BIOGRAPHY
Mike began his career in pop music at the age of eighteen when he answered an advertisement in the New Musical Express on behalf of Liberty Records. He initially signed as a songwriter and artist to Liberty but became head of A&R for the label only months later, at the age of nineteen. He signed and produced Tony (TS) McPhee's The Groundhogs and produced their first album, Scratching the Surface.
In the early 1970s, aged 23, he was asked by the producers of a new children's television programme to write the theme music. Instead of taking his £200 fee, Mike asked for the character rights for musical production. The choice produced his first hits as a singer/songwriter/producer by The Wombles in 1974. The collaboration produced eight hit singles and four gold albums.
Mike went on to work with various artists, most notably with Steeleye Span, whose most successful single and album, "All Around My Hat," was released in 1975. Also in 1975, at the end of the summer, he entered the UK Singles Chart with the only UK hit under his own name (credited "Mike Batt with the New Edition") with "Summertime City" — used as the theme music to Seaside Special, the BBC Television series which reached number 4.
He produced Elkie Brooks's single, "Lilac Wine" in 1978 and the song "Bright Eyes" for the animated film version of Watership Down, which reached number 1 in the UK Singles Chart and five other countries.
As a singer, his solo singles and albums sold many hundreds of thousands outside the UK, where his image was not connected to the Wombles. The albums included Schizophonia and Tarot Suite. From these albums came the European hit songs "Railway Hotel", "Lady of the Dawn" and "Ride to Agadir" (All of which were chart hits in Germany).
In 1980, he released his third solo album for Epic Records (Sony), entitled Waves (including the European hit "The Winds of Change").
Mike was commissioned to write a piece for the 50th anniversary of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation which became the musical fantasy production, Zero Zero. Batt designed, co-directed (with John Eastway) and starred in the studio-based production of "Zero Zero" shot at Gore Hill studios in Sydney and aired by Channel 4 TV in the UK in the week of the Channel's broadcast launch in 1982.
In 1983, he wrote and produced three more UK Top Ten hits, "Please Don't Fall in Love" (for Cliff Richard), "A Winter's Tale" (for David Essex, with lyrics co-written by Tim Rice) and "I Feel Like Buddy Holly" (for Alvin Stardust).
In 1995, he was commissioned to write the official anthem for the Channel Tunnel's inauguration, entitled "When Flags Fly Together". This was performed for Queen Elizabeth II and President Mitterrand.
He formed his own record label, Dramatico, in 2002, working with a small group of artists, including those he discovered while scouting for a new artist with whom to work. Melua's album Call Off The Search (containing six of Batt's songs, including "The Closest Thing to Crazy") was released on Dramatico in November 2003. After 6 weeks at number one in the UK Albums Chart, it sold six times platinum, over 1.8 million copies, in the UK and three million copies in total, making Melua the biggest-selling UK female artist of 2004.
Mike Batt was appointed Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to the Royal Household, an honour which was the personal gift of HM Queen Elizabeth II
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Biography taken from "Rats in the Spotlight" - Written by Brother Tommy J
