Frank Mills

Frank Mills (born June 27, 1942) is a Canadian pianist and recording artist, best known for his solo instrumental hit "Music Box Dancer".

Early life and education Mills was born in Montreal, Quebec. He was raised in Verdun, Quebec, and started playing piano at the age of three. His family was musical, and his mother also played piano and his father sang tenor. By the time he was 17, both of his parents had died of cancer.

Mills attended McGill University His 1972 cover of Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool" made number 19 on the Canadian charts, but only reached number 106 in the US.

Mills released an album in 1974 that featured "Music Box Dancer", but it was not a hit initially. When he re-signed with executive Michael Hoppé at Polydor Records Canada in 1978, the label released a new song as a single, with "Music Box Dancer" on the B-side. The single was sent to easy listening radio stations in Canada, but a copy was sent in error to CFRA-AM, a pop station in Ottawa. The program director played the A-side and could not figure out why it had been sent to his station, so he played the B-side to see if the record was mistakenly marked. He liked "Music Box Dancer" and added it to his station's playlist, turning the record into a Canadian hit. Dave "50,000" Watts, an Ottawa Valley radio personality, gave the record extensive airplay on the station. The album went gold in Canada, which prompted Polydor in the US to release the album and single.

In Nashville, news producer Bob Parker at WNGE-TV began playing the song over the closing credits of the newscast. Nashville DJs quickly gave the song airplay, and both the single and album were hits. The million-selling (gold-certified) single reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1979, as well as number four on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, while the album reached number 21 on the Billboard Top Album chart and also went gold. Polydor awarded a gold record to TV station WNGE for breaking the single in the US.

"Music Box Dancer" was Mills' only US top-40 pop hit. The follow-up, another piano instrumental, "Peter Piper", peaked at number 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, but became a top-10 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Mills and MacNeil toured again in November–December 2012.

Film and television appearances

"Music Box Dancer" was the theme song of the local Los Angeles CBS half-hour TV documentary show 2 on the Town from 1979 through the early 1980s.

"Music Box Dancer" has been heard on an episode of The Simpsons and in the Kill Bill movies. It was used as the theme tune to the BBC2 golf programme, Around with Alliss, and also as a popular track on the BBC1 trade test (testcard) transmissions. Other Frank Mills tracks, including "From a Sidewalk Cafe", were used on BBC1 and BBC2 in the 1970s and 1980s during testcard, ceefax, and intervals between programmes.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mills made a number of appearances on the annual Telemiracle telethons broadcast from Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan. Discography Studio albums Seven Of My Songs Plus Some Others - 1972 Cover of Reflections Of My Childhood - 1972 The Poet and I - Unknown Le Grand Orchestre De Frank Mills - 1974 Look At Me Real - 1976 Music Box Dancer - 1979 Sunday Morning Suite - 1979 Bailarin De Cajita Musical - 1979 The Frank Mills Album - 1980 Prelude To Romance - 1981 Rondo - 1982 A Special Christmas - 1983 Traveler - 1985 Transitions - 1985 My Piano - 1988 Gather Round The Piano - 1991 Christmas With Frank Mills And Friends - 1992 Homeward - 1993 A Traditional Christmas - 1994 Goodnight My Love - 1996 Goes To The Movies - 1997 The Spirit of Christmas (with Rita MacNeil) - 2010 Compilation albums Best Collection - 1974 Sunday Morning Suite - 1979 Best Collection - 1982 The Greatest Frank Mills - 1983 Music Box Dancer - 1983 The Magic Of Frank Mills - 1984 Over 60 Minutes With... Frank Mills - 1987 The Twentieth Anniversary - Together Through The Years - 1989 25 Year's Of Piano Magic - 1996 Music Box Dancer - 2000 The Very Best Of Frank Mills - 2002 Collection - 2003 A Very Special Christmas - 2005 Frank Mills = フランク・ミルズ* – Best Selection = ベスト・セレクション (japanese edition) - 2013 The Frank Mills Story - 2019