A veteran American songwriter was once asked: “Which comes first, the melody or the lyrics?” He replied: “The phone call.” Such an attitude epitomised the career of Sid Tepper, who could turn his hand to many genres of popular song, from comic novelty items to beat ballads. Tepper, who has died aged 96, co-wrote more than 300 songs with Roy C Bennett, including many for the films of Elvis Presley, and three of Cliff Richard’s biggest hits, among them the title song of the 1961 film The Young Ones.
Tepper was born in Brooklyn, New York where he wrote poetry in high school. During the second world war, he joined the Special Services Entertainment Division, entertaining troops as a pianist and singer. He was discovered by an executive of Mills Music, which he joined as a staff writer after demobilisation. There he teamed up with a childhood friend, Bennett, to write his first hit, Red Roses for a Blue Lady, recorded by Vaughn Monroe in 1948.
During the 1950s, the most successful Tepper-Bennett compositions were novelty songs. Rosemary Clooney recorded Suzy Snowflake in 1951, and in 1955, seven-year-old Barry Gordon sang another seasonal ditty, Nuttin’ for Christmas. The same year, The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane was a top 10 hit in Britain for both Dean Martin and the Ames Brothers, while Twenty Tiny Fingers was a big success in the UK for the Stargazers. In 1958, Frankie Vaughan and Perry Como each reached the UK top 10 with Kewpie Doll.
Tepper-Bennett songs were recorded by many of the leading ballad singers from Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan to Andy Williams and Danny Williams, whose version of Wonderful World of the Young was a 1962 hit. In their early days, The Beatles regularly performed Glad All Over, a Tepper-Bennett number first recorded in 1957 by the rockabilly singer and guitarist Carl Perkins.
For almost a decade, Tepper and Bennett were among the songwriting teams regularly invited to pitch material for the unceasing flow of Elvis Presley film musicals. Tepper explained that “when Elvis started to make the movies, they needed non rock’n’roll writers, people who would come up with special material songs and ballads”. For much of the 1960s, up to a dozen songwriting teams would submit songs to fit scenes in the movies. Tepper and Bennett were among the more successful competitors, with some 45 compositions finding their way on to the screen, including the prized title song in two films, GI Blues (1960) and Stay Away Joe (1968).
Like many of the films, most of the songs were easily forgettable, but as Tepper told an interviewer, when a song was recorded by Elvis, you could expect a million sales. Among the more memorable Tepper-Bennett numbers were It’s a Wonderful World from Roustabout (1964) and The Lady Loves Me, a witty poolside duet with Ann-Margret in Viva Las Vegas (1964).
One song that failed to make it to the screen was Travellin’ Light, composed by Tepper and Bennett in 1958 for a scene that was cut from the final version of King Creole. Instead it found its way to Cliff Richard’s recording manager, Norrie Paramor. Its gentle ballad flavour fitted Paramor’s plan to turn Cliff from a rock’n’roll singer inspired by Presley into an all-round entertainer.
Travellin’ Light became a chart-topper in 1959, and when Cliff was contracted to make the film The Young Ones, Paramor despatched music publisher Cyril Simons to New York to commission Tepper and Bennett to create a title song. Simons left for the West Coast and when he returned two days later he was presented with three compositions including When the Girl in Your Arms is the Girl in Your Heart, which reached No 2 in 1961. Its success was nowhere near that of the gently anthemic The Young Ones. Before the record was issued, it had orders of over 600,000, an unheard of number in those pre-Beatles days. The song was to have a curious afterlife when, 20 years later, it became the theme tune of the anarchic television comedy The Young Ones. Richard went on to record other Tepper-Bennett songs and the singer finally met Tepper when he attended Tepper’s 90th birthday party in 2008.
The pressure to come up with new songs told on Tepper and he suffered a severe heart attack in the late 1960s. Soon afterwards he retired to Miami to convalesce.
In 2002, Tepper and Bennett were invited to Memphis where Lisa Marie Presley unveiled a plaque commemorating their contribution to her father’s career. The same year saw the release of a double CD, Elvis Sings Sid Tepper and Roy Bennett.
Tepper’s wife, Lillian, died in 2005. Tepper is survived by five children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His son, Warren, and granddaughter Joanna are both singers and songwriters.
Sidney Tepper, songwriter, born 25 June 1918; died 24 April 2015
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