BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Full Name: Harold David Shaper
Description: Comoser of music, USA
Known For: “Softly as I Leave You”
Instruments: Piano
Music Styles: Popular
Location: South Africa
Date Born: 18th July 1931
Location Born: Cape Town, South Africa
Date Died: 8th January 2004
Location Died: Cape Town, South Africa
CONTACT DETAILS
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BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
Hal Shaper
An American lyrisist.
Shaper was born in 1931 to an immigrant family of an English father and Polish mother in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town.
The youngest of three children of Jewish immigrants, Shaper’s mother from Poland, his father from England, in his teenage years he decided that he wanted to be a songwriter. Although he began writing for local stage performances, he also studied law, qualifying in 1955.
He promptly abandoned South Africa and the law, heading for London and a career as a songwriter. After scuffling for work outside music, he found a job as a song plugger, first with Dave Toff and then with Robbins Music where he spent seven years and was encouraged and helped in achieving his dream by Alan Holmes and Joy Connock.
His first big success was “Softly, As I Leave You”, for which Shaper wrote the words to an Italian melody. Recorded first by Matt Monro, the song was later recorded by many other singers in the UK and the USA, among them Shirley Bassey, Bobby Darin, Lena Horne, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
The lyricist Hal Shaper’s most famous composition was “Softly as I Leave You” and in 1962 it was a Top Ten single in the UK for Matt Monro.
It did reasonably well in America, was covered by Doris Day, Andy Williams and Brenda Lee, and became a standard when Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1964.
He wrote an all-black version of La Bohème, called La Bohème: Noir, which he set in present-day Soweto. A book of poems, A Prince of Liars, was published in 1992.
Died Cape Town 8 January 2004.
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