She wrote songs for Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and Doris Day, co-composed with Harold Arlen (Over the Rainbow’) – and was a pioneering singer-songwriter of the early 1970s. She wrote a song called ‘Control Yourself‘, had a career defined by...
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In the latest edition of The Living Tradition magazine, Simon Haines has written a profile of me to tie in with the release of the new CD Playing For Time. You can read it here: LT_Issue135_Terence Blacker
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Surprisingly few songwriters have a natural ability to convey warmth. Performers can do it, and composers can turn it on when the lyric requires, but only now and then does one come across a songwriter who can put a smile...
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It’s possible that you may not have come across one of the funniest and most innovative series to have been on our screens in recent years. It ran between 2015 and 2019 but, because it was on Netflix and was...
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The great lyricist Sammy Cahn – he wrote the lyrics to many of Frank Sinatra’s best-known hits – published a funny, swaggering boastful memoir called I Should Care. Not a man to hid his light under a bushel, Sammy claimed that as...
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Many of my older Friday Songs – notably, ‘Shine’, ‘The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’, ‘Hong Kong Blues’ – have moved with the times. They have been adapted to our fretfully changing world by each new musical generation. This...
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Something great can happen when a funny songwriter decides to put humour aside and go for the heart. While the jokes are waiting in the wings, the song taking centre stage acquires a power all of its own. Think of...
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The light, seductive voice of Annette Hanshaw has led me to a song whose history confirms, as well as any song of the 20th century, that music knows no borders of genre, tradition or colour. ‘I Get the Blues When...
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Almost seven years ago, I stood outside the gates of Charlotte Square in Edinburgh. touting for business beside a Big Issue seller and a young bloke handing out flyers for a new McDonalds. I was touting for trade, too. The...
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There’s no Friday Song today – it will be back next week – but several people have asked me about songs I’ve written about in the past. Since I haven’t yet assembled them all in one place on the website....
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