Frank Mills (born June 27, 1942) is a Canadian
pianist
A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...
and recording artist, best known for his solo instrumental hit "
Music Box Dancer
"Music Box Dancer" is an instrumental piece by Canadian musician Frank Mills that was an international hit in the late 1970s. It features an arpeggio, arpeggiated piano theme in C-sharp major (enharmonic to D-flat major) designed to resemble a mus ...
".
Early life and education
Mills was born in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
. He was raised in
Verdun, Quebec
Verdun (; , ) is a borough (''arrondissement'') of the city of Montreal, Quebec, located in the southwestern part of the island.
Long known as a working class neighbourhood, it has experienced significant gentrification and social change in the 21 ...
and started playing piano at the age of three. His family was musical and his mother also played piano and his father sang tenor. By the time he was 17 both his parents had died of cancer.
Mills attended
McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
for five years. At McGill, he initially studied engineering, but eventually switched to the Department of Music. He entertained his
Delta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon (), commonly known as DU, is a collegiate men's fraternity founded on November 4, 1834 at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is the sixth-oldest, all-male, college Greek Letter Organizations#Greek letters, Greek-let ...
fraternity brothers with songs from
ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...
to
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
(a new musician at the time). The fraternity piano had
thumbtacks on every hammer and produced a unique sound.
Career
In the late 1960s, Mills became a member of
The Bells. He left the band in 1971 just before it had international success with the single "
Stay Awhile."
Mills worked as a pianist for
CBC Television
CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...
and recorded his first solo album, ''Seven Of My Songs'', which produced the hit single "
Love Me, Love Me Love". The song made its debut on the Canadian charts in October 1971 and early the following year peaked at
#1 on the Canadian charts, number 46 on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 and number 8 on ''Billboard''′s Easy Listening chart
His 1972 cover of
Ricky Nelson
Eric Hilliard Nelson (May 8, 1940 – December 31, 1985) was an American musician, songwriter and actor. From age eight he starred alongside his family in the radio and television series ''The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet''. In 1957, he bega ...
's "Poor Little Fool" made top 25 on the Canadian charts, but only reached number 106 in the US.
Mills released an album in 1974 that featured "Music Box Dancer", but it was not a hit initially. When he re-signed with executive Michael Hoppé at
Polydor Records
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
Canada in 1978, the label released a new song as a single, with "Music Box Dancer" on the
B-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...
. The single was sent to
easy listening
Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...
radio stations in Canada, but a copy was sent in error to
CFRA-AM, a
pop station in
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
. The program director played the A-side and could not figure out why it had been sent to his station, so he played the B-side to see if the record was mistakenly marked. He liked "Music Box Dancer" and added it to his station's playlist, turning the record into a Canadian hit. Dave "50,000" Watts, an
Ottawa Valley
The Ottawa Valley is the valley of the Ottawa River, along the boundary between Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais, Quebec, Canada. The valley is the transition between the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the Canadian Shield. Because of the surroundi ...
radio personality, gave the record extensive airplay on the station. The album went gold in Canada, which prompted Polydor in the US to release the album and single.
In
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
, news producer Bob Parker at
WNGE-TV began playing the song over the closing credits of the newscast. Nashville DJs quickly gave the song airplay, and both the single and album were hits. The million-selling (Gold-certified) single reached number 3 on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 in the spring of 1979 as well as number 4 on the ''Billboard'' Easy Listening chart,
while the album reached number 21 on the ''Billboard'' Top Album chart
and also went gold. Polydor awarded a gold record to TV station WNGE for breaking the single in the US.
"Music Box Dancer" was Mills' only US Top 40 pop hit. The follow-up, another piano instrumental, "Peter Piper", peaked at number 48 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 but became a Top 10 hit on the ''Billboard'' Adult Contemporary chart.
Mills managed one final Adult Contemporary chart entry, "Happy Song", which peaked at number 41 at the beginning of 1981.
Mills won two
Juno Awards
The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...
in 1980 for "Peter Piper", one for
Composer of the Year
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
and one for
Instrumental Artist of the Year. He again won in the latter category
in 1981.
He continued to release albums until the early 1990s. In 2010 he traveled on a Christmas tour with Canadian singer
Rita MacNeil
Rita MacNeil (May 28, 1944 – April 16, 2013) was a Canadian singer from the community of Big Pond on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island. Her biggest hit, "Flying On Your Own", was a crossover Top 40 hit in 1987 and was covered by Anne Murray t ...
. Mills and MacNeil toured again in November–December 2012.
Film and television appearances
"Music Box Dancer" was the theme song of the local Los Angeles CBS half-hour TV documentary show ''2 on the Town'' from 1979 through the early 1980s.
"Music Box Dancer" has been heard on an episode of ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
'' and in the ''
Kill Bill
''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' is a 2003 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who swears revenge on a team of assassins (Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Vivica A. Fox) an ...
'' movies. It was used as the theme tune to the BBC2 golf programme, ''Around with Alliss'', and also as a popular track on the BBC1 trade test (testcard) transmissions. Other Frank Mills tracks including 'From a Sidewalk Cafe' were used on BBC1 and BBC2 in the 1970s and 1980s during testcard, ceefax and intervals between programmes.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mills made a number of appearances on the annual
Telemiracle
''Telemiracle'' is an annual telethon organized by the Kin Canada, Kinsmen and Kinettes in Saskatchewan, Canada for the benefit of the Kin Canada, Kinsmen Foundation. Initially broadcast on both CTV Television Network, CTV and CBC Television, ...
telethons broadcast from
Saskatoon
Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...
and
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina () is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 C ...
.
References
External links
frankmills.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mills, Frank
1942 births
Anglophone Quebec people
Canadian pop pianists
Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year winners
Living people
Musicians from Montreal
Juno Award for Instrumental Album of the Year winners
21st-century Canadian pianists