About David
David's songs have sold over 26 million records around the world in a career spanning over 40 years.
At 18 years of age David signed his first recording contract with Pye Records and was subsequently picked up by the iconic EMI label. During the recording process for his new single on EMI he was approached by Chris Arnold and Geoff Morrow, two songwriters who were finding their way around the new and exciting music business. The three began writing songs together and before long had two consecutive UK top 10 hits with “In Thoughts of You” and “I’ll Never Quite Get Over You” both by the legendary Billy Fury. The “Arnold-Martin-Morrow” songwriting partnership was born.
For the next 15 years David and his two partners had an enormous amount of success writing songs for the likes of Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley and Cilla Black to name a few.
One day David sat down and wrote a song on his own..." Can't Smile Without You" was born. Barry Manilow loved the song so much that in 1975 he recorded it and had a worldwide smash hit. Since then "Can't Smile Without You" has been recorded by hundreds of artists, most notably The Carpenters, Englebert Humperdinck, Peters & Lee and most recently Boyzone. David received the most prestigious of all songwriting awards for the song, an Ivor Novello.
In 1978 David formed a record company partnership, Hippodrome Records, with famous nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow. Over the next three years he wrote for and produced for the incomparable Motown singer Edwin Starr and the unforgettable Dusty Springfield.
In 1982 David amicably split with his two song writing partners and took to the road and toured the world as lead vocalist for the James Last Orchestra.
Davids most recent projects have seen him team up with theatre impresario Paul Elliott (Thoroughly Modern Milly, Buddy, Run For Your Wife) on a couple of stage musical projects including an adaptation of Great Expectations and Christmas Angel, both due for launch in 2009.
Stop Press! - David recently attended 10 Downing Street where he was presented with an award for writing the signature song, Dorothy.com, for The Kids Taskforce.
