Mitch Murray CBE (born Lionel Michael Stitcher; 30 January 1940)[1] is an English songwriter, record producer and author.

[13] Most of Murray's subsequent hits were written with Peter Callander, among them "Even the Bad Times Are Good" (The Tremeloes),[14] "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" (Georgie Fame),[15] "Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha" (Cliff Richard),[16] "Ragamuffin Man" (Manfred Mann),[17] "Hitchin' a Ride" (Vanity Fare),[18] "Turn On The Sun" (Nana Mouskouri)[19] and "Avenues and Alleyways", "Las Vegas", and "I Did What I Did for Maria" for Tony Christie.

[21] In an interview in The Times in which Christie described another Murray-Callander penned tune, "Las Vegas", he noted that the two "were the star songwriters of the day".

An Italian version of "Down Came the Rain", under the name "Una ragazza in due" ("A girl for two") with lyrics unrelated to the original, has been performed by various artists, among them I Giganti, Ornella Vanoni and Mina.

[24] Later, Murray and Callander formed their own record label, Bus Stop,[12] through which they launched the career of Paper Lace.

Another song Murray was involved in was "Sing Me", a UK Top Ten hit for one-hit wonders, The Brothers, in 1977.

[27] In the mid-1980s, just before the privatisation of British Telecom, Murray wrote and starred in a series of comedy programmes, The Telefun Show, which were only available for listening via the telephone (by dialling 01–246 8070 in the UK) in a similar way to the contemporary Dial-A-Disc service, which he also presented and which attracted up to 300,000 calls per day.

[23] After "Down Came The Rain", Murray built up a reputation for comedy in many areas, including voice characterisation for movies and radio commercials, as well as for after-dinner speaking.