Guy Chambers (born January 12, 1963 in London) is an English songwriter and record producer best known for his long partnership with Robbie Williams.
Biography
Chambers wrote, performed and recorded his first demos at London's Cockpit Theatre Arts and Music Workshop along with other songwriter/producers such as Richard Daniel Roman in the early 80s. It was during this time that he also formed his first band The Burmoe Brothers which included Marc Almond in its line up for one track "Skin". After graduating from the London Guildhall School of Music where he studied composition, his teachers including George Benjamin, Chambers went on to tour as a musician with, among others, Julian Cope and The Waterboys before joining World Party in 1986 and co-writing with Karl Wallinger on Bang!, the band's most successful album. He also appeared on the Mission's Carved in Sand, providing the arrangement and keyboards for the song "Grapes of Wrath" and was producer for the short-lived group Stress (Neo-Psychedelic band). In future years as a Musical Director he would use much of the Mission's previous crew, among others guitar-tech Jez Webb.
In 1992 Chambers formed his own band The Lemon Trees and wrote, produced and performed with them until they disbanded in 1995. Though the band only released one album, a second one was completed but not released because the record company didn't like it. Following the end of The Lemon Trees, Chambers spent time writing successfully with Cathy Dennis, Bryan Adams and others until an opportune meeting facilitated by Music industry veteran Paul Curran with Robbie Williams in January 1997
Work with Robbie Williams
Chambers collaborated as songwriter producer & musical director on Robbie Williams' first five solo albums, which all reached number 1 in the United Kingdom and have globally sold over 40 million. Chambers co-wrote some of Williams' best known tracks, including "Rock DJ", "Feel", "Millennium", "Let Me Entertain You" and "Angels".
After recording for Williams' fifth solo album Escapology mid-2002, Chambers and Williams split. It was also alleged in Williams' book Feel that Chambers was demanding a Producer royalty hike, leading to the split. Chambers revealed in a 2005 interview that he and Williams were on speaking terms again and hinted at possible future collaborations. Chambers has claimed their songwriting partnership was 50/50, he wrote most of the music, while Williams wrote the lyrics and melodies. Williams subsequently started working with former Duran Duran member Stephen Duffy for his 2005 album Intensive Care. Chambers was not involved.
For his work with Williams, he won 3 BRITS, 3 Ivor Novello awards, a Q classic Songwriter award and an MMF best produced record award for "I’ve Been Expecting You".
However, Guy Chambers has since co-wrote songs for Robbie William's 2009 album Reality Killed the Video Star.
Recent developments
In recent years Chambers has written and produced material for a number of different artists, Texas, Will Young, Rachel Stevens, Andrea Bocelli as well as working on a number of different film soundtracks including Bridget Jones's Diary, Finding Nemo and Love Actually and a collaboration with Queen on their classic track "We Are the Champions" for the hit movie A Knight's Tale.
He co-wrote and produced four songs for Kylie Minogue's 2000 album Light Years, including the single "Kids" (a duet with Williams), "Loveboat", "I'm So High" and the camp classic "Your Disco Needs You".
Chambers and American hit songwriter Kara DioGuardi co-wrote "Shine" for Hilary Duff's self-titled album, which charted at #2 in the Billboard 200 chart and reached over 1 million in sales. Other US album collaborations include Ryan Cabrera's "Take It All Away", "2 Become 1" for Jewel's album Perfectly Clear, and Diana Ross for whom Guy produced the track "Goin’ Back" from the Life and Love album.
Lemon Love, the debut album from Aslyn was produced by Chambers and Eric Valentine. 2004 saw the release of Brian McFadden's debut solo album Irish Son which Chambers contributed to. First single "Real to Me" went straight in at #1 in the UK.
Other album releases that year included Natasha Bedingfield's debut album Unwritten, Delta Goodrem's second album Mistaken Identity and Beverley Knight's Affirmation. Chambers and Beverley wrote 4 tracks for the album including the single "Come as You Are". Beverley also performed her own a cappella version of the Robbie Williams track "Angels" at 2005's Live 8 at Murrayfield, Edinburgh where Chambers was Musical Director.
"Tears And Rain" was written by James Blunt and Chambers and features on Blunt's debut album Back to Bedlam, 2005's most successful albums which to date has sold over 11 million copies worldwide.
The Isis Project, a French language album written with lyricist Keren Ann and vocalist Sophie Hunter is Chambers's own personal project, written as an 18th birthday present for his daughter Isis while she was four at the time. The track "L’onde Amere" also features on Keren Ann's latest album Nolita, released by Sleeper Music in 2005.
Charlotte Church's debut album Tissues and Issues features 3 co-written tracks: "Confessional Song", "Let's Be Alone" and "Casualty Of Love". Chambers collaborated with Jamie Cullum's for his album Catching Tales on two tracks, "London Skies" and "Oh God".
Guy Chambers collaborated with Enrique Iglesias to write the ballad "First Day Of My Life". It was translated into Italian and recorded by Andrea Bocelli as the lead single from his first pop album. The English version of the song was recorded by Melanie C and became a smash #1 hit throughout Europe.
Chambers worked in LA with INXS for the first studio album after the death of Michael Hutchence Switch, released on 29 December 2005.
He also worked with the legendary Tina Turner and co-wrote 2 new titles with US rock band frontman Pat Monahan.
Chambers has also worked with Darren Hayes to co-write "Who Would Have Thought?", a track on Hayes' album This Delicate Thing We've Made, released on 23 August 2007. This song was released on Darren Hayes's Myspace, prior to the album release on 9 April 2007 along with an associated animation clip for the song.
Chambers worked with the soul singer Kelis for a possible album release in 2009
Other work includes 4 tracks on US singer Anastacia's 2008 release Heavy Rotation.
Eros Ramazzotti[1] on his greatest hits album which includes 4 new songs. The song "Ci parliamo da grandi" is written by Eros and Guy. The album e2: energ released on 31-10-2007 under the Sony-BMG label
Chambers and Cathy Dennis have been writing for a new solo record due out 2009 and collaborated with Cathy Dennis on Kylie's new album X, which includes the track "Sensitized".
Robbie Williams was included on the Radio 1 40 years album, with a cover of The Kinks "Lola", produced by Guy.
Chambers has been working with Island Records artist Kerli, Mercury US signing Jessie James.
Guy Chambers most recently began work with British artists Julian Perretta.
The Lemon Trees discography
Album:
- Open Book (Oxygen Records/MCA - 1993)
Singles include:
- "Love Is In Your Eyes" (MCA - 1992)
- "The Way I Feel" (MCA - 1992)
- "Let It Loose" (MCA - 1993)
- "Child Of Love" (MCA - 1993)
- "I Can't Face The World" (MCA - 1993)
Writer's discography
- 34 Gold / Platinum certified albums [UK & US]
- 22 top 10 singles
- 6 No.1 singles
- 12 No. 1 albums
Albums
Tracks featured on the following albums:
Singles
- "Why Not Us" by Monrose (2008)
- "Naïve" by Axelle Red (2007)
- "Romantique à mort" by Axelle Red (2007)
- "Afterglow" by INXS (2006)
- "Pretty Vegas" by INXS (2005) #9 Australia
- "First Day Of My Life" by Melanie C (2005) #1 Germany, #1 Switzerland, #1 Spain, #1 Portugal, #2 Austria
- "Come As You Are" by Beverley Knight (2004) #9 UK
- "Real To Me" by Brian McFadden (2004) #1 UK, #1 Ireland, #1 Denmark, #1 Norway, #2 Sweden, #4 Finland, #54 Australia
- "Irish Son" by Brian McFadden (2004) #6 UK
- "Out of the Blue" by Delta Goodrem (2004) #9 UK, #1 Australia
- "Together We Are One" by Delta Goodrem (2006) #2 Australia
- "Your Disco Needs You" by Kylie Minogue (2001)
- "Skin" by The Burmoe Brothers with Marc Almond (1985)
Robbie Williams
- "Sexed Up" (Nov 2003) #10 UK
- "Something Beautiful" (Aug 2003) #3 UK
- "Feel" (Dec 2002) #4 UK
- "Something Stupid" (1998)
- "Eternity"/"The Road To Mandalay" (Jul 2001) #1 UK
- "Let Love Be Your Energy" (Mar 2001) #10 UK
- "Supreme" (Dec 2000) #4 UK
- "Kids" (Oct 2000) #2 UK
- "Rock DJ" (Aug 2000) #1 UK
- "She's The One"/"It's Only Us" (Nov 1999) #1 UK
- "Strong" (Mar 1999) #4 UK
- "No Regrets" (Dec 1998) #4 UK
- "Millennium" (Sep 1998) #1 UK
- "Let Me Entertain You" (Mar 1998) #3 UK
- "Angels" (Dec 1997) #4 UK
- "South Of The Border" (Sep 1997) #14 UK
- "Lazy Days" (Jul 1997) #8 UK
- "Old Before I Die" (Apr 1997) #2 UK[2]
Films
Awards
- 3 Ivor Novello Awards
- 3 BRIT Awards
- Q Classic Songwriter Award
- MMF Best Produced Record Award
External links
References
- ^ Roberts, David. Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums. Guinness World Records Ltd 18th edition (May 2005), p. 608 ISBN 1904994008
- ^ Roberts, David. Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums. Guinness World Records Ltd 18th edition (May 2005), p. 603 ISBN 1904994008
