Mike Batt

British singer, songwriter, producer, and composer Mike Batt has built a wide-ranging career that spans film scores, television themes, stage productions, and mainstream pop. Born in Southampton, Hampshire, England, in 1949, he secured a recording contract with Liberty/United Artists Records at eighteen, only to depart two years later and establish his own publishing firm. From 1974 onward he supplied songs and recordings for the children’s television series featuring the Wombles, ultimately placing eight singles on the charts with the accompanying bubblegum-pop ensemble.

He soon extended his songwriting to Steeleye Span, Linda Lewis, Elkie Brooks, Barbara Dickson, the Kursaal Flyers, and Art Garfunkel; the latter collaboration earned Batt his second Ivor Novello Award for the 1979 hit “Bright Eyes,” written for the animated feature Watership Down. Although he issued his own albums throughout the decade, notably Schizophonia in 1977 and the conceptual Tarot Suite in 1979, his primary success remained behind the scenes. In 1983 he delivered several Top Ten singles for Cliff Richard, David Essex, and Alvin Stardust. The following year he made his conducting debut at the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra and simultaneously released Snark, a Lewis Carroll–inspired theatrical album boasting an all-star lineup that included John Hurt, Sir John Gielgud, Roger Daltrey, Julian Lennon, Stéphane Grappelli, and George Harrison. Batt later adapted the work for the stage in 1991.

Throughout the 1990s he moved fluidly between classical and pop spheres, working with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Finbar Wright, Vanessa-Mae, and XTC, among others. He issued the solo album Arabesque in 1994, received a royal commission to score the 1995 opening of the Channel Tunnel, composed the soundtrack for the film A Merry War, and revived the Wombles project. Behind the scenes he nurtured the classical-crossover acts Bond and the Planets; the latter’s 2002 release Classical Graffiti held the top spot on the classical charts for three months. In 2003, while Katie Melua studied at the BRIT School for the Performing Arts & Technology, Batt discovered and signed her; he wrote or co-wrote and produced her first three albums, beginning with Call Off the Search that same year, and contributed to her 2010 effort The House.