Can you let George Martin have the lyrics by 10 He gave me a French tune and I ended up writing the lyric to "Harley-Davidson", which was recorded by Brigitte Bardot.The following year Shaper wrote the winning songs in an ITV song contest in Brighton, their response to Eurovision - "I'll Stay by You" for Kenny Lynch and "Here in Your Arms" for Helen Shapiro. He occasionally submitted songs to Eurovision - notably "I'm Going to Fall in Love Again" for Mary Hopkin in 1970.Sparta Music published many hit songs including "The Israelites" (Desmond Dekker) and "The Tide is High" (Blondie), but, although Shaper was a sharp businessman, he preferred writing, often collaborating with the composer Michel Legrand. The next thing was, Hal Shaper rang up and said my lyric was better than his. He says, They had had a lyric done by Hal Shaper and the publisher said that they had paid him and that was that. The lyric wasn't all that wonderful on paper, but Johnnie Spence's arrangement rolled down, Matt did one take, and we all looked at one another and said, "Well, that's it."In 1964 Shaper began working for Jeffrey Kruger as managing director of Sparta Music, part of the multi-media Kruger Organisation. Shaper would often find songs for the artists on Kruger's Ember Records, and encouraged young writers including the 15-year-old Gary Osborne, who was later to write with Elton John. Osborne, of his own initiative, had written an English lyric to a French song and submitted it to a publisher. Can you let George Martin have the lyrics by 10.30 tomorrow morning?" I said, "Fine", and I went home and tried to remember the tune Luckily, I came up with a lyric and Matt recorded it. About three months later, he said, "I've been playing that tune endlessly We're going to record it. I loved the melody in the second movement and I brought it back to England.Shaper knew the singer Matt Monro, whose records were produced by George Martin, so he made a piano demo and gave it to Monro. At first, he wrote both words and music, but he realised that his strength was as a lyricist.
Years later, he recalled how he came to write the lyrics for "Softly as I Leave You". I was in Italy in 1961 and Tony de Vita was playing me a symphony in three movements that he had written. He came to the UK and worked for Robbins Music for seven years, promoting the songs in their catalogue and writing his own songs. It is very easy to understand both the potency of music and the needs of the people when you hear that.Shaper gave himself the task of identifying the composer of the anthem and, through his diligence, it is known to be Enoch Sontonga.In 1955 Shaper qualified as a lawyer, but his interest was in music. In 1989 he said, I loved being in South Africa and I grew up with the national anthem, "Nkosi Sikelel'i Africa", which is so evocative and beautiful. Jerry told Elvis that the songwriter had scribbled down this note on his deathbed. Elvis believed this to be true, and the song became a great favourite of his. When Elvis did it on stage for a live album, he said that I wrote the song on my deathbed. I never wanted to correct him as he might have stopped singing it."Softly as I Leave You" is a beautiful tale of love lost but it is easy to see how Presley was confused: "Softly, I will leave you softly, For my heart would break, If you should wake and see me go."Shaper was born in 1931 to an immigrant family of an English father and Polish mother in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town. Then, said Shaper, Elvis Presley had gone to Las Vegas and heard Jerry Vale singing "Softly as I Leave You". It did reasonably well in America, was covered by Doris Day, Andy Williams and Brenda Lee, and became a standard when Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1964. |
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