Born on 16 April 1934 in Holbrooks, Coventry, Vince Hill worked as an apprentice baker, a truck driver, and a coal miner at Coventry Colliery to pay for singing lessons. He discovered his professional calling during his National Service, serving in the Royal Signals and singing with the regimental band.
His first major breakthrough came in 1958 when he joined the popular vocal group The Raindrops.
Hill launched his solo career in May 1962 with his debut single The Rivers Run Dry.
Released in 1967, his cover version of Edelweiss (from the film The Sound of Music) spent 17 weeks on the UK charts, missing out on the #1 spot only to Engelbert Humperdinck’s Release Me.
He also found chart success with tracks like Take Me To Your Heart Again, Roses of Picardy, and Love Letters in the Sand.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hill successfully transitioned into an all-round entertainer, regularly hosting primetime television programmes, including They Sold a Million(1973 – 1974) and The Musical Time Machine (1975 – 1977) for the BBC, and Gas Street, a daytime entertainment and chat show on ITV, which he co-presented with Suzi Quatro in 1988.
He was also famously the voice behind the “Drink a Pinta Milka Day” advertising campaign.
Vince Hill died at home in Henley-on-Thames on 22 July 2023, aged 89.
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Released in 1967, his cover version of Edelweiss (from the film The Sound of Music) spent 17 weeks on the UK charts, missing out on the #1 spot only to Engelbert Humperdinck’s Release Me.
