Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Les Reed: Award-winning songwriter who worked with Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck

He was a co-writer of classics such as ‘It’s Not Unusual’ and ‘Delilah’

Phil Shaw
Thursday 18 April 2019 12:48 BST
Comments
Reed (left) wrote his first song at the age of 11
Reed (left) wrote his first song at the age of 11

Les Reed, who has died aged 83, was a master of melody and songcraft, conjuring middle-of-the-road pop gems throughout the 1960s and beyond. His co-credits include “It’s Not Unusual” and “Delilah” for Tom Jones and “The Last Waltz” for Engelbert Humperdinck, while his songs were also recorded by Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, two even becoming football terrace anthems.

Reed’s career as a prolific songwriter, composer, musician, arranger and producer ran parallel to the Swinging Sixties personified by The Beatles, Rolling Stones et al. Born in Woking in Surrey and named after Canadian dance-band crooner Les Allen, he was a child of variety rather than rock ’n’ roll, having learned to play the piano aged six and been part of a troupe of child entertainers who performed for recuperating service personnel after the Second World War.

After writing his first song at 11 and forming The Les Reed Trio at 15, he entered national service. At a party in a working men’s club to celebrate his demob from the army, he met June, who was sent by a local paper to take photos. He took her home on a borrowed barman’s bicycle. They married in 1960 – Adam Faith was best man – and were together until she died in 2011.

A two-year stint on piano in the John Barry Seven followed. Reed left in 1962 to join the Piccadilly label as musical director, overseeing Joe Brown’s hits. By 1963, the year of The Beatles’ seismic breakthrough, he had set up Donna Music, named after his daughter, in Denmark Street, aka Tin Pan Alley, with the aim of creating a London hit-writing factory equivalent to New York’s Brill Building.

Reed in 1970 with his wife June and their daughter Donna

In collaboration with lyricist Geoff Stephens, Reed wrote “Tell Me When”, which The Applejacks took to No 7 in 1964. The pair also penned “There’s A Kind of Hush”, which failed to register for US band Gary and the Hornets but was covered successfully by Herman’s Hermits (another British No 7) in 1967 and The Carpenters (UK No 22, US No 12) in 1976.

Reed’s greatest successes, however, came in tandem with lyricists Gordon Mills and Barry Mason. By 1964, Mills, formerly a harmonica player he had met on tour, was managing a Welsh singer named Tommy Woodward and invited Reed to watch him perform in Slough. Woodward changed his name to Jones and the Reed-Mills number “It’s Not Unusual”, originally offered to Sandie Shaw, topped the charts in 1965, also reaching the American Top 10.

In 1968, Reed, Mason and Sylvan Whittingham combined on “Delilah”, a UK No 2 and US No 15 for Jones after PJ Proby, who cut the original version, decided he hated it. The song, for which Reed suggested the theme and title, won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song that year.

Meanwhile, Mills had signed singer Gerry Dorsey and renamed him Engelbert Humperdinck. “The Last Waltz”, by Reed and Mason, spent five weeks on top in Britain, and they also supplied Humperdinck with Top 10 hits “Winter World of Love” and “Les Bicyclettes de Belsize”. Des O’Connor took another Reed-Mason ballad, “I Pretend”, to No 1 in 1968, while The Fortunes made No 4 with their “Here It Comes Again”.

Reed composed the score for the 1968 film The Girl on a Motorcycle. In the Seventies he became musical director, conductor and arranger for Granada TV series The International Pop Proms, featuring vocalists such as Roy Orbison and Johnny Mathis with The Hallé orchestra; served as a judge on talent show New Faces; wrote the theme for the remake of The Lady Vanishes; and turned a song he and Stephens composed for Cliff Richard, “Sally Sunshine” into “Leeds United”, which reached No 10 on Reed’s own Chapter One Records at the time of the team’s 1972 FA Cup final victory.

Yet it was Reed-Mason B-side “Leeds, Leeds, Leeds” that the club’s followers adopted, rebranding it “Marching On Together” and singing it at every match to this day. “Delilah” enjoys similar status with Stoke City fans.

Reed was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 1994 and the OBE in 1998, both for services to music. He is survived by his daughter Donna.

Leslie David Reed, songwriter, musician, composer, conductor, arranger, producer and record-label owner, born 24 July 1935, died 15 April 2019

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in