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DAVIES WAS MOST RECENTLY THE CHAIRMAN & Co-FOUNDER OF TMP - THE MUSIC PUBLISHER, CANADA'S LEADING INDEPENDENT MUSIC PUBLISHER FROM THE MID 1980s TO THE LATE 1990s, AND ALSO CHAIRMAN & FOUNDER OF THE NON-PROFIT CANADIAN SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME.
CHAIRMAN/Co-FOUNDER TMP - THE MUSIC PUBLISHER (CANADA) 1986-99:
After the purchase of ATV in 1985 by Michael Jackson, Davies co-founded TMP and built it into the country's premier music publisher; as well as the largest and most successful publisher of works by Canadian songwriters.
Twice voted “Publisher of the year” in the industry’s annual awards and still the only independent to have ever achieved that honour, Frank sold TMP to Alliance Communications Corp in 1994 and stayed on to run the company until the then merged Alliance Atlantis sold TMP at the end of 1999.
Davies built a catalogue of more than 5000 copyrights recorded by many of the world's top recording artists as well as music featured extensively in feature film and television productions and accompanying soundtrack albums.
TMP had separately acquired the worldwide administration rights to both the Alliance and Atlantis film and television music publishing catalogues in the eighties and continued to administer these rights up to Alliance's purchase (1994) and Alliance Atlantis' sale (1999) of TMP; creating an extensive, international network of representation for Alliance's music rights as well as securing soundtrack album deals throughout the world for that music, in addition to creating and placing 'source music' opportunities within Alliance's U.S. and Canadian productions.
TMP also represented the Canadian-territory music rights to such international film and television production companies as LORIMAR TELEPICTURES and Sesame Street's JONICO MUSIC, as well as the pop catalogues of the SPICE GIRLS, L.A. REID'S HITCO and JIMMY WEBB's classic songs, among others.
Some of the national and international hit songs signed and developed by Davies and TMP include:
'Dark Horse', 'Birmingham' and 'Trust Me This is Love' (all Amanda Marshall hits as well as being recorded by Anne Murray, Mila Mason, Tina Arena, and others); 'Don't Hold Back Your Love' (Hall & Oates); Dirty Dancing's 'Overload' (Zappacosta); 'This' (Rod Stewart); 'Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Crafts' (The Carpenters, Klaatu); 'Lifestyles of the Not So Rich & Famous' (Tracy Byrd); ‘If I Was A Drinkin' Man' (Neal McCoy); 'Heaven Help My Heart' (Wynonna, Tina Arena); 'Sinking Like A Sunset' (Tom Cochrane); 'When There's Time For Love' and 'All the Lovers in the World' (Gowan); the classic Canadian rock anthem and first ever CanCon single 'Oh What A Feeling' (Crowbar) and 'Make Me Do Anything You Want' (A Foot In Coldwater) both of which Davies also produced; along with almost 1500 other hit recordings by the likes of Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt, Alice Cooper, the Doobie Brothers, Mountain, Heart, Glass Tiger, Cher, Don Henley & Sheryl Crow, kd lang, Tanya Tucker, Alannah Myles, Loverboy, Terri Clark, EmmyLou Harris, the Wilkinsons, Chilliwack, Junkhouse, George Jones, Bette Midler, Blue Oyster Cult, the Guess Who, and many others.
TMP also had great success with the placement of its songs in major motion pictures such as As Good As It Gets, Dirty Dancing, Urban Legend, Blown Away, Peter's Friends, The Crow, Cool Runnings, One Fine Day, Pay It Forward and others; as well as a multitude of song uses made in television productions, and major advertising placements for McDonalds, Harley Davidson, Labatts, Molson and others. TMP received multiple ASCAP, GAVIN, R&R, ECMA, JUNOS, SOCAN, PROCAN, CMPA and GENIE awards for its efforts.
Davies opened a US office for TMP in Nashville in the late nineties after having had a creative presence there and in Los Angeles for several years with independent pluggers representing the catalogue.
TMP also owned the career songwriting catalogues of artists like Murray McLauchlan, Honeymoon Suite and Ron Hynes along with the song catalogues of many of the artists that Davies brought to TMP from his years running his own record label (Daffodil) and production companies (Love and Partisan) in the seventies and early eighties. These artists include Crowbar, Klaatu, the King Biscuit Boy, A Foot In Coldwater, Tom Cochrane, Alfie Zappacosta and others.
During the early years of TMP, Davies’ signings included songwriter Dean McTaggart (ex of A&M’s The Arrows), artist/writers Sherry Kean (Capitol), Exchange - the instrumental duo of Gerald O’Brien and Steve Sexton (Mesa), Ian Thomas/The Boomers (Warners & Polygram) and The Mozz (Virgin); he took on the worldwide administration of Hagood Hardy’s film and television music catalogue, and the management of songwriter/producers David Tyson and Eddie Schwartz, through his Cheek-To-Cheek Management company.
In 1991 Davies formed a joint venture between TMP and MCA Music Publishing in the U.S during which time he signed, developed and launched the recording career of hit American trumpeter Rick Braun (Warner/Atlantic) resulting in several #1 albums on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart; L.A based singer/songwriter John Cody (Duke Street/MCA); signed and published iconic, cult artist Jane Siberry (including her most successful international album “When I Was A Boy” on Reprise); hit Nashville songwriter Byron Hill (winner of 3 annual ASCAP awards in the 90’s); the Barstool Prophets (Mercury); Annette Ducharme (Capitol); songwriter John Capek; longtime management client - songwriter/producer Eddie Schwartz; and rock poet Andrew Matheson (MCA).
In 1994 at the end of the MCA venture Frank sold a majority interest in TMP to Robert Lantos’ Alliance Communications Corporation while artist managers Bruce Allen (Bryan Adams, Martina McBride, Anne Murray, Michael Buble) and Sam Feldman (Norah Jones, Diana Krall, the Chieftains, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello) picked up the balance through their A&F Music company. Frank continued building TMP for a further five years, as its President & CEO.
During this ‘Alliance’ period Davies signed artist/writers Dayna Manning (EMI), Gil Grand (Sony), Kai (Sextant), Lawnie Wallace, Staggered Crossing (Warner), Driving Blind (Vanguard), Welcome (Page/Oasis), poet Robert Priest (EMI/artisan), Nashville songwriter/producer Odie Blackmon, songwriter Bill Wallace, and U.S gospel artist/writer Constant Change.
After Alliance merged with its major competitor Atlantis Communications Inc in 1998, the renamed Alliance Atlantis Corporation (AAC) sold TMP to Allan Gregg’s newly formed The Song Corporation (SOC) in late 1999. Davies declined continuing as President/CEO and created Let Me Be Frank inc. Just eighteen months later, U.S. based Peermusic, the world’s largest independent music publisher, bought the TMP catalogue from the then-bankrupt SOC.
PRESIDENT ATV MUSIC GROUP (Canada) 1982-86:
ATV was a multinational music publishing group based out of London, England originally owned by LORD GRADE's ITC film group. It was later bought by ASSOCIATED COMMUNICATIONS CORP, then entertainer MICHAEL JACKSON and finally was acquired as part of the renamed SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP. ATV is best known as THE BEATLES music publisher. As President of the Canadian company and, in its final months (prior to purchase by Michael Jackson), also responsible for the U.S. East Coast operations, Davies built the company into the largest and most significant independent (non-Major) music publisher in Canada with an extensive and highly successful Canadian talent base that included Aldo Nova, Chilliwack, Toronto, Pukka Orchestra, Headpins, David Tyson & Eddie Schwartz, in addition to its renowned international repertoire.
PRESIDENT/Co-FOUNDER PARTISAN MUSIC PRODUCTIONS INC. (Canada) 1978-82:
Partisan was the very first Canadian record production and music publishing company to have an exclusive record production deal with a U.S. based multinational music 'Major' (CAPITOL RECORDS, now EMI). Partisan discovered, developed and produced Canadian and International recording talent for worldwide release by Capitol.
PRIOR TO 1978:
Before 1978, Davies was a leading record producer, independent record label owner and music publisher during the seventies through his companies DAFFODIL RECORDS and LOVE PRODUCTIONS LTD.
Davies came to North America in 1970 from the UK record business where he had worked for EMI RECORDS and at LIBERTY RECORDS' European office in the mid-sixties. Before that, he began his music career at BILLBOARD MAGAZINE as its French correspondent, in 1964.
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