First solo album "The Other Side Of
The Ocean" 2005 - see below

The
legend... taken from the official SAILOR fanclub
biography:
"I only wish to state emphatically that I
never had dreams - childhood or otherwise - of being a
cowboy."
Henry Marsh, Oxford graduate, peer's son, old school tie
bearer, chess master and dynamite guitarist, is
undoubtedly the most extrovert of the SAILOR musicians.
"Comes from being a schoolmaster. Screaming over
nasty school boys tends to strengthen one's
confidence."
Marsh, a direct descendent of Lord Stainsley-Marsh of
Hays, was educated at Langley College, Dorset, and New
College, Oxford. "I can read, write my own name and
tie my own shoes. That's not bad, is it?"
But long green lawns, formal gardens and academic
tranquillity have not always been Marsh's world. After
completing his studies at Oxford, Marsh joined a group
("Gringo") then touring Denmark and Holland.
The group met with limited success in Europe but failed
miserably in England. "Just as well," adds
Marsh. "The family were not pleased. They disdain
decibels, poor creatures."
`Gringo´ broke up in Amsterdam. "We all came back
to the hotel after a gig. I began packing ... so did
everyone else. That was it."
Marsh travelled to Paris. "I'd fancied myself a
blossoming Oscar Wilde and thought I'd drop by Paris to
die a little, you see."
Instead, he took a job as bookseller at Shakespeare &
Company, Paris's famous English language bookshop. He
fell in quickly with the community of American expatriate
writers, and found that he possessed no small talent as a
poet and writer of short fiction. A small booklet was
published in Paris in 1967 containing several
contributions by Marsh. Soon his work was appearing
regularly in literary magazines on both sides of the
Atlantic. "I may be the very Sampson of the sonnet
world."
Long a regular patron of the "Matelot", Marsh
joined SAILOR in the winter of 1968 and played with the
group until 1970. When SAILOR disbanded, Marsh returned
to Langley College with a nearly complete collection of
old SAILOR´ tapes, disks and cylindrical. "A
marvellously huge collection," he adds, "and
worth nearly five bob." He has interrupted his
teaching for SAILOR.
And
here's the true story...
with
special thanks to James McCarraher:
Ian Henry Murray Marsh was
born on the 08 December 1948 in Bath, England. The
great-great great grandson of Lord Collingwood and son of
racing driver Ken Marsh, Henry showed an early aptitude
for music which helped to seal a great friendship with
mucker Jeremy Irons at Sherborne College in
Dorset.
Leaving Sherborne, Henry took over as lead singer of a
local band, which went through a series of metamorphosis
and line up changes, before settling down as the Toast
and finally, prog-rockers, Gringo: "We were good but
we were also gig fodder. If you played the album at the
time there is a little bit of everything going on. You
can really see that we were a band of the time you
can really see what we were about. We were one of those
frightfully suspect commercial pop bands that wanted to
go progressive."
The demise of Gringo left Henry on a limb. Close friend
Phil Pickett invited him to join KP Packet, the
forerunner to SAILOR.
Following the demise of the original SAILOR line-up,
Henry joined Phil (along with Gavin and Ginny David) to
record "Dressed For Drowning" and "TV
Land" at the famous Caribou Studio in Colorado.
In 1981 Henry and his family joined a community
practising Transcendental Meditation in the North of
England. The highlight was a visit from His Holiness
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Throughout this period, he maintained his interest in
music, working with Georg on DATA, the Mamluks and
teaming up with legendary writer, Barry Mason.
The re-formation of SAILOR was a delight for Henry, who
is probably now as famous in American theatre for his
compositions as he is in Europe for his part in the band.
Indeed, in 1999, Henry left SAILOR and continues to
pursue his award-winning career, although little room
remains on the mantlepiece for further theatrical awards.
© James McCarraher 2004.
A full
and detailed account can be found in the book "A Glass Of Champagne
The Official Sailor Story".
Update:
In August 2005 Henry rejoined SAILOR and returned to his
place at the Nickelodeon after a 6-years-absence. The
story continues...
Fanclub
letter to the fans
1991
Hello everyone
Let me first thank you all for wanting to be a part of
the SAILOR club. It's hard for me to believe that Georg,
Grant, Phil and myself are back together after twelve
years, although I felt way back in 1978 that it might not
be over for ever.
When the original band split up in 1978, Phil and I
carried on working together, mostly on Phil's songs and
had adventurous time in Colorado making the "Dressed
For Drowning" album, which also went under the name
of SAILOR. Although this has become a bit of a collectors
item, we both recognised that the sound of the album did
not represent the original SAILOR. However, we were
persuaded by the record company to go under that name. On
reflection a more suitable name would have been 'Cowboy'
- 'Rattlesnake Ernie' - or even 'Butch Pickett and the
bespectacled Sundance English Accordionist Trying to Look
Reasonably Relaxed on a Horse With No Name'... a great
amount of time being spent exploring ghost towns and
mining villages, built by the Chinese slaves at the turn
of the century, which were situated on the Caribou Ranch
where we made the recording.
After this time, Punk music ruled the air waves in
Europe, and feeling that I no longer related to what was
happening in the music scene, I moved to the north of
England with my family to pursue another big love in my
life - Transcendental Meditation, with a view to becoming
a teacher of it. It was during this period (1981 - 85)
that I started writing music seriously, and by the end of
my stay in the North, I was familiar enough with computer
keyboard science to establish myself as a writer for TV
and radio.
Back in London in 1986 I met Barry Mason, one of the
great songwriters of the 60's ("The Last
Waltz"), and with him and David Bell, the successful
Broadway director, wrote my first and only musical to
date called 'Malibu'. This was performed by an American
cast to producers in New York in February 1991...
Shortly after writing the musical, Georg and I wrote the
music for a TV series called "The Kid". It was
wonderful to be working with him again and a lot of the
fun and humour we had enjoyed in Sailor came out in the
crazy and bizarre music and sound effects we created in
"The Kid". I then worked with Phil, shortly
after he retired from his highly acclaimed career with
Culture Club, and wrote a library music album called
"Tribute To The Sixties".
Before long, Georg, Phil and myself found ourselves
looking for Grant. We found him, now a revered teacher of
chemistry in Maidenhead, the excitement for reforming the
band after twelve long years returned, and here we are
now!"
Finally I have to say that Grant, Georg and Phil are very
special people to me, and the musical world of SAILOR is
something I always want to be a part of, and of course
there is all of you out there showing that you want to
share the experience too..... see you in town!!!
Henry Marsh
A
text about Henry, taken from the programme of "Casper -
The Musical"
(composers: Henry Marsh and Phil Pickett, production
musical director: Anthony England) 1999 / 2000:
Henry Marsh -
composer
Frequently working with Phil Pickett and co-founder of
the band SAILOR, Henry's individual credits include
extensive TV work composing soundtracks both for drama
and for top rating game shows. Henry has also worked
extensively with David Bell writing the music scores for
theatre productions including "Romeo And
Juliet", "A Comedy Of Errors", "Much
Ado About Nothing", "Grapes Of Wrath" and
"The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs".
Another
text about Henry, written in 2001:
Henry Marsh
is a composer whose work now spans 25 years. In the 70s
he was a founder member of the group SAILOR who achieved
international success with numerous hit records including
"A Glass Of Champagne" and "Girls Girls
Girls".
Since that time, Henry has established himself as a
prolific composer for theatre and television. He has
worked in collaboration with writer / director David H.
Bell for ten years.
His compositional work for theatre in America includes
"Romeo And Juliet", "Much Ado About
Nothing" and "The Comedy Of Errors". For
the later work, he received the "Joseph Jefferson
Award" for best composition. He also received a best
composer nomination for "Much Ado About
Nothing".
His musical theatre work in the USA includes "One
Last Summer", "In Stitches" and
"Female Problems" for which he received a
nomination for Best New Work.
His musical theatre work in the UK includes "The
Mask", "Spider-Man" and
"Casper". "Casper" enjoyed its West
End run at the Shaftesbury Theatre, opening in December
1999.
Henry has composed numerous scores for television. These
include "Eye Of The Storm" (ITV drama),
"Pirates" (BBC drama), "Blockbusters"
(Michael Aspel), "Strike It Rich" (Michael
Barrymore), "Black Date" (Channel 4), "Win
Lose Or Draw" (Granada Television), "The
Fastest Man On Earth" (ITV and Discovery Channel),
"House Invaders" (BBC).
His library music has been used worldwide for film and
television, including "Fresh Prince Of Bel Air"
(Will Smith), "Private Parts (the movie)",
"Father Ted", "Home And Away",
"Peak Practice" and many others.
Reviews
from "As You Like It"
In early 2002 Henry composed the music for the play
"As You Like It" at the Chicago Shakespeare
Theatre. The play got a lot of great reviews. Here are
some examples:
Reviews by courtesy of Henry Marsh!!
The Wall
Street Journal: "The play is filled with sweet
songs, here set to equally agreeable Russian melodies (by
composer Henry Marsh) sung by excellent singers backed by
a strong male chorus..."
Chicagotheatre.com:
"...and Henry Marsh's original music so
heartwrenchingly ethereal, it seemed to float down from
the heavens..."
The
Chicago Tribune: "Gifted music theatre director
that he is, Bell has zestfully staged the play's songs
with tuneful original music by Henry Marsh, so that such
familiar sections as 'Under The Greenwood Tree' have a
lively new pleasant chorus-bounce..."
Digitalcity.com:
"The live music and song, composed by Henry
Marsh, is just one more attractive adornment to this
highly enjoyable production..."
"Highly
recommended: 'As You Like It'... ...composer Henry
Marsh's incidental music and song settings could set a
Cossack spinning, while a chorus of male voices blends
sweetly with the balalaika..."
"Henry
Marsh has composed a 'Dr. Zhivago'-like musical score to
match the opulent costumes..."
"Despite
two songs that Shakespeare would not have written even if
he needed them, Henry Marsh's score seems a Slavie
delight."
Backstage.com:
"Composer Henry Marsh has fit Shakespeare's
words to Russian folk melodies, complete with
balalaika..."
Henry
in tune for top music award
- an
article about Henry from the Wiltshire Times 2002 -
A musician from Trowbridge
has been nominated for one of the American music scene's
most prestigious awards.
A former member of hit 70s group, SAILOR, Henry Marsh,
53, now composes music for the stage and screen and has
been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson award for
outstanding original music.
He said: "It is quite an honour to be nominated. I
won it three years ago and I was so convinced that I
wouldn't that I hadn't even prepared what I would say, I
just scribbled four names on the back of an overdraft
reminder."
The show he has been nominated for is As You Like It,
performed at the Shakespeare Theatre in Chicago.
Mr Marsh has written music for shows at the theatre for
many years, while also working for British theatres and
for television programmes, including Peak Practice and
House Invaders.
Nearly all his work over the past ten years has been done
from a studio he has created at his home.
Born in Bath, Mr Marsh went to boarding school in Dorset
where he was in his first band, along with theatre and
film star Jeremy Irons, who remains a close friend.
On leaving school he was supposed to join the Bath and
Wiltshire Youth Orchestra as a viola player, but decided
instead to follow his dream of playing rock and roll.
His big break came in 1973 when he became part of a new
band called SAILOR, which had a string of hits before the
members parted company five years later. Mr Marsh said:
"Our single 'A Glass Of Champagne' got to number two
but it happened to be the time when Bohemian Rhapsody,
one of the top selling singles of all time, was at number
one.
"I remember phoning up to find out where it had got
to when it first came out and it was at number seven and
that still stands out now as being something
amazing."
After the group split, Mr Marsh moved towards composing
and, as well as the work he has done in the USA, has
created the music for several British theatre
productions, including West End show, Casper.
He is now involved in Theatre Of Dreams, a musical about
Manchester United and Sir Matt Busby, which could
eventually be performed at the Manchester Arena.
He has also started a company called MB Productions,
which makes music videos for up and coming young bands
hoping to make their mark in the music industry.
He said: "There are some really good bands in
Trowbridge and in Bath and I want to give them the
opportunity to present themselves well."
NEWS
September 2004:
Two 'Best
Composer" Jefferson Awards nominations for Henry
Marsh 2004...
Finally we
have got some great news from one of the former SAILOR
members again:
Henry Marsh has been nominated TWICE for 'Best
Composer' at this years Jefferson Awards. The Jefferson
Awards are the second most important / prestigious awards
in American theatre, and are the 'Oscars' of Chicago
theatreland (see www.jeffawards.org)!!
This is the first time in the long history of the
Jefferson Awards that a composer has been nominated twice
in the same year! Henry scored the music to two
productions, 'The Taming of the Shrew' and 'Midsummer
Nights Dream'. He won his first Jefferson in 1999.
NEWS 31 October
2004:
    
We are
proud to anounce the launch of the new homepage of Henry Marsh:
http://www.henrymarsh.co.uk


|










|