Howie Richmond

Spencer Howard " Howie " Richmond ( born January 18, 1918 in Queens, † 20 May, 2012 Rancho Mirage, California ) was an American music publisher.

Life and work

Richmond, whose father Maurice music publisher was started in the mid 1930s after studying at the University of Pennsylvania in New York to work as a press agent; his clients included Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, Frank Sinatra, Georgie Auld and The Andrews Sisters. After military service in the U.S. Air Force in 1949, he founded his own music publishing company, which was located in the West 57th Street. With his business partners Al Brackman and Abe Olman he specialized in novelty songs and sent them directly to the disc jockeys. The first marketed by Richmond song was Hop - Scotch Polka, the Guy Lombardo grossed for Decca Records. Already in its first year, Richmond had with this method six hits. Among his successes were the songs Music! Music! Music! , With Teresa Brewer hit # 1 on the pop charts, and The Thing, Phil Harris recorded.

To catalog his company also included Woody Guthrie's So Long, It's Been Good to Know You, who later influenced Bob Dylan. His greatest achievements contributed to The Weavers, the Lead Bellys title Goodnight, Irene interpreted in the arrangement by Gordon Jenkins. He became a number - one hit in the United States. Richmond also worked throughout his career with artists like Bart Howard ( Fly Me to the Moon ), Bill Evans ( Waltz for Debby ) and Kurt Weill, The Who, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd ( The Dark Side of the Moon ); has also been familiar with Shel Silverstein, whose Blue song A Boy Named Sue in the version of Johnny Cash 1969.

1969 Richmond belonged to the founders of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1983 he was awarded the first Music Publisher of the Year Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.