- A highly successful songwriter, particularly in the 1970s, with a string of hits for the likes of The Foundations, Long John Baldry, The Hollies and The Fifth Dimension, as well as invented studio groups such as Edison Lighthouse and Pickettywitch. He frequently worked in collaboration with two other flourishing 1970s composers, Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway.
- He is an English author, composer for musical theatre, and songwriter.
- His first collaborations for the stage were with the playwright Ken Hill on Is Your Doctor Really Necessary? in 1973, and on Gentlemen Prefer Anything the following year.
- He also wrote the music for Windy City, a musical in two acts based on The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with book and lyrics by Dick Vosburgh, which was premiered on stage in 1982.
- He has won the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors Award twice as 'Songwriter of the Year' (1970 and 1977).
- He is a nine time Ivor Novello Awards winning songwriter.
- Later Macaulay turned to writing thrillers.
- He composed the scores to the films The Beast in the Cellar (1970) and Percy's Progress (1974), and was the music co-ordinator for the film Never Too Young to Rock (1975).
- In the midst of all of his success, which culminated in 1977 with Donna Summer's recording of "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)," Macaulay was involved with a lawsuit that he'd filed against his original publishers. He won the case in 1974, in the process becoming one of the most powerful composers in the British music industry. And in the midst of that legal case, and the victory that followed, he did something that few people in his position have ever done -- he walked away from the milieu of his success.
- Much of his attention in the early 1970s was diverted by a protracted legal dispute with his publishers.[1] He won his case on appeal in 1974, in a landmark decision which encouraged other artists to challenge the terms of their contracts.[20] By this time he had begun to turn his back on writing pop songs and started to write for musical theatre.
- Macaulay's best-known songs include "Baby Now That I've Found You" and "Build Me Up Buttercup" with The Foundations, "(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All," as well as "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" and "Don't Give Up on Us".
- In the early 1960s he worked as a song plugger for Essex Publishing, then moved to Pye Records as a record producer.[1] It was here that he had his first major success with The Foundations, when they recorded, "Baby Now That I've Found You", a song he had co-written with John Macleod, and it topped the UK Singles Chart in November 1967.
- In 2007, he became the only British person to win the Edwin Forrest Award for outstanding contribution to the American theatre.
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