Tony Macaulay - Career

Career

Macauley was born in Fulham, London, England.

In the early 1960s he worked as a song plugger for Essex Publishing, then moved to Pye Records as a record producer. It was here that he had his first major success with The Foundations, when they recorded, "Baby Now That I've Found You", a song he had co-written with John Macleod, and it topped the UK Singles Chart in November 1967.

Further hits came with songs such as Marmalade's "Baby Make it Soon" and "Falling Apart at the Seams"; The 5th Dimension's "(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All", David Soul's "Don't Give Up on Us", plus Donna Summer's 1977 single "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)", each of which he wrote on his own. Many others came in collaboration with other songwriters, amongst them were Long John Baldry's "Let the Heartaches Begin", Paper Dolls' "Something Here In My Heart (Keeps A-Tellin' Me No)" and Pickettywitch's "That Same Old Feeling", all co-written with John Macleod. Another success for The Foundations was "Build Me Up Buttercup", written by Macaulay and Mike D'Abo. Scott Walker's "Lights of Cincinnati", The Hollies' "Sorry Suzanne", The New Seekers' "You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me" were penned with Geoff Stephens; whilst Edison Lighthouse's "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)", was written with Barry Mason. In addition, he co-wrote Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon's "Blame It On The Pony Express" and Andy Williams' "Home Lovin' Man", with Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway.

Much of his attention in the early 1970s was diverted by a protracted legal dispute with his publishers. He won his case on appeal in 1974, in a landmark decision which encouraged other artists to challenge the terms of their contracts. By this time he had begun to turn his back on penning pop songs and started to write for musical theatre. His first collaborations for the stage were with the playwright Ken Hill on Is Your Doctor Really Necessary? in 1973, and on Gentlemen Prefer Anything the following year.

He was the music co-ordinator for the film Never Too Young To Rock (1975), and wrote the music for Windy City, a musical in two acts based on The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with book and lyrics by Dick Vosburgh, which was premiered on stage in 1982.

Later Macaulay turned to writing thrillers.