Mick Greenwood -

Mick Greenwood (born Feb. 13, 1951) is an English singer/songwriter from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, who made the 1971/72 MCA albums Living Game and …To Friends, followed by the 1974 Warner release Midnight Dreamer.

Background

Mick Greenwood was born Michael Vernon Greenwood on Feb. 13, 1951, at the family home in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, England. His father was a Yorkshire engineer and son of a textile entrepreneur; his mother came from a Cumbrian farming family.

Greenwood spent portions of childhood at different homes in England and attended Hailey School, Shrewsbury House, and Arundel House. In January 1963, his family emigrated from Thames Ditton, Surrey, to Halifax, Pennsylvania, where Greenwood continued his education at Halifax High School.

Greenwood took up piano around age four and received a Kent electric guitar with a Sears Roebuck amplifier at fourteen. He devoted himself to the instrument after sustaining a wrist injury during a high school wrestling match. While still at Halifax High, he took up songwriting and formed began composing songs and formed The DearSirs.

After Halifax, Greenwood entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he studied drama, philosophy, and physics. He played with a local act, Charlotte’s Web, and developed a solo repertoire. Greenwood also performed at clubs including the Bitter End in New York.

Greenwood recorded a solo demo in the Dickinson music department with a Martin D12-35 twelve-string guitar and a reel-to-reel recorder. He carried the only copy to the Columbia Records A&R office in New York, where producer and talent scout John Hammond heard the tape and responded a fortnight later.

After two years at Dickinson, Greenwood returned to England in 1970 with plans to continue his studies at Exeter University and Exeter College of Art. Hammond arranged a meeting with CBS in London, where A&R executive David Howells signed Greenwood. Howells subsequently moved to MCA and arranged Greenwood’s move to the label, which set the conditions for recording Living Game.

Discography: