Peter Skellern

A composer, singer, and musician, Peter Skellern played trombone in a school band and served as organist and choirmaster in a local church before attending the Guildhall School of Music, from which he graduated with honors in 1968. Because "I didn’t want to spend the next 50 years playing <a href="spotify:artist:7y97mc3bZRFXzT2szRM4L4">Chopin</a>," he joined the vocal harmony band March Hare which, after changing their name to Harlan County, recorded a country-pop album before disbanding in 1971.

Married with two children, Skellern worked as a hotel porter in Shaftesbury, Dorset, before striking lucky at the end of 1972 with a self-composed U.K. number three hit, "You're a Lady." The album Not Without a Friend consisted entirely of original material (aside from a rendition of <a href="spotify:artist:7j8I1aIBA9Z9bMy7mTwWKk">Hoagy Carmichael</a>'s "Rockin' Chair"), and another U.K. hit single with the title track to 1975's Hold on to Love established Skellern as a purveyor of wittily observed if homely love songs of similar stamp to <a href="spotify:artist:4HVmeVTQBgvTuvjB1JYwaf">Gilbert O'Sullivan</a>. He earned the respect of <a href="spotify:artist:3WrFJ7ztbogyGnTHbHJFl2">Beatles</a> fans (already manifested following <a href="spotify:artist:0q5I9a5KZ5Ma9Sa1ZkJdro">Derek Taylor</a>'s production of Not Without a Friend) when <a href="spotify:artist:7FIoB5PHdrMZVC3q2HE5MS">George Harrison</a> assisted on Hard Times and the title number was later recorded by <a href="spotify:artist:6DbJi8AcN5ANdtvJcwBSw8">Ringo Starr</a>. A minor hit in 1978, "Love Is the Sweetest Thing" (featuring <a href="spotify:artist:0SVNnCjJeO3rToe1hFkOGD">Grimethorpe Colliery Band</a>) was part of a tribute to <a href="spotify:artist:4BtDAwCZhR6nPrJtbVgQNX">Fred Astaire</a> that won a Music Trades Association Award for Best MOR Album of 1979.

Skellern subsequently wrote and performed six autobiographical programs for BBC television, followed by a series of musical plays (Happy Endings), and also hosted the chat show Private Lives in 1983. A year later he formed Oasis with <a href="spotify:artist:1U4pv151m4SgVMg8fXROYp">Julian Lloyd Webber</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5pBljwfwnohfSNDXixEYHm">Mary Hopkin</a>, and guitarist Billy Lovelady in an attempt to fuse mutual classical and pop interests, but the band's recordings failed to make a major impact. In 1985, Skellern joined <a href="spotify:artist:17peneSLV6CavfRbQEACCu">Richard Stilgoe</a> for Stilgoe and Skellern Stompin' at the Savoy, a show in aid of the Lords Taverners charity organization. This led to the two entertainers working together on several successful tours and in their two-man revue, Who Plays Wins, which was presented in London's West End and New York City.

After becoming disenchanted with the record business for a time, in 1995 Skellern issued his first album in nearly eight years. Originally conceived as a tribute to <a href="spotify:artist:5bOsFzuJ6QZMr86ezC4oXY">the Ink Spots</a>, it eventually consisted of a number of songs associated with that legendary group, and a few <a href="spotify:artist:7j8I1aIBA9Z9bMy7mTwWKk">Hoagy Carmichael</a> compositions "just to break it up." He later wrote sacred choral music and was ordained as a deacon and priest in the Church of England. After developing an inoperable brain tumor, he died in February 2017 at 69 years of age. ~ TiVo Staff, Rovi