charts with "Stairway of Love," a 13-week entry that hit number three. He enjoyed further modest hits with "In Love" and "I'll Always Be in Love With You" and once again soared on the U.K. He also had his own program, called (appropriately enough) Relax With Mike.
The story of my life song michael holliday series#
On television, however, he was a regular guest on variety programs, as well as singing the title theme from Gerry Anderson's series Four Feathers Fall. With his soothing vocal style and good looks, Holliday seemed a natural for a screen career, but apart from an acting role in Val Guest's comedy Life Is a Circus, he never tried for a big-screen career. Holliday also showed an unexpected ability as a composer, getting one of his own songs onto the B-side. At the end of 1957, however, he recorded an early Burt Bacharach/Hal David composition called "The Story of My Life," which had already been a hit in America for Marty Robbins, which soared to number one in England in a 15-week ride on the charts, overcoming three competing British versions. Holliday's chart action for the next year was relatively modest, his covers of songs such as "Love Is Strange," "Four Walls," and "Old Cape Cod" performing unexceptionally. Holliday enjoyed modest successes with his covers of "Yellow Rose of Texas" and "Sixteen Tons." "Nothin' to Do" was his first Top 30 hit, in March of 1956, and he made the Top 20 with the double-sided hit of "The Gal With Yeller Shoes" and "Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity)" later that same year. In 1955, he was signed as a solo artist to EMI's Columbia label by producer Norrie Paramor. He took the name Michael Holliday and was hired as a singer and guitarist with the Eric Winstone Band. Upon his return to England, he secured his release from the merchant service and decided to become a singer. Fate took a hand when he landed in New York and won a talent competition at Radio City Music Hall. It was during a stint as a merchant seaman in the late '40s that he discovered his talent for entertaining, mostly in front of his shipmates. He was born Michael Milne in Liverpool in 1928 and never considered music as a career. For four years, from 1956 through 1960, Holliday bade fair to be England's top male singing star, with a smooth, pleasing baritone singing style that was often compared to Bing Crosby. charts, but he couldn't have represented a more different brand of music. Michael Holliday emerged as a singing star in late-'50s England, at approximately the same time that Lonnie Donegan, Cliff Richard, and Billy Fury began tearing up the U.K.