Tony Hymas

Anthony James Keith "Tony" Hymas is an English keyboard player, pianist and composer. Hymas started as a chorister at the Exeter Cathedral where his contemporaries included composer and cathedral organist Barry Ferguson, and singer and pianist Roger Cleverdon. On leaving school, Hymas studied piano with Harold Rubens at the Royal Academy of Music. As company pianist for the Ballet Rambert in its resurgent 'modern' form, Hymas wrote a substitute score for Glen Tetley's 'Rag Dances' over the course of eight days. After Rambert, Hymas found work in the busy London session scene of the 70s. He played with Jack Bruce in the Jack Bruce Band during 1976–78. He subsequently became one of Jeff Beck's musicians, first appearing on record with Beck on the 1980 album There & Back. Over the years he has written many tunes for Beck, including 'Angel Footsteps' and 'Brush with the Blues'. In 1980, Hymas and fellow Jeff Beck Band member Simon Philips recruited Scottish singer Jim Diamond to form the trio Ph.D., where they scored a major Top 10 UK hit with the song "I Won't Let You Down" in 1982. The group disbanded in 1983 following poor sales of their subsequent singles, and Diamond's decision to return to his solo career. Hymas continued to collaborate with Diamond on his solo projects, and in 2009 the duo released a third Ph.D. album entitled Three, and remained active until Diamond's death in 2015. His latest works are CDs for Disques Nato: De l'origine du Monde (2010), Chroniques de resistance (2013), and, for Hope Street (Nato), an album with the band Ursus Minor I Will Not Take "But" for an Answer (2010). In 2016, he recorded an album of piano arrangements (transcriptions) of songs by Léo Ferré 'Tony Hymas joue Léo Ferré'. A fourth album by Ursus Minor 'What matters now' will be issued in the autumn. More piano discs (Debussy Etudes, Ives Concord Sonata) are in preparation.