Stu Phillips

Stu Phillips has had a long, varied and successful career in music, from playing piano in cocktail lounges to conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In between he was also an arranger and conductor for several night club performers; a successful A&R record producer; and a composer for television and theatrical movies.
 
He studied music at The High School of Music & Art in New York City, and at The Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. His first professional job was as a copyist for the Milton Berle Texaco Hour. (An old TV show.) At Eastman he wrote arrangements of pop tunes for the Rochester Civic Orchestra. Among some of the artists he accompanied and was musical director for were Jimmie Rodgers and Chris Connor.
 
Stu Phillips produced and received gold records for &Blue Moon, with the Marcels,& &Johnny Angel, with Shelley Fabares,& and &Goodbye Cruel World& with James Darren. Among a few of the other artists he produced while at Colpix Records were Nina Simone; Vince Edwards; The Chad Mitchell Trio; The Skyliners and Jimmy Beaumont; and the Ronettes.
 
At Capitol Records he was the creator, producer and arranger of The Hollyridge Strings, which at one time had three albums in the top 20 on the Billboard Chart. In all, he recorded a total of 12 albums. While head of West Coast A&R for Epic records, Stu recorded the Doodletown Pupers as well as Nancy Ames, Enzo Stuarti and Bob Crane. During the course of his record career from 1959 to 1968, Stu Phillips also worked as a composer for The Donna Reed Show, A few Gidgets and The Monkees. During the 1960s and the early '70s, he composed the music for approximately 15 feature films including, Hells Angels on Wheels; Beyond the Valley of the Dolls; Macon County Line; Ride the Wild Surf and many others. Some of the artists who have recorded songs written by Stu Phillips and various co-writers are Tammy Wynette; B.B King; George Hamilton; Dino, Desi & Billy; The Sandpipers and Lynn Carey.
 
In 1974, he began a seven year undertaking with Universal Studios, composing the music for The Six Million Dollar Man pilot. It was followed by McCloud; Quincy; Switch; The Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew; Battlestar Galactica; Buck Rogers; Knightrider and others. Later at Fox, he scored 60 episodes of the Fall Guy, as well as Masquerade, Automan and The Highwayman. Among some of his other TV credits are Spiderman, Chicago Story and Along Came Bronson. He has been nominated for four Grammy's and is currently a member ofthe Motion Picture Academy (AMPAS); The Television Academy (ATAS); and The Record Academy (NARAS).
 
In the last ten years he has been working on the orchestration of classical works for symphonic orchestra, notably two Beethoven Sonatas and five Rachmaninov Preludes/Etudes.
 
(Naxos)