“My professional life has been amazing because I understood that the only difference between a job and an adventure was attitude.”
Composer/Arranger/Producer Dr. Richard Niles has had musical adventures with some of the world’s most successful and acclaimed artists from Paul McCartney to Pat Metheny, James Brown to Randy Brecker, Tina Turner to Michael McDonald, Ray Charles to the Pet Shop Boys.
Music arranger, composer, producer, and media host Richard Niles has toiled for decades in the music industry amongst music royalty and up-and-coming artists. At 75, he has penned his autobiography, Hits and Happiness, chronicling his life in London during the swinging sixties and beyond to his years at Boston’s Berklee College of Music to professional adventures in Europe and America.
The successful careers of his father Tony Romano (renowned Hollywood singer and guitarist) and mother, Pat Silver-Lasky and stepfather Jesse Lasky Jr. (celebrated screenwriting duo) impacted him, leading him to seek a career as an arranger, record producer, bandleader, and radio presenter. Since the 1970s, he has rubbed elbows with pop and jazz stars such as Paul McCartney, Michael McDonald, Pat Metheny, Pet Shop Boys, Leo Sayer, and countless others. In this book, he brings the receipts with numerous photos of him flanked by celebrity clients and renowned studio musicians with whom he's worked.
Ever the farceur, Niles writes with engaging wit about his youth growing up with showbiz parents known for hosting soirees at their London home during his youth (one involved a visit from Ringo Starr at the height of Beatlemania). He includes anecdotes both hilarious and historical from his start as a guitarist busking around London to his behind-the-scenes perspective on leading bands and orchestras at top recording studios, BBC radio and TV studios, and elsewhere.
Niles is celebrated for penning arrangements and original songs memorable for their creative reach, complexity, and often, humor. While unfolding his life story in Hits and Happiness, he also shares some arranger’s trade secrets and how he handled on-the-spot crises such as being hired to direct the Ray Charles Band in concert without a score. This book is the tale of a sharp-minded figure well known to professionals who enjoyed a consequential career in the musical trenches and had much fun charging over the top.
The successful careers of his father Tony Romano (renowned Hollywood singer and guitarist) and mother, Pat Silver-Lasky and stepfather Jesse Lasky Jr. (celebrated screenwriting duo) impacted him, leading him to seek a career as an arranger, record producer, bandleader, and radio presenter. Since the 1970s, he has rubbed elbows with pop and jazz stars such as Paul McCartney, Michael McDonald, Pat Metheny, Pet Shop Boys, Leo Sayer, and countless others. In this book, he brings the receipts with numerous photos of him flanked by celebrity clients and renowned studio musicians with whom he's worked.
Ever the farceur, Niles writes with engaging wit about his youth growing up with showbiz parents known for hosting soirees at their London home during his youth (one involved a visit from Ringo Starr at the height of Beatlemania). He includes anecdotes both hilarious and historical from his start as a guitarist busking around London to his behind-the-scenes perspective on leading bands and orchestras at top recording studios, BBC radio and TV studios, and elsewhere.
Niles is celebrated for penning arrangements and original songs memorable for their creative reach, complexity, and often, humor. While unfolding his life story in Hits and Happiness, he also shares some arranger’s trade secrets and how he handled on-the-spot crises such as being hired to direct the Ray Charles Band in concert without a score. This book is the tale of a sharp-minded figure well known to professionals who enjoyed a consequential career in the musical trenches and had much fun charging over the top.
- Mark Small (guitarist, composer, former Editor of Berklee Today)
For over 50 years, Richard Niles has been a surreptitious and subversive drug spiking the bloodstream of our musical consciences. Oft unseen but never unheard, Richard’s influence on the soundtracks of our lives may not have been adequately credited or recompensed, but it has provided the dopamine rush that made hit records HITS and our lives so much more enriched. And oh, what a wild trip he has taken along the way. At last, this child of Hollywood’s golden age and survivor of the worst excesses of the English public school system has decided to come clean about his remarkable life.
In Hits & Happiness, as he weaves his florid tale with typical braggadocio, aplomb and pizazz, he also educates us on the intricacies and iniquities of musical creation, while strafing us with his scattergun humor. Richard’s parents were great storytellers. This too, it seems, runs in the blood.
In Hits & Happiness, as he weaves his florid tale with typical braggadocio, aplomb and pizazz, he also educates us on the intricacies and iniquities of musical creation, while strafing us with his scattergun humor. Richard’s parents were great storytellers. This too, it seems, runs in the blood.
- Neville Farmer – Producer, Director, Author, Journalist
"Richard Niles is a great arranger and musician and was a great pleasure to work with.”
- Sir Paul McCartney
"When you are talking musical pedagogy, Richard Niles is the daddy. He explains the mechanics of music better than anyone else…Not only does Niles know what he’s talking about, he imparts his knowledge with clarity and certainty."
The Times (London)
VIDEOS & HAPPINESS
SOME ARRANGEMENTS BY RICHARD NILES