Terry Britten

Terry Britten is an English singer-songwriter and record producer, who has written songs for Tina Turner, Cliff Richard, Olivia Newton-John, Status Quo and Michael Jackson amongst many others. Britten (along with co-writer Graham Lyle) won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1985 for "What's Love Got to Do with It". Britten is a native of Manchester, but began writing for the Adelaide, Australia band The Twilights, a popular 1960s band for which he played lead guitar. At times he co-wrote with Glenn Shorrock and Peter Brideoake. He also recorded a single under his own name, "2000 Weeks" / "Bargain Day" (1969). Britten was a band member of Quartet with Kevin Peek, Alan Tarney and Trevor Spencer who recorded one album with Decca Records in the UK, which remains unreleased. After the Twilights broke up, he returned to England and moved to London, where he did session work. Britten's multi layered guitars featured on Alvin Stardust's 1973 hit "My Coo Ca Choo". In 1973 he was part of Cliff Richard's Eurovision Song Contest 1973 entry and, along with John Farrar, Alan Tarney and Trevor Spencer, submitted six songs; of which "Power to All Our Friends" was chosen and came third. After a lean charting period for Cliff Richard, Britten gave him "Devil Woman" and, in 1976, it became Richard's first top 10 in the UK for three years. He was a guitarist in Richard's band for many years and was the co-producer and main songwriter for Richard's 1979 album Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile, which reached No. 3 in the UK Album Chart. He wrote and co-wrote with B.A. Robertson 10 of the 12 songs, of which "Carrie" reached No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart. He has also written for Meat Loaf, Melissa Manchester, Bonnie Raitt, and Hank B. Marvin.