Neil McArthur
Neil McArthur has worked in many musical areas over the last forty years. Having promoted and played in The Boy Dog And Carrot rock band while still at school, along with acoustic folk outfits inspired by Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, his first professional job was as pianist / MD on a Summer Show in Cliftonville when he was nineteen. Shortly afterwards, he got a call to play bass guitar at Lincoln Theatre Royal on what turned out to be the first “juke box musical”: Leave Him To Heaven. The show was an enormous hit and eventually transferred to the West End.
From there onwards, Neil worked at The Mermaid Theatre in London, notably with Harry Nilsson on The Point, Stratford East, Norwich Theatre Royal and Manchester Library Theatre.
After a four year break recovering from health problems, Neil McArthur joined the Cambridge University band, Harvey And The Wallbangers. The group made many television appearances in both the UK and in Europe, and toured extensively. They made five albums, had two Radio 2 series, appeared on The Royal Variety Show, and their final performance sold out Sadler’s Wells.
After the Wallbangers split, Neil went on to MD the West End and Broadway hit Blues In The Night, and then was MD on two shows at Leicester Haymarket Theatre.
Returning to London, he accompanied Clarke Peters on many an outing round London restaurants playing Louis Jordan material. The songs eventually became the basis of the international hit “Five Guys Named Moe”, for which Neil was musical arranger and MD. The show ran for six years in the West End and for a year on Broadway, and garnered a Silver and a Gold disc for record sales.
Other work around this time included Oh! What A Lovely War, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, A Streetcar Named Desire, Fix-Up, The Villains’ Opera, His Girl Friday and Elmina’s Kitchen (NT), Tamar’s Revenge (RSC), High Society (Sheffield), Half A Sixpence, The Wizard Of Oz and Bad Girls (Leeds Playhouse), and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (West End and Broadway). Neil was John Byrne’s musical arranger and MD on The National Theatre of Scotland’s first production – Tutti Frutti, was MD / composer on two productions at Chichester Festival Theatre, and was musical supervisor for Stephen Fry’s pantomime Cinderella at The Old Vic. He co-produced the Jerry Lee Lewis musical Great Balls Of Fire for which he was also musical director, and helped on workshop productions by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Ray Davies and Lionel Bart.
Television and film includes compositions for the BBC productions of The Ancient Mariner and Young Jung, Frank Stubbs Presents (ITV) and the feature film Victory produced by Miramax films.
In recent years, Neil has concentrated on co-writing songs with old friend and playwright Tony Jones and with Ben Brierley. The results of the TJ collaboration can be heard on The Green House Band’s double CD Anthology (Talking Elephant Records), and with Ben on the album Meanwhile… (Brierley and McArthur) on all major streaming platforms.
Neil McArthur has also opened Soho Folk & Blues in Soho’s Frith Street, which models itself on the clubs of the 1960s and beyond – Les Cousins, The Troubadour, Bunjie’s etc.
The club presents acoustic artists once a fortnight, and the programme can be found online via the link below.
