Richard Niles

Richard Niles is an American composer, arranger, record producer, guitarist, broadcaster, and journalist who appeared on Broadway in 1975 in Don't Call Back. Born on May 28, 1951, in Hollywood, he is the son of Tony Romano, a composer, singer, and guitarist who worked with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Cole Porter, Frank Sinatra, Ray Heindorf, Pat Silver-Lasky, and Joe Venuti, and who also wrote films, books, and plays and lectured in screenwriting. His parents divorced in 1959, and three years later Niles relocated with his mother to London. He was raised by his mother and stepfather Jesse Lasky Jr., a poet, playwright, and screenwriter.

From 1969 to 1970, Niles toured Britain with his group Pure Wings before turning to formal study. In 1975 he earned a degree in composition from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied with Gary Burton, Michael Gibbs, Pat Metheny, and Herb Pomeroy. He later received a Ph.D. from Brunel University in 2008.

Upon returning to London in 1975, Niles signed with Essex Records as a writer and became staff arranger and producer of songwriter demos for Essex and EMI Music. That work led to his role as musical director and arranger for Cat Stevens. On British television series for David Essex and Leo Sayer, he arranged and conducted for Ronnie Spector, Twiggy, Kate Bush, and Denny Laine. In 1978, while serving as staff arranger for Hansa Records, he discovered Sarah Brightman and arranged both his and her first hit, "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper." Over the course of his career he composed, arranged, and produced music for Anita Baker, Cilla Black, James Brown, Ray Charles, Cher, Petula Clark, Randy Crawford, Gloria Gaynor, Lulu, Paul McCartney, the Pet Shop Boys, Tears for Fears, Tina Turner, and Deniece Williams, among others. He arranged the Grace Jones album Slave to the Rhythm and scored and conducted strings on the Depeche Mode songs "Home," "Only When I Lose Myself," and "Surrender," as well as on Berlin's "Sex Me Talk Me." His arrangements also extended to Swing Out Sister, Living in a Box, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ABC, and Was (Not Was). He contributed to hits for Wet Wet Wet, Damage, O-Town, OTT, Take That, Boyzone, and Westlife, including Westlife's duet "Against All Odds" with Mariah Carey, and worked with Cliff Richard, Barry Manilow, Stephen Gately, and Ronan Keating.

Niles led the house band Bandzilla on Ruby Wax's Channel 4 television series Don't Miss Wax, and Bandzilla released an album of big band instrumentals. He also served as musical director for the Michael Ball television series in 1994, writing and arranging for both Joe Cocker and James Brown on that program. As leader of Bandzilla, he released Blue Movies featuring Guy Barker and John Thirkell on Lifetime Records in 1990, and Bandzilla Rises!!! on Bandzilla Records in 2016, co-produced by John Thirkell and featuring Randy Brecker, Leo Sayer, Clarice Assad, Lamont Dozier Jr., and Nigel Hitchcock.

In the jazz sphere, Niles wrote, arranged, and produced music for Pat Metheny, Bob Mintzer, John Patitucci, Jane Monheit, and Bob James, and produced albums by Morrissey–Mullen and Jim Mullen. He released the albums Santa Rita on Sanctuary and Club Deranged on Nucool. In 1987 he discovered British R&B singer Clive Griffin, producing and co-writing the album Clive Griffin, which was followed by television appearances and concerts supporting Chaka Khan. In 1990 he discovered Norwegian singer-songwriter Silje Nergaard, producing and co-writing three albums: Tell Me Where You're Going on EMI/Lifetime Records, Cow on the Highway on Toshiba/EMI in 1991, and Silje on Toshiba/EMI in 1992. The song "Tell Me Where You're Going," backed with a duet of the same song featuring Pat Metheny, reached number one in Japan on the J-Wave charts. Niles arranged two albums for British singer Paul Carrack: Rain or Shine in 2013 and Soul Shadows in 2015. In 2015 he became a member and arranger of The Wrecking Crew All Stars, led by Don Peake, performing twice at Catalina's Jazz Club in Hollywood.

Niles composed and produced music for television commercials including campaigns for McDonald's, Max Factor, Toshiba, Wall's, Nescafé, and EuroDisney. His film and television work includes the score for The Strike for Comic Strip Films in 1988, which received an Honorable Mention for music at the Golden Rose of Montreux; Do the Right Thing for Universal Pictures in 1989; orchestration for Billy Elliot for BBC Films in 2000; lyrics for The Christmas Carol: The Movie for MGM in 2001; and Alice in Russialand, directed by Ken Russell in 1995.

As an author, Niles published The Pat Metheny Interviews with Hal Leonard in 2009, Polymetrics with Gary O'Toole through Jazzsense in 2011, The Invisible Artist through Amazon Create Space in 2014, and From Dreaming to Gigging – Jazz Guitar in 6 Months through Amazon Create Space in 2015. He has been a regular contributor to Making Music magazine since 1994. His broadcasting career began with Jazz Notes and Adventures in Jazz on BBC Radio 3 in 1996, and from 1998 he wrote and presented his own BBC Radio 2 program New Jazz Standards. He also wrote and presented BBC Radio 2 documentaries including "The Arrangers" and "Bright Size Life – Pat Metheny."

Niles has taught and given masterclasses at Brunel University, Leeds College of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music, the Academy of Contemporary Music, the Institute of Contemporary Music, and the Tech Schools of Music in the United Kingdom, and at USC, UCLA, CalState Northridge, Berklee College of Music, and the Orange County School of Arts in the United States. In 2012 he moved to Southern California, where he opened his studio and production and publishing company Niles Smiles Music.

Niles was married to vocalist Tessa Niles from 1982 until 1988. He married Aylin Marquez in 1999, and the couple have one child, Alexander, born in 2002, who is a musician and actor appearing in Francis Ford Coppola's Distant Vision.