Career
Hazzard picked up the guitar and ukulele at a young age, but managed to miss out on the Merseybeat skiffle scene that engulfed the region in the early 1960s, focusing instead on his education at Durham University. Through a mutual friend he was introduced to BBC story editor Tony Garnett. Garnett persuaded Hazzard to move to London to pursue his songwriting ambitions. He signed with music publisher and Manfred Mann manager Gerry Bron, who put him on a retainer.
In addition, his "The Sound of the Candyman's Trumpet" was recorded by Cliff Richard and entered into the 1968 Songs for Europe preamble for the Eurovision Song Contest. Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, The Casuals, The Family Dogg, and The Swinging Blue Jeans all turned to Hazzard's pop tunes in the late 1960s. In the midst of all this success as a writer, Hazzard released his first solo album, Tony Hazzard Sings Tony Hazzard, released in 1969. While commercially unsuccessful, his second album, Loudwater House, helped establish him as a potential soft rock star. Many of the musicians who played on the record (Chris Spedding, Mike Batt, and B. J. Cole) were touring with Elton John at the time, and Hazzard thus did backing vocals on John's Tumbleweed Connection and Honky Château.
His third album, Was That Alright Then (1973), again failed to sell in sufficient quantity. In 2005, both Loudwater House and Was That Alright Then, along with some rarities and unissued outtakes, were remastered and compiled on the two-disc Go North: The Bronze Anthology. In 2011, he released a CD of new work, entitled Songs From The Lynher. Hazzard continues to write music at his home in Cornwall.
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