddes and Robert Donnelly. It reputedly sold over a million sheet copies, aided, no doubt, by the Whitehaven pit disaster of the same year. He went to London in 1911 and was one of the first publishers to set up business in Denmark Street, soon to become the city's Tin Pan Alley. In 1926, he founded his ‘in house’ journal, the Melody Maker, to promote his catalogue, and it still exists in the UK today. Apart from UK songs, Wright also made publishing deals with US songwriters, including Hoagy Carmichael, Walter Donaldson, Fats Waller and Duke Ellington. Wright also introduced to the UK listeners standards such as Little White Lies, Stardust, Lazybones, Mood Indigo, Ain't Misbehavin’, Carolina Moon, Basin Street Blues and Memories Of You. From 1924-56, he presented his own annual summer production, ON WITH THE SHOW, at Blackpool, to promote and try out his songs. Wright's promotional publicity stunts were legendary. For Me And Jane In A Plane, written by Joe Gilbert and Edgar Leslie, he flew the entire Jack Hylton Orchestra, who had made a recording of the song, around the Blackpool Tower, dropping copies of the sheet music. For Sahara, his own song, written with Jean Frederick, and also recorded by Hylton, he rode a camel in Piccadilly Circus.
As Horatio Nicholls, he is said to have written over 500 songs, sometimes on his own, and with several partners including American Edgar Leslie, and Englishmen Worton David and Joe Gilbert. With Leslie he wrote Shepherd Of The Hills, Mistakes and, arguably his biggest hit, Among My Souvenirs. The latter was performed by Hoagy Carmichael in the 1946 movie, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, and surfaced again in 1959 as a million-seller for Connie Francis. Wright's best known songs with David were That Old Fashioned Mother Of Mine, and Are We Downhearted? No!. Of the 40 or so collaborations with Gilbert, the most famous was Amy, Wonderful Amy, a tribute to aviator, Amy Johnson. Other well-known songs included, When The Guards Are On Parade, Blue Eyes, Down Forget-Me-Not-Lane, Babette, The Toy Drum Major, Delilah, The Heart Of A Rose, Let's All Go To The Music Hall, London Is Saying Goodnight, Life Begins At Oxford Circus, The Festival Of Britain and Adeline. A stroke in 1943 caused him to slow down, and he was confined to a wheel-chair, but continued writing into the '50s, and retained personal control of his publishing interests. In 1962 he received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Services To British Popular Music. Two years later he died in London. After his death Lawrence Wright Music changed hands several times, and was owned for a time by US pop star Michael Jackson.