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".

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 for five years. At McGill, he initially studied engineering, but eventually switched to the Department of Music. He entertained his Delta Upsilon fraternity brothers with songs from ragtime to Bob Dylan (a new musician at the time). The fraternity piano had thumbtacks on every hammer and produced a unique sound.

In the late 1960s, Mills became a member of The Bells. He left the band in 1971 just before it had international success with the single "Stay Awhile".

Mills worked as a pianist for CBC Television and recorded his first solo album, Seven of My Songs, which produced the hit single "Love Me, Love Me Love". The song made its debut on the Canadian charts in December 1971, and early the following year, peaked at number one on the Canadian charts, number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100, and number eight on Billboard′s Easy Listening chart 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.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.