‘Simply The Best: The Mike Chapman Story’ — Documentary About Prolific Songwriter And Producer To Be Exec Produced By Debbie Harry & Chris Stein From Blondie

Stewart Clarke
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Previously unseen photos and video footage from a career that took in studio sessions with Blondie, The Knack, The Sweet and Suzi Quatro will illustrate Simply The Best: The Mike Chapman Story, a documentary about the eponymous songwriter and producer.

As well as co-writing The Best, the Tina Turner anthem that informs the doc’s title, Chapman has worked with a plethora of star names. He produced several Blondie albums including Parallel Lines. The band’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein will appear in the film and serve as executive producers.

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Jason Bick will direct and produce. Mark Myers’ LA-based Citizen Skull and Michael Murphy’s Rockabill Media are also attached as producers.

“After several years of putting this together I am looking forward to getting it out there,” Chapman said. “It’s a story of how music changed and shaped me as I fought my way through decades of ups and downs. The directors and producers share that vision, and I am thrilled to be working with them.”

Chapman wrote 50 top-ten hits for the likes of The Sweet and Suzi Quatro with then songwriting partner Nicky Chinn. As that partnership unraveled, Australian-born Chapman relocated from the UK to the U.S. There he found success as a producer with several Blondie albums including Parallel Lines, which broke the band in the U.S., and hits including My Sharona by The Knack. The doc of his life will take in the highs as well as the lows, which included drug addiction and mental health issues.

“Through his songwriting and production prowess he shaped the lives of so many artists who have had a vast cultural impact,” said producer-director Bick. “Knowing this, the fact that he can walk down the street unrecognized and go un-thanked is a travesty. This project will address that and ensure his considerable and enduring contribution to music is finally fully understood by the wider public.”

Producer Rockabill Media is the label run by Michael Murphy, a longtime senior exec at Beyond and who left the distributor last year. A former Director of Programs at Irish broadcaster TV3, Murphy has a pedigree with music docs having run worked on projects about iconic bands including The Boomtown Rats and Nick Cave’s band The Birthday Party.

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