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Last week saw the passing of songwriter Barry Mason, and whilst that name may not mean much to many today, he will be forever linked to one of Wales’s most famous sons.
Born in Wigan, Lancashire, he, alongside partner Les Reed, wrote some of the Sixties classic songs with one in particular, a massive hit for the one and only...Tom Jones.
Recorded in December 1967 and released the following February, Delilah reached No 2 in the UK charts but also No 1 in many other countries including Germany, France and Switzerland.
When Jones performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show, the censors insisted that the line "At break of day when the man drove away" be changed to "At break of day I was still 'cross the way", as the original version implied he had spent the night with Delilah. Jones later described the change as "such bullshit".
As well as Jones, Mason provided songs and hits for some of the industry’s greats, people like, Petula Clark, Perry Como, Elvis Presley, Engelbert Humperdinck, Charles Aznavour, Tony Christie and Barbra Streisand, plus the UK Singles Chart number ones, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)", "The Last Waltz", and "I Pretend".
In his long career, Mason gained many gold and platinum awards for his work including five Ivor Novello Awards, the most recent of them in 1998, and leaves a hefty catalogue of some of the era’s most recognisable hits.
