DRRICHARDNILES's channel

I did this arrangement in 1986. Someone posted me the video today. What becomes of the broken hearted arrangers?

Just found this arrangement I did for Kylie. What fun!

Part 2 of James Brown where Michael Ball enters the maelstrom of funk! (Nigel Hitchcock on alto sax!)

I was MD of The Michael Ball Show in 1994. James Brown was the guest and he used a combination of my band and arrangements and his. I did my best to follow him! In 2 parts.

In 1976 I was Musical Director of the David Essex Show for the BBC. I arranged a version of Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" as a duet for David and Twiggy. Rather than do it as a big overblown ballad, I made it very gentle, using piano, acoustic guitar (Laurence Juber), vibes (Frank Ricotti) and glockenspiel for a 'music box' effect. I thought it suited the inventive direction with them facing away from each other taking off their clown make-up.

Not a very inventive video but another fun song I wrote for Ray Charles with Phil Spalding for the album "Strong Love Affair". The phrase is Ray's He was always yelling at his band, "Com'on man, no time to waste time!" A killer sax solo from the amazing Nigel Hitchcock. Spalding on bass and guitar.

Just found this. RAY Charles singing a song I wrote for him with Phil Spalding, "Everybody's Handsome Child". It's the Paul Shaffer band playing my arrangement on the Letterman show. The song is on Ray's "Strong Love Affair" album. I came up with the idea when I was producing Michaels Ruff's album in Denmark and the singer Leslie Smith was getting ready to go on a date and was standing in fornt of the mirror saying, "Leslie, you're EVERYBODY's handsome chile' tonight!"

The 1994 Brit awards I conducted two (yes, TWO) choirs of Welsh miners for the Pet Shop Boys hit "Go West". My arrangement worked well on this tune because we all wore mining helmets, WITH LIGHTS. Yes, this was fun.

My orchestral suite based on 8 Pet SHop Boys songs. After the session Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe said "That's brilliant! Could you tell us where our tunes are?" I produced, arranged and conducted this with an 85 piece orchestra at CTS Studio, Wembly featuring Nathan East (bass), Neal Wilkinson (drums), Jess Bailey (piano) Derek Watkins (lead trumpet), Nigel Hitchcock (lead alto sax).

Just saw this video of a session I did for composer/pianist Ronnie Smith and his band LUDAMUS. I conducted my string arrangement at Phoenix Studio. Tina May provided he Body & Soul for the vocals.