PLUTO·MUSIC
The History of Pluto
Origins: Herman's Hermits
Keith Hopwood was founding rhythm guitarist of Herman's Hermits, formed in Manchester in 1963. Alongside Peter Noone, Karl Green, Derek Leckenby, and Barry Whitwam, the band became one of the defining acts of the British Invasion, with hits including “I'm Into Something Good,” “No Milk Today,” and “Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter” — a song Peter Noone has credited Keith with suggesting almost as an afterthought.
The band appeared on every major American variety show of the era — Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin — and carried their sound as far as Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Pacific islands, racking up seven gold albums and fourteen gold singles along the way. In 1965, at the peak of the frenzy, Herman's Hermits briefly outsold The Beatles in America.
1968 — Founded Above Strawberry
In 1968, while still touring with the Hermits, Keith and fellow Hermit Derek Leckenby founded Pluto — setting up in Stockport in the same building as the legendary Strawberry Studios - built by 10cc's Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman.
Strawberry had the glamour downstairs; Pluto, upstairs, ran leaner, with Keith using commercial and jingle revenue to subsidise the music side — a way of working that carried through the studio's whole life.
The whole studio was run on a single mono ampex tape machine and one tannoy speaker.
1977 — A Number One From Upstairs
In September 1977, a session upstairs at Pluto produced “Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs” by Brian & Michael, a tribute to painter L.S. Lowry. It went to number one in the UK in April 1978, stayed there three weeks, went gold, and won its writer an Ivor Novello award.
1977 turned out to be a pivotal year for Pluto in more ways than one. That same year, it was apparent that Pluto had outgrown its arrangement above Strawberry and the plan was put in place to move out of Stockport altogether, paving the way for what would come next...
Granby Row — A New Chapter With Malcolm Rowe
Pluto's next chapter began when Keith moved the studio into Manchester city centre, designing a 5000sq ft facility incorporating a 24 track studio, a separate voice over studio, and rehearsal studio on Granby Row, near the old Factory Records building.
This iteration of Pluto was co-founded with Keith's old school friend Malcolm Rowe, who became Keith's composing and business partner for the years that followed and Granby Row is where Pluto's reputation was really built, across music, advertising, and screen work alike.
Promotional brochure for Pluto - Circa 1977
Main live room at Pluto, Granby Row
Bankrobber with The Clash
On 1–2 February 1980, The Clash recorded “Bankrobber” there with producer Mikey Dread — a session with its own piece of Manchester folklore, as a young Ian Brown (later of The Stone Roses) and his friend
Pete Garner heard Topper Headon
drumming through the wall while walking down Granby Row, and were invited in when Headon stepped outside to see who was listening.
In news that will surprise no one, the sessions were long and fraught with The Clash's trademark punk anarchism
- a nightmare at the time, but made for
great copy on a website decades later...
The Smiths
The Smiths arrived at Pluto in October 1983, partway through recording their self-titled debut, after producer John Porter took over from an earlier, discarded version of the album and chose to bring the sessions back to the band's home city rather than keep working in London. He judged that four young Mancunian musicians would do better somewhere familiar than somewhere intimidating.
At Pluto, the band tracked "What Difference Does It Make?," "Suffer Little Children," "Back to the Old House," and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle." The finished album reached number two on the UK charts and stayed there for 33 weeks — one of the defining post-punk records of its era, with a real piece of it built on Granby Row.
Swiftly following The Smiths was the album "Making Waves" for The Nolans.
Advertising work made up a huge part of the studio's output through these years, including commercial sessions for Kenny Everett, alongside voice work for children's animation such as The Trap Door — with actors including Sue Pollard and Paul Nicholas passing through the same rooms at the same time.
Cosgrove Hall
Keith Hopwood's connection to Cosgrove Hall began before the studio even carried that name. In the mid-1970s, Hopwood and his Pluto partner Malcolm Rowe scored the animated series Sally & Jake for Mark Hall and Brian Cosgrove — work that predates Cosgrove Hall Films' formal launch and set the template for a relationship that would run for decades.
That partnership produced Pluto's two biggest credits with the studio. The Wind in the Willows came first: Hopwood and Rowe wrote the score and songs for the 1983 feature film, which won a BAFTA, a Chicago International Film Festival award, and an Emmy, before extending the work across the 1984–1990 television series, with Ralph McTell recording the pair's theme tune as a single in 1984.
Congatulations from the Emmy awards
BAFTA and Emmy awards for Wind in the Willows
On the strength of that relationship, Cosgrove Hall brought them back in 1986 to score The BFG — the studio's first and only full-length feature film, released in cinemas in 1987 before its Christmas Day 1989 broadcast on ITV. Hopwood composed the music and Rowe wrote the lyrics throughout, including songs performed by David Jason, Paul Young, and Sharon Campbell; the complete score was eventually released as an album in 2016.
Recording sessions for Wind in the Willows
The relationship went well beyond these two productions. Hopwood went on to score a run of other Cosgrove Hall titles — including Alias the Jester (a BAFTA winner, again with Rowe), Creepy Crawlies, Foxbusters, Andy Pandy, and Discworld — before writing music for Albie on his own. Remarkably, the association outlasted Cosgrove Hall Films itself: in 2013, Hopwood formed a music rights company, CHF Music, together with Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick, the successor venture run by Brian Cosgrove and Simon Hall, to manage the music for their new productions. What started as a 1970s animation job had, by then, become a formal business partnership spanning close to forty years.
Pluto's time on Granby Row came to an end when the lease on the building came up and Malcolm Rowe retired. Keith relocated to Cheshire to raise his family, taking Pluto's composition and production work with him.
Continuing the Work
A chance meeting with Roger D'Arcy and Hugh Flynn, who had founded the studio design firm Recording Architecture in April 1987, led to Pluto's first purpose-built studio commission: converting a barn on the grounds of a Grade II listed 18th-century home near in Cheshire, into a state-of-the-art studio.
Completed that same winter, it became one of the young firm's first finished projects — an idyllic spot to build in, with the listed manor house and barn overlooked by the ruins of a Welsh hill fort on the horizon, and a world away from the shared basement premises on Granby Row, which had been sold off around the same time.
From Hulgrave Hall, Pluto's composition business grew into the run of children's television work it's best known for today. Bob the Builder became one of its longest-running commitments: Hopwood scored the incidental music across the original series' 1999–2011 run for the BBC and then CBeebies — eighteen series and around 250 episodes in all — working alongside Paul K. Joyce's instantly recognisable "Can We Fix It?" theme.
Pingu came through the same production circles. HIT Entertainment commissioned a UK revival through its Bristol studio, Hot Animation, and brought Hopwood in to score the new instalments — Series 5 and 6, broadcast on CBeebies between 2003 and 2006. That run earned Pingu a BAFTA nomination in 2005, and one of Hopwood's episode scores, for "Pingu's Bouncy Fun," was selected for the Annecy International Animation Festival in 2004 — one of the world's foremost showcases for animation. Daisy & Ollie and Pip Ahoy followed in much the same vein, alongside the ongoing relationship with Cosgrove Hall.
Bob the Builder
Recording with Suzi Quatro
Neil Morrissey (Voice of Bob the Builder) recording at Pluto
Present Day
Pluto continues today as Pluto Entertainments Ltd, trading as Pluto Music, based in Tarporley, Cheshire. Keith remains owner and composer, continuing to write music for picture and drawing on decades of experience to provide steady leadership across the company, while his son Dan Hopwood leads Pluto's expansion into new territory.
Under Dan, Pluto now offers full record production for independent artists — taking projects from first idea through to final master — alongside video production and content shot in-house for artists who need performance videos, promotional material, and social media assets without going to separate suppliers for each. Dan has also built out release strategy consulting, guiding artists produced at Pluto through the practicalities of putting a record into the world in the modern landscape — timing, platforms, and campaign planning that sit alongside the production standards the studio has always worked to.
Alongside all of this, Keith continues his own solo recording career (Never Too Late, and the Freedom Calls series) and published his 2024 memoir, A Hermit's Tale.