Biography
Singer Ross Hannaman entered the world in London and spent her formative years there, steadily building recognition through cabaret performances before inking a contract with EMI in 1967 in hopes of breaking into pop. The first single under that deal, titled “1969,” actually surfaced two years ahead of the year it referenced, yet its flip side—the richly arranged “Probably on Thursday”—proved more notable still, marking one of the earliest studio pairings between then-EMI employee Tim Rice, at the time both Hannaman’s boyfriend and manager, and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Rice and Lloyd Webber likewise supplied the material for the ensuing release, “Down Through Summer,” which fared no better than its predecessor and effectively closed the chapter on Hannaman’s solo endeavors. Even so, The Evening Standard selected her as its “face” of 1968, a distinction that arrived shortly before she wed EMI producer Mark Wirtz; the couple subsequently composed under the pseudonyms Philwit and Bigsby and also cut tracks together as the Sweetshop, including the single “Barefoot and Tiptoe,” which formed part of Wirtz’s unrealized opus A Teenage Opera.