THE GRAHAM GOULDMAN BIOGRAPHY

GRAHAM KEITH GOULDMAN, member of The Society Of Distinguished Songwriters along with all time greats such as Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black, was born on the 10th of May 1946 in Manchester. The demoralising World War II just had ended and people in Great Britain and on the European continent were looking forward to and heading for a more prosperous future, while rebuilding there distorted living areas. It was a future in which popular music would be playing a major role, especially in the life of the first post-war generation. And in this popular music scene there would be a major part for the gifted songwriter and musician that Gouldman would become in the next twenty years.
He was given life by Hymie Gouldman, a Jewish father with quite some artistic talent of his own, carried out as an amateur playwriter. It was Gouldman senior who encouraged his young son to develop his musical talent. And it was in the surrounding of this family with Jewish, Russian and Polish roots that Graham Gouldman found the inspiration to make the best out of this talent. Are you the connaisseur remembering Gouldman wrote a substantial part of his most outstanding songs – like Bus Stop and Love’s not for me - in a minor key? Gouldman himself declares that this has a lot to do with his Jewish background. It took him to the synagogue quite often in the early days, where most of the chants are sung with minor chords, which always attracted him more than the major ones.

The remarkable development of popular music in the sixties increased the dedication with which Graham Gouldman would pick up his musical and writing career. And in the development of the music scene Manchester, the city were Gouldman was born and spent his younger years, would play a major part, with its strong network of groups, beat clubs, the national television broadcasting show Top Of The Pops and a lot of teenagers hooked on music, the only passtime around in those days.