Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Said Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is manager Harvey Lisper, who's got a
Speaker 1: new book, My Life managing TENCC, Berman's Hermits and many more. Harvey,
Speaker 1: you started out as a songwriter. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: I started out very young learning the piano traditionally, got
Speaker 2: very fed up of that, and then started to learn
Speaker 2: how to vump. My auntie, Sylvia, my mother's sister, was
Speaker 2: very efficient at playing music on me by ear. She
Speaker 2: could play any song you liked, and I was always
Speaker 2: envious of her, and I started to play by air
Speaker 2: and I learnt. I decided, I'm not going to do
Speaker 2: scales all day and night. I'm going to try and
Speaker 2: do my own thing. So I started to play a
Speaker 2: little bit of music because I could read music. And
Speaker 2: my first song that did was a Smile in F
Speaker 2: one flat and it was quite good actually. And then
Speaker 2: later on I played the piano. Always played the piano
Speaker 2: as a piano in the house. It was part of
Speaker 2: the house, and that right piano in the kitchen teeny
Speaker 2: Roombert had a big piano. And then when skiffle came
Speaker 2: into England much later, there was a skiffle group that
Speaker 2: played in a jazz club that I went to, and
Speaker 2: I got friendly with the leader called Paul Beatty, who
Speaker 2: now lives in Canada, and he had a skiffle group
Speaker 2: and he came back to a party in my house
Speaker 2: and he taught me some chords on the on the guitar.
Speaker 2: With one finger, I could play Takes a Worried Man.
Speaker 2: You just fit one finger around and you play all
Speaker 2: the blues chords. And then I started playing a bit,
Speaker 2: and I started writing songs, trying songs myself. This is,
Speaker 2: you know, about sixty two before anything had happened as
Speaker 2: far as the Beatles or anything like that, and I thought, right,
Speaker 2: I write these songs and I'm going to try and
Speaker 2: get them to artists. There were songs that were like
Speaker 2: how do you do It? Or Freddie's do the Freddy?
Speaker 2: They weren't masterpieces, they weren't any good at all. But
Speaker 2: I wanted to get them to somebody and to do it.
Speaker 2: And that's how I started writing songs, and ultimately I
Speaker 2: got one, which was the B side of I'm Into
Speaker 2: Something Good with Herman's Hermits first band, and that was
Speaker 2: very lucky. But that's a long story. To get to that.
Speaker 2: But so that was really it. I just wrote songs.
Speaker 2: I love music. I loved all the sixties music. We
Speaker 2: were inundated with American trash and English singers with American accents.
Speaker 2: It was just dirdhit music. We were inundated with.
Speaker 3: Okay, the Beatles broke almost two years earlier in the UK,
Speaker 3: before the US. When you talk about skifful et cetera.
Speaker 3: What was music like and what did it mean in
Speaker 3: the early sixties in the UK.
Speaker 2: Well, it was American crooner. Well, no, we had known
Speaker 2: that's not true. In the mid fifties we got Bill Haley,
Speaker 2: and then from Bill Haley we had rock and roll.
Speaker 2: We had Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, you name it. All.
Speaker 2: Those are all the greats of that little Richard. We
Speaker 2: had lots of rock and roll. But before that, the
Speaker 2: last twenty years, prior to that, we had Moon and
Speaker 2: June and Crooner's and Love and June and you know,
Speaker 2: awful songs. But there was Frank Sinatcha. There were a
Speaker 2: few exceptions with some very good songs. But the English
Speaker 2: people in the early sixties were listening to We listened
Speaker 2: to all the doop from America. Then it was mostly
Speaker 2: the Chuck Berry and rock and roll sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Inundated the airways. When I say airways, that was a joke.
Speaker 2: There was only one station, Radio one on the BBC
Speaker 2: before all the commercial radio had started, So when I
Speaker 2: was young, I had to listen to Radio Luxembourg, which
Speaker 2: was two oh eight on the crystallized little radios that
Speaker 2: we had to fiddle around with, or American Forces Network
Speaker 2: in Europe AFM, and that's where we got all our
Speaker 2: good music from America from as opposed to just the
Speaker 2: crooners and all the Johnny Rays and Frankie Lanes and
Speaker 2: everything else that was poured into the radio. So there's
Speaker 2: a concoction of music. Skiffle was really because everybody could
Speaker 2: play the instrument, and there was an artist called Lonnie
Speaker 2: Donegan that started playing all these songs which were basically
Speaker 2: American folk songs. Cumberland Gap, it wasn't Cumberland in Cumberland,
Speaker 2: it was something else. Midnight Special doesn't mean anything to
Speaker 2: anybody in England because there's no midnight specials in England.
Speaker 2: It's a train in America. And we were inundated with
Speaker 2: all these songs and they were really good and very
Speaker 2: popular and everybody could be in a skiffle group because
Speaker 2: they didn't have to play an instrument. They played a
Speaker 2: washboard for a drum sound and they all sang together
Speaker 2: and it was quite exciting. And there's a Rock Island line.
Speaker 2: There's about twenty bring a little wad of Sylvie. All
Speaker 2: these songs were basically American folk songs, so maybe country
Speaker 2: folk songs, whatever, traditional folk songs. They were probably one
Speaker 2: hundred years old, and we all played them and that
Speaker 2: was it. And that's how skiffle started. That's how the
Speaker 2: guitar started. That's how the Beatles started. They you know,
Speaker 2: they played skiffle, they played that type of music. Maggie
Speaker 2: Maggie May or whatever. They played folk songs.
Speaker 3: Okay, So was this just a lark that you wrote
Speaker 3: songs or you have a burning desire? Was everybody you
Speaker 3: know writing songs? Or were you like the only one?
Speaker 2: No. I had a few friends and we were just
Speaker 2: playing around on guitars. We were just harmonizing with each
Speaker 2: other and playing stop playing the music of the day,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever it was. Where the Italian musician it
Speaker 2: was very popular in England at the times. We played
Speaker 2: for Lry Marina Marini all that sort of Italian stuff
Speaker 2: was popular, and I just and folk songs, and of
Speaker 2: course I was the party jester. I love collect and
Speaker 2: I could make any song up lyrically. I could really
Speaker 2: get clever with the lyrics, so I could go to
Speaker 2: a party and start talking about all the people in
Speaker 2: the room. And at Calypso, and I was pretty pretty
Speaker 2: adept at Calypso. For some reason, maybe I've got roots,
Speaker 2: but I don't know.
Speaker 3: Okay. So one of the big points in the book
Speaker 3: is you talk about the rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool.
Speaker 3: Now in America, we first hear the Beatles, we think
Speaker 3: of Liverpool in London. So what was the landscape in
Speaker 3: the UK in the early sixties.
Speaker 2: Like well, Manchester was the biggest club town in England,
Speaker 2: so the more live music in Manchester and London as well.
Speaker 2: I mean Liverpool was third. I mean Liverpool was not
Speaker 2: really in it as far as live music was concerned.
Speaker 2: In those days. There was lots of clubs in Manchester
Speaker 2: and the Rolling Stones would come and play at their
Speaker 2: Wasis or all the bands that subsequently became enormous played
Speaker 2: at the clubs in Manchester. So there's a very healthy
Speaker 2: club scene in Manchester, Liverpool happened when the Beatles started.
Speaker 2: It was they'd worked at this Star club in Hamburg
Speaker 2: for a while and they were getting their own following.
Speaker 2: Before they met Epstein or anything. They were working very
Speaker 2: hard getting their band together. I believe that's correct, and
Speaker 2: they just when they happened. It was the most magical
Speaker 2: thing that ever happened in the sixties. Probably it was
Speaker 2: just incredible. All of a sudden we had great music.
Speaker 2: It was English, it was humorous, it was brilliant, and
Speaker 2: we all fell in love with it. I mean I
Speaker 2: never every time a Beatles album or record was released,
Speaker 2: I got it on the first morning of release and
Speaker 2: I wore the album out before it anybody probably had
Speaker 2: heard it, which just was berserk on the Beatles. It
Speaker 2: was just appeal to me. I mean. My background in
Speaker 2: music was Italian opera, which has paddled through my house
Speaker 2: from my father who loved opera. He was a violinist
Speaker 2: and also a saxophone player in the band. During the war.
Speaker 2: I was just had that in My next door neighbor
Speaker 2: was mad on classical music. And then I went to
Speaker 2: synagogue and the beautiful music from the synagogue all the
Speaker 2: school music and the fantastic choirs they had their So
Speaker 2: I had all that music going around my head, and
Speaker 2: I just I love music, and it wasn't just specifically
Speaker 2: any brand of music. Even up to today, I still
Speaker 2: can like a good song or if something's good, it
Speaker 2: appeals to me. I don't say, oh, well, it's always
Speaker 2: better in the older days, because new things are great,
Speaker 2: sometimes rarely but sometimes.
Speaker 3: Okay. You mentioned synagogue and you go into your Jewish
Speaker 3: roots in the book to what degree was anti Semitism
Speaker 3: prevalent at that point in the sixties and how did
Speaker 3: that affect you both personally and in business.
Speaker 2: Well, growing up, there was a tremendous amount of resentment
Speaker 2: lack of knowledge about Jewish people. I mean went through
Speaker 2: all my school days and everything whereever school I was at,
Speaker 2: because I started off going to really orthodox Jewish schools
Speaker 2: when I was like six, So I've got a tremendous
Speaker 2: grounding in Orthodoxy and I know all the prayers and everything.
Speaker 2: But when I went to the non Jewish schools Cheatamil
Speaker 2: Methodist School sold for Grammar School, there was avert anti
Speaker 2: Semitism because basically the people there are conditioned to believe
Speaker 2: that all Jews were rich, and comparatively speaking, yes, maybe
Speaker 2: I was more wealthy from a middle class as opposed
Speaker 2: to the working class, which was the schools inundated with
Speaker 2: really low working class people, very low wages. And they thought,
Speaker 2: all you Jews have got everything. But of course that
Speaker 2: isn't true. I mean, there's millions of Jews that are starving,
Speaker 2: and you know, there were lots of working class Jews
Speaker 2: at that level. But as far as anti Semitems were concerned,
Speaker 2: these kids believed all Jews are rich, all Jews did this,
Speaker 2: all do that. And I was a minority in England.
Speaker 2: I had to be on my best behavior all the time.
Speaker 2: The only time I evolved out of my I don't
Speaker 2: call it an inferiority complex, an awareness of being Jewish,
Speaker 2: was when I went to Israel, and it was just
Speaker 2: it was like a breath of fresh air to me.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, I was I didn't have to
Speaker 2: be quiet, I didn't have to watch my p's and
Speaker 2: q's on Friday night. I didn't have to stay in
Speaker 2: like a lunatic and not be allowed out because then
Speaker 2: my uncle there had a meal, a Friday night meal
Speaker 2: with the candles and everything, and after it's finished, lo
Speaker 2: and behold the cards came out, poker gambling, god knows
Speaker 2: what's smoking things that didn't my house in England because
Speaker 2: it was Friday night and you didn't do that. You
Speaker 2: just obeyed the law. And that's so. Yes, there was
Speaker 2: a lot of anti Semitism and Semitism through. My wife
Speaker 2: found it as well. She went to a school called
Speaker 2: Lady Harrogate's Ladies College and she was very good at tennis,
Speaker 2: really good, and they wanted her to go to Wimbledon
Speaker 2: to play tennis. And the teacher came up to her
Speaker 2: and said, look, I'm terribly sorry, Carol. You can't go
Speaker 2: to Wimbled and they won't accept you. And she said
Speaker 2: why she is because no Jews are allowed there. So
Speaker 2: this in nineteen fifty four and this is Wimbledon, right,
Speaker 2: So it was right throughout the whole country. Also, you
Speaker 2: couldn't get a job, you know. I wanted to be
Speaker 2: a stockbroker. That was my aim. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be an accountant. You know, I'm a gambler, so I
Speaker 2: was always gambling on stocks and chairs. There were no
Speaker 2: Jewish stockbrokers. It was my aim to become one. But
Speaker 2: I mean it was just everywhere. The jobs weren't available
Speaker 2: for you. You weren't bankers or anything. Your jobs were
Speaker 2: limited from coming over from Europe and everything. You had
Speaker 2: certain jobs you had to do. They were open to
Speaker 2: you money lending whatever, you know, that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: or peddling or working on the markets, selling stuff on markets.
Speaker 2: There weren't that many openings for Jewish people really, so
Speaker 2: a lot of them became doctors and intellectual sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And that differentiated Liverpool from Manchester as well, because Manchester
Speaker 2: was all the Eastern European immigrants, whereas Liverpool with the Irish,
Speaker 2: came in an inundated. They were with an Irish background
Speaker 2: and they kind of looked at each other. I mean
Speaker 2: they kind of looked down at them, the Europeans, you know,
Speaker 2: they're not cultured, you know. And that was the situation.
Speaker 3: And in your business career, to what degree did you
Speaker 3: experience anti Semitism?
Speaker 2: Oh, very little. I think the Jewish people controlled the
Speaker 2: entertain business. They controlled Hollywood from the turn of the
Speaker 2: completely it was all Jewish people. They completely controlled all
Speaker 2: the Broadway musical writers and everything were all Jewish. In England,
Speaker 2: the biggest agency was the Grade agency which controlled about
Speaker 2: everything in England. Every artist was a member of the Grades,
Speaker 2: and I didn't I didn't find any anti Semetter. There
Speaker 2: might have been anti Semetins started with a pank Era,
Speaker 2: but that was in the eighties when I started, I
Speaker 2: didn't find anything in the music. In fact, it was
Speaker 2: possibly even an advantage to be Jewish, possibly because it
Speaker 2: was like a network of Jewish people controlling everything for
Speaker 2: the record label, the record companies, everybody that we had
Speaker 2: infiltrated that Maybe that was because of the artistic side,
Speaker 2: and it was an opening for Jews who always musical
Speaker 2: and liked music and the culture and wanted to get
Speaker 2: in there, and it was an avenue where they could
Speaker 2: get in.
Speaker 3: So how did you meet Herman in the Hermits as
Speaker 3: they were called.
Speaker 2: Then, Well, I was writing these mediocre songs and getting
Speaker 2: no success with anybody. Nobody wanted to know. So I thought, right, well,
Speaker 2: I'll get my own band. I'll do't play my music.
Speaker 2: I'm my father, who's very musical. He sort of was
Speaker 2: rather sarcastic about my songwriting, but I took it in
Speaker 2: good faith. So I arranged a arranged at something with
Speaker 2: a manched evening news for the new groups, and I
Speaker 2: was going to go and see this new group in
Speaker 2: a church roll in Davy Hume and I went there
Speaker 2: and Herman and the Hermits were appearing. They were playing
Speaker 2: Chuck Berry sort of standing there. They actually had it.
Speaker 2: Missus Brown was actually in the act at that stage.
Speaker 2: She was played in there. And all the normal songs
Speaker 2: that every group played, needles and pens or whatever, anything
Speaker 2: that was American that they could but adapt they did
Speaker 2: it do or did he did he? Whatever? And after
Speaker 2: each number, all these girls charged the stage. I was screaming.
Speaker 2: I thought it was like a Beatles concert. I thought, God,
Speaker 2: I won the National lottery here. This is fantastic. I
Speaker 2: subsequently found out that they'd planted in the audience lots
Speaker 2: of their friends and asked them to scream and shout,
Speaker 2: telling them that an American manager was coming to see
Speaker 2: the band. I went back to Peter's house after the
Speaker 2: concert and I started fiddling on the piano because I
Speaker 2: was playing piano. He had a piano in the house,
Speaker 2: a huge piano, and I started fiddling. Ray Charles, tell
Speaker 2: me what I say, And Peter said, would you like
Speaker 2: to join the band? I said no, I don't want
Speaker 2: to join the band. I want to manage the band,
Speaker 2: and I want you to do my songs. So they
Speaker 2: did your hand in mine as a B side, as
Speaker 2: I say, And I got a huge check at Christmas,
Speaker 2: and I showed it to my father and my father said, well,
Speaker 2: maybe I was wrong, but he wasn't wrong. He was
Speaker 2: that's right. It was just a stupid way that people
Speaker 2: that wrote B sides could get half the mechanicals, which
Speaker 2: is a nonsense. So I got the same for mechanicals
Speaker 2: as Carol King, and I can't claim to be in
Speaker 2: the same light years as her as far as the
Speaker 2: songwriters and goffin of course.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go a little bit slower. You're working as
Speaker 3: an accountant, you're writing songs. How do you decide to
Speaker 3: be a manager? Was it something you just saw the
Speaker 3: being and said, hey, I'm a manager. How did that happen?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that happened basically because of the Beatles
Speaker 2: and next scene success. I mean, I think I was
Speaker 2: writing the songs and trying to do all the things
Speaker 2: I was doing, But then I don't know what ye're
Speaker 2: The Beatles started, was it sixty three? They had few hits,
Speaker 2: and Brian Epstein, who was a Jewish boy from Liverpool,
Speaker 2: started to get a lot of press, and certainly in
Speaker 2: the Jewish community, it was like an icon. And I thought, well,
Speaker 2: he's had no background in music, he knows nothing about
Speaker 2: management of acts or anything, but why can't I do that?
Speaker 2: So that was that was the thing that sparked me
Speaker 2: into wanted to be a manager. It wasn't the original
Speaker 2: intention at all. The original attention was to write songs,
Speaker 2: have loads of hits and earn the royalties. My envy
Speaker 2: was always book writers who just thought, God, they write
Speaker 2: a book, they go to bed and they're hemingway and
Speaker 2: you know that the roatis come in. You don't do
Speaker 2: anything else. And I thought, and I'm like that, I'm
Speaker 2: not very I'm a bit I know, and it's selfish
Speaker 2: or my idea of earning money the easy way, and
Speaker 2: it's just a it's a fault of mine. But I
Speaker 2: always envied the songwriters for that reason, not the musical songwriters,
Speaker 2: the book writers. Those are the people that were the
Speaker 2: big things in the forties and fifties.
Speaker 3: Okay, you have no background in the music business. You
Speaker 3: can play a little piano, skiffle, calypso you can write songs.
Speaker 3: And then you said, well, Ryan Epstein is doing it,
Speaker 3: why can't die? Is that your personality, that you're just
Speaker 3: as good as anybody else who you can do it?
Speaker 3: What is it about you that allows you to do this?
Speaker 2: Being swamped as a channel by love, from being the
Speaker 2: first grandchild of a close knit family, always spoilt, ruined,
Speaker 2: I was infallible. I didn't have any I had no fear.
Speaker 2: That's why I said I wanted to become a stockbroker,
Speaker 2: though no jeish stockbrokers. That wasn't going to bother me
Speaker 2: when I'm at now. King Charles the Third at a
Speaker 2: concert of ten CC, I was introduced to him afterwards,
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, did you like Well, I don't
Speaker 2: really know of ten CC, so of course you're not
Speaker 2: meant to ask royalty any questions. But I didn't take
Speaker 2: an notice of that. I said, but you never heard
Speaker 2: I'm not in Love. You know it's on the It's
Speaker 2: on the radio all the time. And he said, well, no,
Speaker 2: I don't really. I don't really get a chance to
Speaker 2: hear that very much. I do listen to Radio four
Speaker 2: sometimes on my way to Ascot and I thought there's
Speaker 2: the future King of England that didn't know the first
Speaker 2: thing about the pop music business. And I was shocked,
Speaker 2: and I think Princess Diana sorted him out. And no
Speaker 2: doubt now is an expert.
Speaker 3: Okay, a little bit slower. You go to the gig,
Speaker 3: you go to Peter Noon's house. How does it end
Speaker 3: up that you progress and get a record deal?
Speaker 2: Right? Well, the first thing the manager had to do
Speaker 2: in those days was to get a record deal. That
Speaker 2: was the golden rule. You've got a band, you get
Speaker 2: a record deal, you have a hit and so forth.
Speaker 2: So I filled the date sheet completely. I mean Herman
Speaker 2: Summit's are working seven nights a week, sometimes three times
Speaker 2: a night, ending up in some drunken Irish club at
Speaker 2: two o'clock morning to do that set very wealthy because
Speaker 2: they had no mortgages, no two ferraris in the garage,
Speaker 2: no wives, no nothing. They were all single, fifteen sixteen
Speaker 2: seventeen and at the end of the day they split
Speaker 2: a pounds they got about thirty forty pounds cash, which
Speaker 2: is a lot of money in those days. So that
Speaker 2: was that was really exciting. And with a full date
Speaker 2: sheet it helped because I knew that if I got
Speaker 2: somehow to EMI or somebody I could, I could get
Speaker 2: a record deal, or I can get them to see
Speaker 2: the band working and see the date sheet, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And I was We did a lunchtime session at the
Speaker 2: Plaza Ballroom and I went to the manager's office, a
Speaker 2: gentleman called Terry Devine and on the table there was
Speaker 2: a piece of paper with EARI headliner. Could I borrow
Speaker 2: that letter a second? And I looked at it had
Speaker 2: Derek Caverett at the bottom. So I decided, okay, let's
Speaker 2: do it. Let's write to Derek Caverrett. And I wrote
Speaker 2: to Dereka, We've heard all about you and we'd like
Speaker 2: to come and meet you. I've got this band. Would
Speaker 2: you be interested in meeting me? And very kindly wrote
Speaker 2: back the next day and said, yeah, I come down
Speaker 2: to London. I ran down to London as quickly as
Speaker 2: I could, and I went into EMI's office as a
Speaker 2: Manchester Square, where I saw Derek Everett and as I
Speaker 2: walked through the door and says, you know, I've got
Speaker 2: nothing to do with A and R. I don't have
Speaker 2: anything to do with the artistic side of the bands.
Speaker 2: I just put physical records into dance halls. So I
Speaker 2: was really totally totally shocked. So I'm sitting there and
Speaker 2: I'm depressed and my chins down. I thought, what an
Speaker 2: idiot I've been. I've written this letter to him telling
Speaker 2: them how wonderful it is, and he's a completely nonentity.
Speaker 2: But just as I left, though, he said, by the way, though,
Speaker 2: I know there's a new producer called Mickey must and
Speaker 2: he's just having some success with a group called The Animals.
Speaker 2: Would you be interested in meeting him? So I thought, yeah, well,
Speaker 2: while I'm in London, I might as well make some
Speaker 2: use of this journey. And I went to see Mickey
Speaker 2: Mos and I presented him with the photograph of Herman
Speaker 2: and the Hermits as they were when I first saught them,
Speaker 2: and he looked at them and he said, yes, looks
Speaker 2: quite looks quite interesting. And then I went back to
Speaker 2: Manchester and I kept phoning his office. Would he come
Speaker 2: up and see the band? Nothing happened, Nothing happened, and
Speaker 2: I decided to have a brainwave. I'm going to send
Speaker 2: him two first class there tickets and I'm going to
Speaker 2: put him at the best hotel in Manchester in the
Speaker 2: Middland overnight and see if he'll come up. So I
Speaker 2: sat in them and he got the envelope with the
Speaker 2: tickets and he came up and I took him to
Speaker 2: see Herman and the Hermits at the Beach Comba in Bolton,
Speaker 2: and he said, yeah, they're quite good. They're all right.
Speaker 2: And I had a really clapped out core in those days.
Speaker 2: It was my mother's. It was kind of I think
Speaker 2: it was a Ford Prefect or a Triumph Herald. It
Speaker 2: was just a little piece of tin. But I'd had
Speaker 2: the I was so mad on music that I'd invested
Speaker 2: a four in this record player for one of the
Speaker 2: Phillips record players. I don't know whether they had them
Speaker 2: in America. You could put a forty five in it
Speaker 2: and when you went over a bump, the suspension didn't
Speaker 2: affect the record. It still played. And on the way
Speaker 2: back to the hotel, g so, by the way, I've
Speaker 2: got a song here you might be interested in. And
Speaker 2: I had very good ears. I mean I could always
Speaker 2: pick hits, even from early days. As soon as I
Speaker 2: heard something, once I knew whether I had a feeling,
Speaker 2: I knew it was it usually it was. And he
Speaker 2: put on this song. It was Earl Jean's I'm Into
Speaker 2: Something Good, which apparently just entered the American charts at
Speaker 2: about ninety two, and I thought, that's fantastic. Can we
Speaker 2: do it? Can we do it? He says, yes, if
Speaker 2: you get rid of two members of your band. I thought, so,
Speaker 2: I've had the good and the bad, you know, the good,
Speaker 2: bad and the ugly. Has got to be getting rid
Speaker 2: of them. But so it wasn't very It was the
Speaker 2: mixed thing where the song was so great. I went
Speaker 2: back to Peter's house. I told Peter, look, we've got
Speaker 2: to get rid of two of the group. And it's
Speaker 2: very hard because they were an integral part of the
Speaker 2: early group and it's not easy. But we said to
Speaker 2: the guy, look, Alan, you've got to leave the band.
Speaker 2: It's nothing we can do. If we want to get
Speaker 2: a record doing, and we don't get a record deal,
Speaker 2: we're not going to get anywhere. And Alan knew he
Speaker 2: wasn't that great as a bass player. He went with
Speaker 2: Peter to the cavern to see the Beatles and his
Speaker 2: only comment was, oh God, we're fucked. You know, he
Speaker 2: could have played me played the bass like that. So
Speaker 2: he was depressed even then. Which was six months earlier.
Speaker 2: So anyhow, he walked out of the room in a storm,
Speaker 2: and I was a bit sad and Peter and also
Speaker 2: I was scared. I mean, his father had been convicted
Speaker 2: of some capital crime and was in jail, and he
Speaker 2: was a fierce looking guy. You don't want to mess
Speaker 2: with him. And I thought, It'by's coming with a knife
Speaker 2: for the next two weeks. I'll have to protect myself,
Speaker 2: keep my eyes over my head. So anyhow, I I
Speaker 2: got in the car, which was a van. We had
Speaker 2: a van which took all the equipment round in with Peter,
Speaker 2: and we drove out of Peter's house and as we
Speaker 2: went in the road going Alan Rigley was lying across
Speaker 2: the middle of the road and had to swerve to
Speaker 2: me to miss him. And so it was so it
Speaker 2: was so awful. I mean, at the time it was
Speaker 2: a relief getting it done, but it was it was
Speaker 2: an awful, awful experience. And then we evolved into getting
Speaker 2: new members of the band, and everybody we put in
Speaker 2: was an excellent musician, and the music improved tremendously as
Speaker 2: far as the actual physical playing was concerned. And some
Speaker 2: of the band didn't people like Derek Leckenbye and Barry
Speaker 2: whitwom who came later on to be drummer and a
Speaker 2: lead guitarist, that they didn't want. Everybody had heard about
Speaker 2: Herman and Hermits because they were working everywhere and nobody
Speaker 2: was impressed at the time, But when they saw the
Speaker 2: date sheet, Lex said, well, you know this is good,
Speaker 2: this looks all right, so they joined. Because of that,
Speaker 2: all my friends kept telling me what a load of
Speaker 2: rubbish this bout is. Why don't I get a proper job,
Speaker 2: get an accountcy job, start messing around with all these people.
Speaker 2: Then we had a number one hit with them and
Speaker 2: something good and they said, oh, well there's only be
Speaker 2: a one hit wonder you know the really happy Jewish background.
Speaker 2: Sarcasm was rife at the time because they weren't impressed
Speaker 2: with Herman and Ermits musically okay, and then Show Me
Speaker 2: Go it was a miss, and I thought, well, maybe
Speaker 2: they're right. But after that, after ten hits, they stopped
Speaker 2: telling me they were a load of rubbish.
Speaker 3: Okay. In the interim after finding the band, you raise
Speaker 3: some money, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I needed money, I'm not sure. Yeah, we just
Speaker 2: needed money originally for clothes, and things like that. Four
Speaker 2: people put up fifty five pounds each and they were
Speaker 2: all wealthy businessmen, and I worked the band, had a
Speaker 2: full date sheet, and they were all lovely people. He's
Speaker 2: been my cousin, Jeffrey Greenberg, Raymond Abrinson and Brian Joseph.
Speaker 2: They were the partners and they were all wealthy in
Speaker 2: their own right from really successful businesses. And I needed
Speaker 2: I think one thousand or two thousand pounds ultimately to
Speaker 2: get a new van because the van disintegrated. It was
Speaker 2: doing so much work and they didn't want to really
Speaker 2: put any more money into it, okay, because as I say,
Speaker 2: everybody was laughing at us sort of thing. And that's
Speaker 2: when I got involved with Charlie Silverman, who was also
Speaker 2: very wealthy father who made money going on the gold
Speaker 2: Trail of the Yukon or something. Vastly wealthy, flew planes
Speaker 2: and god knows what. In the forties, my grandmother used
Speaker 2: to go mad because of Charlie's father used to fly
Speaker 2: over in one of these single engine planes and flip
Speaker 2: it over the back garden, and she trying to impress,
Speaker 2: you know, and she was really fed up with him anyhow.
Speaker 2: So I went to the boys. I said, look, if
Speaker 2: you're not going to if you're not going to carry
Speaker 2: on or put more money in, would I be able
Speaker 2: to buy you back? And they will agreed to take
Speaker 2: the money back that they put in, and they were happy.
Speaker 2: There was no resentment. So I moved in with Charlie
Speaker 2: and then we wrote songs with Charlie as well.
Speaker 3: Okay, a little bit slower, Mickey Mose comes up. You
Speaker 3: play the song in your record player in the car.
Speaker 3: How long soil you record on into something good? And
Speaker 3: what was the recording session?
Speaker 2: Like one incidental thing was everybody I had touched in
Speaker 2: those days turned to gold. So although Mickey most have
Speaker 2: had some success as soon as we got together with him.
Speaker 2: How the Rising Sunwhere was the record that came out
Speaker 2: which made him the biggest thing in the world, which
Speaker 2: was lucky for us and lucky for him. Probably three
Speaker 2: or four months for us to get We recorded it,
Speaker 2: I think in July, and it came out in August,
Speaker 2: and I met Mickey for the first time the November
Speaker 2: before and probably by the time I got him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's probably all within six or eight months this happened.
Speaker 2: All this happened. What was the second part of your question.
Speaker 3: So what was the actual session, like, what was Mickey's
Speaker 3: magic if anything?
Speaker 2: Oh, it was a very he was completely dictatorial about
Speaker 2: the session. The boys went in. It was three hours.
Speaker 2: I don't remember anything about it because I was outside
Speaker 2: the studio. But they went in, they did it. The
Speaker 2: B side was knocked out. I mean, everything was done
Speaker 2: very quickly. Had a very good pianist that played the
Speaker 2: piano part called I think Joe Webb was very good,
Speaker 2: and it was and the boys sang very well and
Speaker 2: they played I thought it was okay. It was a
Speaker 2: very nice record. And after three hours everybody went back
Speaker 2: to Manchester. I mean there was like, drove down into
Speaker 2: the studio three hours by out gone and that's it.
Speaker 2: And then the rest is all taken over by Mickey
Speaker 2: mosten Emi or whatever they do with the records to
Speaker 2: get it out. We'd done our bit, we'd driven down,
Speaker 2: spent three hours, very little. I don't know, it's little
Speaker 2: preparation in a way, I don't know what preparation Mickey
Speaker 2: did in the background, whether he used I can't remember,
Speaker 2: and I'm in something good. I really can't remember what
Speaker 2: sort of arrangement, So what sort of instrumentation he used
Speaker 2: on top of everything, I don't know, but subsequently on
Speaker 2: future records he used Jimmy Page. John Paul Jones arranged everything.
Speaker 2: Every orchestral bit for Herman Sermons was arranged by John
Speaker 2: Paul Jones. Big Jim Sullivan played on things. Katini played that.
Speaker 2: I mean, Mickey only used the best people, which was
Speaker 2: a shame for Herman Sermits, who weren't allowed to develop musically,
Speaker 2: although potentially they might have been tremendous. But because every
Speaker 2: time Mickey used this session man, because of the way
Speaker 2: he did it, and that's the way you couldn't really
Speaker 2: argue with it. Because while he's giving you hit after
Speaker 2: hit after hit, what do you say you don't want
Speaker 2: to change? Change the boat?
Speaker 3: Okay, the record comes out in August. Tell me about
Speaker 3: your experience of its success.
Speaker 2: It came in the chart iving in the forties. I
Speaker 2: went for twenty three to eight to three to one,
Speaker 2: and I was kicked off by pretty woman, I think
Speaker 2: by Roy Orbison. Oh, Peter became very, very photogenic, very
Speaker 2: in every newspaper. It was a very big thing at
Speaker 2: hermanermits were really, you know, the flavor of the month.
Speaker 2: And I'm into Something Good, which just such a wonderful song,
Speaker 2: such an uplifting song, and you know, it's one of
Speaker 2: those songs like in the Summertime by Mungo Jerry. You
Speaker 2: knew first time you hear it, it's an absolute smash.
Speaker 2: And so as I'm into something good, it was like
Speaker 2: a one above what you know, one's a one, a
Speaker 2: real one, and we were in heaven. Obviously, all our
Speaker 2: bookings went up, the prices went up, money went up,
Speaker 2: and we had strange things happen. You know, it's perhaps
Speaker 2: that did happen in America, you know went out on MGM.
Speaker 3: Well a little bit slower. When do you get the
Speaker 3: MGM deal? And why MGM? At the time, MGM had
Speaker 3: a couple of other hit acts, but it was really
Speaker 3: a tertiary label compared to the other ones.
Speaker 2: We had no control over that whatsoever. Everything we did
Speaker 2: was guided by Mickey Most. Mickey Most was guided by
Speaker 2: the infamous famous Alan Klein, and anything that happened there
Speaker 2: would have been done probably initially by Alan Klein, subsequently
Speaker 2: through Mickey Most and whatever happened all the huge deals
Speaker 2: we did, Alan Klein was kind of somehow involved. So
Speaker 2: we didn't do very much.
Speaker 3: So how long after the record comes out in the
Speaker 3: UK it is to come out in the US, and
Speaker 3: then when it's successful, how do you decide to go
Speaker 3: to the US and capitalize on that.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to work out whether it seems to me
Speaker 2: that when I went into the office one morning, which
Speaker 2: is a smelly office in Manchester on the second floor
Speaker 2: above a Chinese restaurant with curry going right through the
Speaker 2: smell of curry, it was awful. It was an embarrassing office,
Speaker 2: about very small. There were two men standing in the
Speaker 2: doorway on a Monday morning, one hand a sigo which
Speaker 2: is about two feet long, and the other one had
Speaker 2: to see a second suit on. And you, Harvey Lizberg, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm Harvey Lisbeg, and we've come to give you a
Speaker 2: film offer for peterter noon. And we got and I said,
Speaker 2: there's no way we can't. We fully booked, we haven't
Speaker 2: got time to do it. There's no way we can
Speaker 2: do this. And they said, well, can we come into
Speaker 2: de Elvis? So I invited him in the office. Very embarrassing.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a Santa Monica Fifth Glory office with huge
Speaker 2: windows overlooking the sea. It was an office with no
Speaker 2: windows in it, with the cassettes all over the room, cigarettes,
Speaker 2: god knows what cars. It was just embarrassing. And I
Speaker 2: sat down with him and said, there's no ways. Look
Speaker 2: at the date sheet. There are no way. And he
Speaker 2: looks at the date sheets and he says, well, you've
Speaker 2: got a week there. I said, yeah, but a week.
Speaker 2: I said, no, there's no way. All right, we'll give
Speaker 2: you twenty five thousand dollars for the no, well, we'll
Speaker 2: give you forty five thousand dollars for the two two
Speaker 2: for the two days. Jute and the film was with
Speaker 2: Connie Francis and it's where the Boys Meet the Girls.
Speaker 2: It was completely controlled by the Gershering estate. As far
Speaker 2: as the music was concerned. I think liber Archie was in.
Speaker 2: There were some very were sort of poppy names of
Speaker 2: the time. We're in this film. And he says, there's
Speaker 2: there nothing I could do to entice you into it.
Speaker 2: I said, all right, Cadillac, you got it. Before I
Speaker 2: had finished the sentence, I got it. So I ended
Speaker 2: up with this huge Cadillac. The boys went over and
Speaker 2: then they had to do two songs. Well, the first
Speaker 2: song was where the Boys Meet was a Gershwin number
Speaker 2: I'm Biding My Time, which they did, and the second
Speaker 2: number I think that was offered to them was that
Speaker 2: I think it was a Liberarchie song or something. It
Speaker 2: It was absolutely appalling apparently, and the book and the
Speaker 2: boys refuge used it, can't we do one of ours?
Speaker 2: And they happened to have Listened People, which is a
Speaker 2: Graham Gooman song, which I was involved with at the time,
Speaker 2: so they put that on and that became a huge
Speaker 2: hit in America. I think that might have been our
Speaker 2: second hit. And then Mickey did can't You Hear My Heartbeat,
Speaker 2: which was a hit in England for a band called
Speaker 2: a girl band called Goldie I think, who was managed
Speaker 2: by Mike Jeffries, who managed The Animals. Everything is interconnected.
Speaker 2: Everything is no doubt that publishing was with Alan klin
Speaker 2: or There's always something weird was going on in the background.
Speaker 2: But I was very I'm trying to say I accepted
Speaker 2: the fact that everything was not correct. My aim was
Speaker 2: to get the band to be the biggest band of
Speaker 2: the world, and if the attorney was shaving off five
Speaker 2: percent or this, that and the other, it didn't really
Speaker 2: concern me as long as I got to where I
Speaker 2: wanted to get. So everybody said, what're you using him for? He?
Speaker 2: Why is Alan Kline? What are you crazy? You know?
Speaker 2: But I used Alan Kline knowing that it might not
Speaker 2: all be good. But I was using him as much
Speaker 2: as he was using me.
Speaker 3: Tell me more about Alan klin horror story.
Speaker 2: I went to his office, his small man, small man complex,
Speaker 2: very self opinionated, and he has his office. His desk
Speaker 2: is elevated by about four feet, so anybody's sitting down
Speaker 2: is looking at him, looking at God or the Buddha
Speaker 2: or whatever. And he actually got out of the desk
Speaker 2: and walked round behind me. And if I tell you,
Speaker 2: he had the worst breath I have ever known anybody
Speaker 2: in the world. I mean, it was horrendous to such
Speaker 2: an extent that I got out a piece of chewing
Speaker 2: him and I said, do you want a piece of
Speaker 2: chewing him? And his reply was, I know I've got
Speaker 2: bad breath. It's totally intentional. And at that stage I
Speaker 2: know I was talking to a monster, you know he was,
Speaker 2: and he is unbelievable. I mean, he was ruthless. I
Speaker 2: didn't like him, particularly because I had to be careful
Speaker 2: that he wouldn't take herman's hermits away or start causing trouble,
Speaker 2: as he did with every band he got involved with.
Speaker 2: It was never a smooth ride. There's always a problem,
Speaker 2: whether it would be the Beatles, rolling Stones, there was
Speaker 2: always trouble and eventually they all booting him out eventually,
Speaker 2: So you know. On the other hand, he was an
Speaker 2: accountant in a record company. He'd seen how the record
Speaker 2: companies have been exploiting all the artists and it used
Speaker 2: it and rather cleverly. But when I discussed the breath
Speaker 2: thing with you, it shows to what extent he would
Speaker 2: go to get what he wanted. I don't like it particularly.
Speaker 3: Okay, what was your management style? I know some English
Speaker 3: managers were there tutorial relative to the acts. What I'm
Speaker 3: asking is to what degree were you involved in decisions
Speaker 3: and did the band listen to you and accept what
Speaker 3: you had to say?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, the band were fantastic. They did everything that was
Speaker 2: wanted of them. I did everything, deployed agents, managers, publicity agents.
Speaker 2: When Peter went to America, I had to go to
Speaker 2: bow Street Magistrates Court to be their guardian in America
Speaker 2: in loco parentis. While John Lennon was feeding the young
Speaker 2: Peter Noon switching Roum and Cokes for Coca Colas in
Speaker 2: nightclubs in London. That wasn't my job in America. I
Speaker 2: had to look after and be very careful, and we
Speaker 2: had a lot of I liked every one of that.
Speaker 2: They were all from very nice backgrounds. The band, they
Speaker 2: were nice. They're all from nice people. And in fact,
Speaker 2: when they had the success, I arranged for all the
Speaker 2: parents and then to go to Hawaii for two weeks.
Speaker 2: We had a fantastic trip to celebrate all our success.
Speaker 2: So I always involved the parents. I knew the parents.
Speaker 2: They were nice, that Peter was a great boy, he
Speaker 2: was a I mean, they were all were I mean,
Speaker 2: they were just nice people. I don't have had a
Speaker 2: problem with him. We were all in love with each
Speaker 2: other and the business, and we were very young and
Speaker 2: so much success and you know, more success maybe than
Speaker 2: we deserved, but we got it and we were there.
Speaker 2: We were number one in America, beat the Beatles in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five, four weeks at number one, keeping Help
Speaker 2: off the chart. I mean, it's ridiculous when you think
Speaker 2: of it. I mean, Missus Brown was done in a
Speaker 2: flash one take in a studio and voices and every
Speaker 2: mixed together. It wasn't even separated. It was a throwaway
Speaker 2: track on the end of the album, which Mickey was
Speaker 2: adamant not to go out as a single. And the
Speaker 2: story there was MGM said they would prepay on six
Speaker 2: hundred thousand records if he allowed them to put it
Speaker 2: out as a single. They said, no, eight hundred thousand,
Speaker 2: No a million. Okay, if you pay me on a million,
Speaker 2: you can put it out now. The DJs in the meanwhile,
Speaker 2: they've been playing the back off this thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was everywhere we went. We were doing Dick Clark
Speaker 2: Caravan of Tours Stars and everywhere we went the DJs
Speaker 2: were playing this track on on and on. So it
Speaker 2: entered the Billboard at number twelve, which was the highest
Speaker 2: entry at that stage of any racked as a single
Speaker 2: at that stage, and it went from twelve to three
Speaker 2: to one, stayed at one for four weeks. And I
Speaker 2: was I was in a situation where I didn't think
Speaker 2: I could go wrong. I had Graham Goldman, who we
Speaker 2: will talk about, no doubt, but you know I was
Speaker 2: having hit after hit, Peter was having it after it,
Speaker 2: Mickey Moses having hit after hit. I mean were and
Speaker 2: money didn't mean anything. Do you know. I wasn't being
Speaker 2: careful and I just thought, well whatever, I was playing roulette,
Speaker 2: winning a roulette. Everything that could possibly go right as
Speaker 2: far as money was concerned, to happen all at once
Speaker 2: during that time. Yeah, so what can I say?
Speaker 3: Okay, Usually at some point the band wakes up and says,
Speaker 3: where's my money? And especially because Herman's Hermides didn't write
Speaker 3: the songs and royalty reads were low. Most of the
Speaker 3: money was from roadwork and it was split multiple ways.
Speaker 2: Never happened, Never happened. We've got a million dollar deal
Speaker 2: with MGM three film deal for a million dollars, which
Speaker 2: in those days was fortune, and we signed that and
Speaker 2: they were secure for a lot. They had everything they needed.
Speaker 2: They never bitched about.
Speaker 3: Money, and what was your deal with the band?
Speaker 2: Twenty five percent out of which ten years to go
Speaker 2: to the agency, so at fifteen, which I split with
Speaker 2: Charlie originally and he left after three years, and I
Speaker 2: carried on at that rate because in the meantime I'd
Speaker 2: brought into the agency, so it had it all together,
Speaker 2: always on a twenty five percent rate. They never seemed
Speaker 2: to bother about it never queried it or anything. But
Speaker 2: I think when you think where they came from, I mean,
Speaker 2: I suppose you could say the same about all acts,
Speaker 2: but where they came from and where they got it
Speaker 2: would be very difficult for them to say the money
Speaker 2: wasn't worth it, you know. I mean, I did do
Speaker 2: a well. I don't want to praise myself, but it
Speaker 2: was a spectacular success story.
Speaker 3: Okay, So did you always travel with the band and
Speaker 3: you we no? When did you travel? When did you
Speaker 3: not travel?
Speaker 2: I traveled to certain I had a partner, Charlie, that
Speaker 2: traveled with the band a lot. We split it together
Speaker 2: a bit. I then am somebody that was working in
Speaker 2: the accountant who looked like David Neven with a white
Speaker 2: handkerchief and suit, called John Wright. He was the head
Speaker 2: of the phone club, and I used to get him
Speaker 2: to go to various places Eastern Europe, or Germany, Singapore.
Speaker 2: I couldn't be I couldn't do everything at all at
Speaker 2: the same time, because I was starting to get involved
Speaker 2: with other acts as well. But my main act, obviously
Speaker 2: was Homan Sermons. I went to the obviously when they
Speaker 2: were doing the film, I went filming and I went
Speaker 2: on a lot of the American dates. Any date that
Speaker 2: was important, La or something like that, or New York,
Speaker 2: I would be there. And I lived in America for
Speaker 2: a while. Yeah, that's right. I learned for about six
Speaker 2: months in America in that sixty five period, So I
Speaker 2: was around because a lot of our stuff was in America.
Speaker 3: How did you prevent the act getting stolen from you?
Speaker 2: Well, you had to have somebody there all the time.
Speaker 2: And if Alan Klein is Mickey most well, you don't
Speaker 2: have to worry about anybody else. That's number one, because
Speaker 2: if anybody was going to get him, it was going
Speaker 2: to be Alc. I mean, nobody else would get a
Speaker 2: smell in there. And I had a very very very tough,
Speaker 2: very tough attorney called Stephen Wise, who has led Zeppelin's
Speaker 2: attorney who they had a falling out with eventually and
Speaker 2: legal case and god knows, but Steve was a very
Speaker 2: bright operator and between us we protected our interest.
Speaker 3: How did you find Steve Weiss?
Speaker 2: That's a good question. Steve Wise incidentally went out with
Speaker 2: Marilyn Monroe on that was his clon defact. He's very
Speaker 2: good looking. How did I find it? How did I
Speaker 2: get to him? God? Knows well, I don't think it
Speaker 2: was from Frank Barcelona, who was our agent. I don't
Speaker 2: because I don't think Frank liked him very much. I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I really, I'll have to Okay, Okay, it's
Speaker 3: a long time ago. This was the beginning of Frank
Speaker 3: Barcelona and Premier Talent. How did you hook up with Frank?
Speaker 2: Well, Frank was friendly with my partner Danny Batsh, who
Speaker 2: the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars came through that. I
Speaker 2: think you know Dick Clark's I'm very vague and my
Speaker 2: memory is very vague on these subjects.
Speaker 3: I really okay, so let me go one step further.
Speaker 3: You know, Frank Barcelona ended up becoming legendary. Was he
Speaker 3: impressive in your day? Was he good or what were
Speaker 3: his skills?
Speaker 2: He was very good. It was good at packaging things.
Speaker 2: He took an act on like the Who, and he decided, right,
Speaker 2: we're going to open for Herman's Hermits, totally incorrect musically.
Speaker 2: He didn't care. He just wanted to get them seen.
Speaker 2: And once they're seen, they're going to make an impact
Speaker 2: and it's down to them. And it was totally brilliant
Speaker 2: and he put them with their owning stones. On certain
Speaker 2: nights we played Dates Herman and the Rolling Stones, and
Speaker 2: trying to think everybody that went on a tour he packaged.
Speaker 2: He was a great packager. He got an act, put
Speaker 2: them on the show, and the next time they went
Speaker 2: out themselves and so forth. And he was very nice guy.
Speaker 2: He was very likable. Nice wife June Harris, who was
Speaker 2: also in the business at the time, pr whatever, and
Speaker 2: they were a good couple, and they were nice people.
Speaker 2: He had a partner called Dick Freeberg, who you know there.
Speaker 3: Was So were you a good manager or were you
Speaker 3: just bumping into things when you're managing Roman's romits?
Speaker 2: No, I think I was quite creative. I think I was.
Speaker 2: I was very involved in a lot of the music
Speaker 2: selection of music, even though a lot of the stuff
Speaker 2: was rejected. I did try and get bus Stop, which
Speaker 2: I had before anybody else to them so rejected by
Speaker 2: Mickey most and other songs Well listen people he did,
Speaker 2: but some people wasn't Nicky's choice. That just happened and
Speaker 2: became a hit. So I don't think Mickey initially recognized
Speaker 2: the brilliance of Graham Gouldman. But there's nothing like success,
Speaker 2: and then eventually he did No Milk Today, and even
Speaker 2: No Milk Today, he didn't put out as a single
Speaker 2: A side in America because there's a kind of huss
Speaker 2: was the A side which was crazy and East West
Speaker 2: was another huge hit. You know, I think, no, I
Speaker 2: think I was pretty good. I always employed the best people.
Speaker 2: I employed a p R. I was Les Perrin. He
Speaker 2: represented Frank Sinatra and then he's represented the Rolling Stones,
Speaker 2: you know, a few small acts. So I'm going to
Speaker 2: him Peter Noon, you know, right, or best photographer, who's
Speaker 2: the best photographer? Go to him, always for the best.
Speaker 2: I was never never frightened of you know, I was
Speaker 2: never frightened of attempting something big. Always always, and even
Speaker 2: the film. We did the film because the guy was
Speaker 2: reputed to have had done some films with Elvis Presley,
Speaker 2: and so he had a pedigree of some sort that
Speaker 2: he wasn't just somebody off the street that's putting together
Speaker 2: a movie, but he was because it was a chick
Speaker 2: flick and it was rubbish. But that's beside the point.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that at the time. So I think
Speaker 2: I think all round, I think I was I was
Speaker 2: pretty salad. You know I didn't do anything illegal. I
Speaker 2: was straight. If somebody did something, I didn't need to
Speaker 2: have a contract, you know. I was as good as
Speaker 2: my words.
Speaker 3: So you didn't have a contract with the Herman's remits.
Speaker 2: I did initially. Yeah, I always had one. We always
Speaker 2: had it on November the fifth. It's the day of
Speaker 2: his birthday. Jay got married to his wife. A year later.
Speaker 2: I got married to my wife on the name of
Speaker 2: the fifth. My wife's mother was November the fifth. Guy
Speaker 2: Fowks blew up that has as a parliament of trapped.
Speaker 2: That was the day. Yes, So we had a three
Speaker 2: year con. We then had a five year contract and
Speaker 2: then I think we parted the last terman and another
Speaker 2: three year contract. We always had a contract with Peter, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I did. And Peter I speak to today, you know,
Speaker 2: I spoke to him yesterday. I mean, he's he's a
Speaker 2: very nice person and he's improved in his performances. Is wonderful.
Speaker 2: He's a great storyteller, you know, he can he's got
Speaker 2: the gift of the blindet as well.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you mentioned Elvis, so you interacted with the colonel
Speaker 3: and Elvis tell me about that.
Speaker 2: We got off a massive tour in America, but I
Speaker 2: don't know. It was more than America. It was a
Speaker 2: world tour. Anyhow, we ended up, well, let's go to Hawaii.
Speaker 2: Let's have a couple of days there. So we went
Speaker 2: to Hawaii and I get to the hotel there and
Speaker 2: they take one look at Herman's hermits and the manager,
Speaker 2: who is German, she's very sorry, we don't have the
Speaker 2: rooms for you. So what do you mean you don't
Speaker 2: have the rooms. We've got reservation in Hawaii. If the
Speaker 2: people don't leave the rooms, they can't be pushed out.
Speaker 2: This is the law of Hawaii and I've stud there.
Speaker 2: So I said to the group, put all your equipment
Speaker 2: on the front of the cahal. It's a beautiful entrance.
Speaker 2: So from thirty feet there was masses of equipment and cases.
Speaker 2: Ten people with all the cases right across, so nobody
Speaker 2: could get him. And I phoned up tom Off at
Speaker 2: the DJ and I said, can we what we're going
Speaker 2: to do? We can't get in. There are no rooms. Oh,
Speaker 2: come and stay with me, I said, there, I said,
Speaker 2: I've got nineteen rooms. I live in a mission house.
Speaker 2: Don't worry about it. So we stayed with him. He
Speaker 2: used to put every show on, and he put Elvis on,
Speaker 2: so he'd obviously told the colonel, why didn't you ask
Speaker 2: Carvey to come and meet Elvis? And I got I
Speaker 2: got in the room and there was an you know,
Speaker 2: and for some reason there was a notice that Elvis
Speaker 2: and the Colonel would like to meet you and the Hermits.
Speaker 2: Well okay, so I wasn't going to say no, great. Uh.
Speaker 2: There were photographs taken of that event, and for some reason,
Speaker 2: Keith Hotwood wasn't on the photograph, and neither was Carl Green.
Speaker 2: And I could never understand why why weren't they there?
Speaker 2: And I spoke to Keith about three weeks ago and
Speaker 2: he said they kept changing this date for us to
Speaker 2: go out there. And I was so fed up being
Speaker 2: away from home. I decided to go home because I
Speaker 2: never thought it was going to happen. Anyhow, it did happen.
Speaker 2: We went to the the went to the Polynesian village
Speaker 2: whether than beautiful Hut, a bit like the catch Bull
Speaker 2: at four, you know, so far in the Sweet Cat
Speaker 2: Stevens thing, all those huts, you know, lovely hut, And
Speaker 2: there was Elvis. He has white trousers on bear down
Speaker 2: to the nothing underneath, no shoes, nothing, and the colonel
Speaker 2: comes in. He said, ah, a fat Brian Epstein, I thought, great,
Speaker 2: I need this like a hole in. That was true.
Speaker 2: I was fat for everybody else. Anyhow, we had a
Speaker 2: chat with Elvis. If Elvis stood up six henchmen dressed
Speaker 2: exactly the same, with the same houstyle, same brookriam, everything
Speaker 2: all stood up together. Everything was. It was the king,
Speaker 2: so everybody had to do what the king did. He farted.
Speaker 2: They're all going to fard. You know, there's no that
Speaker 2: that's what you do. And he and Peter Noom was brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 2: The first question said how come you made it without
Speaker 2: long hair, which is and so Elvis said, well maybe
Speaker 2: my side Boon's helped, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 2: was a great It was a great conversation. It was,
Speaker 2: and we got on really well. I'm not convinced how
Speaker 2: well Elvis even knew about Herman's service. I don't know.
Speaker 2: All I know is it was a It was a
Speaker 2: meeting that we milked to hell. And when I got
Speaker 2: back to England, I was doing TV. Somebody that's actually
Speaker 2: matter because nobody did meet meta Alvis. He never been
Speaker 2: to England. He never went to England.
Speaker 3: And what about the colonel. You talk in the book
Speaker 3: about a few conversations with the colonel.
Speaker 2: Oh, the colonel is unbelievable, great, and he is responsible.
Speaker 2: He's much maligned. He's responsible for merchandising as we know it.
Speaker 2: There was a some he telled me. I think there
Speaker 2: was some gig in Carolina where I don't know that
Speaker 2: fifty thousand people in the forecast was for tremendous torrential rain.
Speaker 2: And the Colonel had spent all night trying to find
Speaker 2: out where he could buy umbrellas. I mean, this was
Speaker 2: the head of the man was incredible. There was a
Speaker 2: film that Elvis Presley was in and when they'd finished,
Speaker 2: the Colonel had said to the heads of MGM, by
Speaker 2: the way, did you get permission to use that watch
Speaker 2: that Elvis was wearing? And they looked to no, Well,
Speaker 2: either you take it out of every scene, or you
Speaker 2: give me quarter of a million dollars quarter a million dollars,
Speaker 2: thank you very much. I mean, he was who's he was.
Speaker 2: He was a showman who was from circus background. He
Speaker 2: told me why he used to get I didn't care
Speaker 2: about opening acts, adding package. I used to get a magician,
Speaker 2: a conjurer with three mice, and they went on for
Speaker 2: forty five minutes and the crowd were going mad, and
Speaker 2: then I boy went on Elvis. Now was it the
Speaker 2: crowd where? I mean it was? It was a total
Speaker 2: opposite to what I was doing when I was trategy,
Speaker 2: what's a good act to get the public? And his
Speaker 2: idea was to bore the people to sick until Elvis
Speaker 2: came on and then he was away and what else? Yeah,
Speaker 2: So when I got to Las Vegas. My final story
Speaker 2: about him, which is my favorite. He was my son
Speaker 2: Paul's twenty first birthday and we were in LA and
Speaker 2: I said, well, what, well, what would you like to
Speaker 2: do for your birthday? He said, I'd like to go
Speaker 2: to Las Vegas. And we were shocked because nobody it
Speaker 2: just wasn't the right place we went, and I said, well,
Speaker 2: I know the colonel lives here. I'll phone him up
Speaker 2: to see whether we can see him. So I'll phone
Speaker 2: up the colonel and he says, Harvey, I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to the dentist at the moment. I'd love
Speaker 2: for you to come, but unfortunate, I've got this. But
Speaker 2: if I get finished earlier, I'll call you. So anyhow,
Speaker 2: I thought, yes, we're not going to hear from him.
Speaker 2: Two hours later, the phone goes, Hi, Harvey, I'm back
Speaker 2: from the I'm back. Do you want to bring the
Speaker 2: boys around so I can meet them? So now I'm panicking.
Speaker 2: Every time I met him, we'd all been in limos.
Speaker 2: I mean when he went in a limo with Elvis,
Speaker 2: there was a Cadillac in front, three behind. It was
Speaker 2: like a processional rub So anyhow, I thought, well, I've
Speaker 2: got to get a limo. I'll go into his house.
Speaker 2: I'll phone up this agency and I said, look, I
Speaker 2: don't want any stretch wheel base, I don't want anything flash.
Speaker 2: I just want an ordinary town car please, and a driver.
Speaker 2: They send this car around. It's a gray, a gray
Speaker 2: town car. It has bullet holes all the way through
Speaker 2: the side of the doors, all through the back. And
Speaker 2: then he drives us up to the house and he
Speaker 2: can't go park. We'll walk up to the house so
Speaker 2: we couldn't show this limo. So such bad, that's my sorny.
Speaker 2: We came in there and he took the boys into
Speaker 2: a room which was filled with photographs of Elvis, with
Speaker 2: every dignitary, every memoraiyalty of the world, to you know,
Speaker 2: to to the King or whatever, you know, every It
Speaker 2: was just amazing. And he spent a lot of time
Speaker 2: with the boys. He really liked them, Philip and Paula,
Speaker 2: my two boys, and he was very kind. And he
Speaker 2: invited me to his ninetieth I think or eighty fifth
Speaker 2: birthday party. One. I couldn't get to the last one.
Speaker 2: But I always liked him, and I hated the interpretation
Speaker 2: of Tom Hanks in the film Elvis. I mean, he
Speaker 2: never had a voice like that at all. He had
Speaker 2: a kind of a sudden drawl or put on sudden draw.
Speaker 2: It was nothing like that thing. And apparently somebody told
Speaker 2: me that the reason Hanks did that voice was because
Speaker 2: they wanted to make him distinctive as being kind of European.
Speaker 2: And I don't know whatever it was, but it was
Speaker 2: very unfair. It was. It was a bad portrayal, I thought,
Speaker 2: I mean really rough. And all I can say to everybody,
Speaker 2: they say, well, he had fifty percent. What do you
Speaker 2: think of that? I said, well, do you think Elvis
Speaker 2: Presley would have had any success without the Colonel? Because
Speaker 2: I don't think he would. He would have children as
Speaker 2: another country singer maybe.
Speaker 3: So how did it end with Hermit Summits.
Speaker 2: Well, Peter decided he wanted to go on his own.
Speaker 2: He was a natural showman. He wanted to become like
Speaker 2: a Tommy Steele. He was always the focal point of
Speaker 2: the band. They were doing then cabaret work because the
Speaker 2: hit side of it had turned not sour, it was quiet,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to be more or more himself and
Speaker 2: be an entertainer like Michael Crawford, Tommy Steele, you know
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. And he could go on and
Speaker 2: the pladium and do his own thing. And Mickey got
Speaker 2: him a song which was a Davy Bowie song, Oh
Speaker 2: You Pretty Thing, and he had a huge So the
Speaker 2: band split on November the fifth, right, the Hermits went
Speaker 2: their own way and it was reasonably amicable. But because
Speaker 2: things weren't that great at that stage, we had no
Speaker 2: success in America at all. That had sort of dried
Speaker 2: it completely. But Oh You Pretty Things became a hit
Speaker 2: in England, and when it came to doing it on
Speaker 2: Top of the Pops, David Bowie himself played on the
Speaker 2: set because Musicians' Union regulations that people that played on
Speaker 2: the record either had to be on it or had
Speaker 2: to something to do with unions, and he came all
Speaker 2: dressed in as David bib. We dressed totally out of it,
Speaker 2: and there was Peter both on the same thing. And
Speaker 2: I met David bow who was very charming, very nice person,
Speaker 2: very really nice. I found it very nice. You can
Speaker 2: only find people where they found them. I mean I've
Speaker 2: even found people that like Alan Klin. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's how you found somebody and how you deal with them.
Speaker 2: It's because you found them to be abhorrent or whatever.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean to say they are. My other favorite
Speaker 2: manager was Peter Grant.
Speaker 3: Of course, well okay, you bring them up. Tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about Peter Grant.
Speaker 2: Well, I was in America and Queen were looking for management.
Speaker 2: So I said to Peter, you manage led Zeppelin. I
Speaker 2: managed Herman serrmitson now Tennessee c how can we not
Speaker 2: get a management contract if we've joined forces? And we
Speaker 2: went to meet them. Meanwhile, I'd been sending tickets to
Speaker 2: write Taylor for Wimbledon. He loved tennis. I used to
Speaker 2: send him tickets always getnis and John Paul now getting
Speaker 2: mixed up no, not John poured downs. Of course. Now,
Speaker 2: I'd seen Freddie a few times early in when he
Speaker 2: was fifteen. I saw him at Kensington Market, film maker,
Speaker 2: nails polished and everything, and I said, somebody, who's that,
Speaker 2: Oh it's Freddy And he was exactly the same as
Speaker 2: he was ten seven years later. Freddie was Freddy even then.
Speaker 2: So going back to her that they had the meeting,
Speaker 2: Jim Beach was the person that was the accountant and
Speaker 2: he was holding the meeting the four members, myself and Peter,
Speaker 2: and they rejected us. So I couldn't believe it. And
Speaker 2: also Peter was just about to form his label, Swan Song,
Speaker 2: and I think he wanted them to be on that label.
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure whether the reason they turned us
Speaker 2: down was maybe because they didn't want to go on
Speaker 2: Swan Song anyhow, which I wouldn't have minded, or I
Speaker 2: don't think it would have been the ideal for them.
Speaker 2: I think we could have done better than doing that.
Speaker 2: But you know, so Peter and I got really friendly,
Speaker 2: and they employed John Reid as the manager Queen and
Speaker 2: then he slunk him out after two years, and then
Speaker 2: Jim Beach became the manager and to this day he
Speaker 2: still manages them. He's in Switzerland, I don't know, obviously
Speaker 2: in his eighties, but and he's ever since that day.
Speaker 2: And I met Roger Taylor coincidentally at what was meant
Speaker 2: to be Paul McCartney's last concert ever about ten years ago,
Speaker 2: which was an extra date put on the end of
Speaker 2: the last tour in Inverted Commerce at Liverpool at the
Speaker 2: Albert Dock, and I was sitting next to Roger Taylor
Speaker 2: and he turned around and says, have you got any
Speaker 2: Wimbledon tickets? Which is amazing how people remember things. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was, it was just great. And I really liked
Speaker 2: Queen by the way. I didn't when I was young,
Speaker 2: because when I had TENNCC they were like I would
Speaker 2: saying to myself, what are you playing that rubbish? Use
Speaker 2: was playing Queen Killer Queen Back to Florence, and oh
Speaker 2: it's rubbish. But afterwards I began to love them. And
Speaker 2: we've actually promoted them as well a few times in England.
Speaker 2: But Freddie Mercury was probably my favorite showman of the
Speaker 2: last century.
Speaker 3: Okay, but Peter Grant certainly previously been a wrestler.
Speaker 2: He's a big guy, hundred pounds, was.
Speaker 3: He winning an intimidation or was he really that sharp?
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a loaded question, they said, you'd asked questions
Speaker 2: like this. Well, first of all, he had he worked
Speaker 2: in the same office as Mickey most so I haven't
Speaker 2: done very well. His first hit was Winchester Cathedral, the
Speaker 2: New Vaudeville Band, and he had that, and he was
Speaker 2: the road manager for Gen Vincent. And he told me
Speaker 2: some great stories of about Jean Vincent. He was very sweet.
Speaker 2: He had this exterior that was like a gorilla but
Speaker 2: at the time and I just and I had all
Speaker 2: the stories about him, people hanging from the windows and
Speaker 2: god knows what to get money. But I never came
Speaker 2: across that. I came across the other side of him.
Speaker 2: He came to our house for dinner. My wife Carol
Speaker 2: was the most wonderful, wonderful gormet chef, and she did
Speaker 2: a side of beef fifty pounds. He came in, he
Speaker 2: sat down on a chair, broke the chair, and then
Speaker 2: we put him back up again, and he at the
Speaker 2: whole side of beef himself, and he says, I've got
Speaker 2: tickets for you to go to the Free Trade Hall
Speaker 2: to see led Zeppelin. And I said, okay, have you
Speaker 2: got any cotton wool in the house? I said, what
Speaker 2: cotton wool? So why? He says, well, i'll give you
Speaker 2: impression you are to eat. Therefore rows in front of
Speaker 2: the base speaking and I don't think you were going
Speaker 2: to like that anyhow, and then we went. We've met
Speaker 2: many occasions and my favorite story, which is in the book,
Speaker 2: I love this one. We're in La both at the
Speaker 2: Beverly Hillton Hotel and we decide we're going to go
Speaker 2: out for dinner. And he liked steak, so I said, well,
Speaker 2: there's a restaurant called Larry's, which is the best steak
Speaker 2: there is. And my parents were staying there. I was
Speaker 2: with my parents. Let's all go together. So I went
Speaker 2: with my parents and he was following on and I
Speaker 2: got to the door of the restaurant. A very stuffy
Speaker 2: matre d ontwer the door, and he says, oh, you
Speaker 2: can't come in without a jacket. And of course, with
Speaker 2: my arrogance, I said, well you get me one, you know,
Speaker 2: And that was me. It was horrible, but that was me.
Speaker 2: You get me one. And he comes back with his
Speaker 2: seasucker jacket and I put it on and I said
Speaker 2: by the way, he says, yes, I said that our
Speaker 2: next the last person in the pot to arrive. You
Speaker 2: might not be able to accommodate him with a jacket.
Speaker 2: We can fit anybody. Don't you worry about it. We
Speaker 2: got it all covered. Peter Graham walks through the door
Speaker 2: and he says, I pass, Yeah, that's Peter.
Speaker 3: Totally hilarious. Okay, So how do you meet Graham Goldman?
Speaker 2: Graham Goodman, Lol Crean, Kevin Godley and myself all lived
Speaker 2: in the North Manchester Jewish ghetto within one and a
Speaker 2: half miles of each other. So that's everybody knew everybody
Speaker 2: virtually in that community. So and Graham was in a
Speaker 2: band called the Whirlwinds, which was an exceptionally good kind
Speaker 2: of show band type of thing that played very unusual stuff.
Speaker 2: They played all the Italian songs of which were inundating
Speaker 2: England Marino, Marini, Kondo, Kondo, Kwonda, all those type of songs,
Speaker 2: played them very nicely, and finished off with Alexander's ragtime
Speaker 2: band with all the hands going you know at the end.
Speaker 2: And Brain was a phenomenal guitarist. And I went to
Speaker 2: see them at the Jewish Lads Brigade it was a month.
Speaker 2: I think it was Monday night the US.
Speaker 3: What exactly was the Jewish Lads Brigade.
Speaker 2: It was like a place like the YMCA where people
Speaker 2: would go the Jewish who looked after it, like a
Speaker 2: youth center where there were camps and football arrange and
Speaker 2: all sorts of things for Jewish people to the kids
Speaker 2: to go to. And they would practice there because there
Speaker 2: was a hall there. It was a good place for
Speaker 2: them to practice their equipment. And I went there, and
Speaker 2: I don't know why I went there, and I've been
Speaker 2: trying to find out why I went there. It was
Speaker 2: I was an accountant. I had nothing to do with
Speaker 2: the music business other than I love music. And I
Speaker 2: asked Phil Cohen, who was one of the lead singers
Speaker 2: of the band, about two weeks ago, I said, why
Speaker 2: was I there? And he said, well, none of us
Speaker 2: knew why you were there, and none of us knew
Speaker 2: you except me because I played football with you. So
Speaker 2: I was the only person. And I don't know why
Speaker 2: you were there. So anyhow, but I was there, and obviously,
Speaker 2: and I got trying to I don't know what it was.
Speaker 2: The manager they had there was a guy called Victor
Speaker 2: Coss and he was very, very arrogant. This band was
Speaker 2: very popular. They had date sheet that was fill you know,
Speaker 2: they played upmarket places. They weren't playing rock and roll places.
Speaker 2: They were playing you know, maybe maybe weddings, maybe you know,
Speaker 2: tennis club dances or whatever. They were. They were very,
Speaker 2: very very They were well paid, and I probably wanted
Speaker 2: to be involved with them somehow. But I can't put
Speaker 2: it together why except that I love Graham and this guy,
Speaker 2: the Victor Call, he was just in his own planet.
Speaker 2: He was just horrendous. And I asked Phil about him
Speaker 2: as well. I said, well, what was he like as
Speaker 2: a manager? Am I being unfair saying he wasn't a
Speaker 2: good manager? He said he wasn't until we signed the contract,
Speaker 2: and I don't know what that means. Meanwhile, I loved
Speaker 2: Graham anyhow. Graham was just amazing guitarist and lived really
Speaker 2: near to me, I mean nearer than the others, and
Speaker 2: I got talking to him and I waited then till
Speaker 2: Herman Summits had had some success and I approached him again.
Speaker 2: I said, well, you know, would you like to join me?
Speaker 2: Obviously what I can do for you? And maybe you
Speaker 2: should write some songs yourself, you know, because he wasn't
Speaker 2: writing songs in the in that pand particularly I think
Speaker 2: they had a couple of records. Actually one of them
Speaker 2: might have been and are fully brothers. I don't know what.
Speaker 2: Then they did a cover version of something, but it
Speaker 2: didn't do anything. So their band was kind of in
Speaker 2: a to disarray and people were going into their own careers,
Speaker 2: and Graham said, okay, well let's try it. And I
Speaker 2: met his father, who is a very nice man called himI,
Speaker 2: who is a frustrated playwright, absolute genius, beautiful with lyrics,
Speaker 2: very very close. And his mother was lovely, lady Betty,
Speaker 2: and they were a lovely couple, and they she was
Speaker 2: very into theater, so both of them were very theatrical.
Speaker 2: And it was a nice thing. And I got to
Speaker 2: know them and I said, look, would could I look
Speaker 2: after him? And I gave him a few quid a week.
Speaker 2: I was a retainer to you know, keep just good faith.
Speaker 2: And I did that with Kevin Law. I did that
Speaker 2: with they did a mural for me. I just kept
Speaker 2: everybody in work because money was flowing through me. Like
Speaker 2: like I said to you, it was a joke, you know,
Speaker 2: I couldn't give it away quick enough. Rice Weber as well.
Speaker 2: We talked about I put them on a dealer, I
Speaker 2: mean everybody that came and Graham. Graham was very close.
Speaker 2: He was like a brother, and we started writing together,
Speaker 2: and then I was involved in the writing. We used
Speaker 2: to go nine till five every day to his little
Speaker 2: flat and we used to just plod along, playing things,
Speaker 2: taking things out. I was acting like more as an editor.
Speaker 2: He'd plays something. I said, well, that's great play that.
Speaker 2: Why do you change that? And we had this break
Speaker 2: where it wasn't a brain wave house. The Rising Sun
Speaker 2: was so big, I mean it was just everybody had
Speaker 2: a guitar was playing it. I said, why do you
Speaker 2: write a song on those four chords? And he said,
Speaker 2: and surreptitiously he changed the last chord minimally and then
Speaker 2: wrote for your Love And then in the middle, I said,
Speaker 2: well we need something different in the middle. Can you
Speaker 2: do anything? And he broke it into the rock and
Speaker 2: roll part of it, and then it finished it and
Speaker 2: I heard it and I thought, number one, there is
Speaker 2: no question. I was absolutely convinced going to take that
Speaker 2: to the Beatles. They can do it. I had very
Speaker 2: like I said, I don't think small, and Graham looked
Speaker 2: at me as, oh, man, yeah, write the Beatles. You
Speaker 2: know they're not going to And he hadn't handy his
Speaker 2: success at all ready, so you know. But anyhow, I
Speaker 2: decided we'd go and see the Beatles and get it
Speaker 2: to them. So we went to see the Beatles at
Speaker 2: Hammersmith Odeon and the opening up with the Yardbirds, and
Speaker 2: behind me was a publisher called running Back, who was
Speaker 2: a publisher. I said, look, Ronnie, can you do me
Speaker 2: a favor? I've got this demo? Can you go and
Speaker 2: play it to the Beatles? I think that I think
Speaker 2: it's the number one and I'd like to know And
Speaker 2: and he looked at me sheepishly as I'm mad. And
Speaker 2: after the interval he comes back, do you mind very
Speaker 2: much of I play it to the Yardbirds? I said?
Speaker 2: Who are the yard Berds are opening up? No? I
Speaker 2: wanted to go to the Beatles. Who the uppers? The
Speaker 2: armis don't mean shit? Come on? Anyhow, he said, well,
Speaker 2: the manager would like to meet you. And how between
Speaker 2: Georgio Gomelsky and Hem they managed to taught me into
Speaker 2: allowing them to do it. Eric Clapton blew a fit
Speaker 2: He wanted the Yard to be a blues orientated band,
Speaker 2: as most of them were, like Lon John Baldry and
Speaker 2: the Huci Coucie Man, Rod Stewart and the Steam Packet.
Speaker 2: They all played American rhythm and blues and that was it,
Speaker 2: and they were mad on the blues. And Eric Clapton
Speaker 2: didn't want to know about Bloody Graham, Gooman or pop
Speaker 2: or anything. It wasn't where he wanted to go, and
Speaker 2: he subsequently left the band. They've got a few small
Speaker 2: people in there, didn't they. Jeff Beck, a few other
Speaker 2: miners came into the band, but that so For Your
Speaker 2: Love went out. Georgio taught me into it. He used
Speaker 2: I think Brian August. They used some very he did
Speaker 2: some very nice things the harpsichord on. It was very
Speaker 2: clever and it was a very again it was it
Speaker 2: had atmosphere, you know, certain records like I'm Not in
Speaker 2: Love bahem in Rhapsody MacArthur Park, they've got atmosphere, and
Speaker 2: that for Your Love at the time, for what it was,
Speaker 2: it had that atmosphere. Something slightly weird, isn't it. And
Speaker 2: the lyrics, of course weren't done by the Graham. The
Speaker 2: lyrics were high. Miss A seventeen year old doesn't write
Speaker 2: I'd give the moon if it were mine to give.
Speaker 2: I mean, not in the sixteen year old guy from school.
Speaker 2: I might know it. So I'm an artist from his father.
Speaker 2: And it was great. It was a great, great lyric
Speaker 2: And of course then the thing went to number one.
Speaker 2: I mean, as I said, everything I had touched turned
Speaker 2: to gold. I mean, it really did. I should have
Speaker 2: known that things would change, but it was certainly. It
Speaker 2: was certainly a golden era for me.
Speaker 3: So after a four year love, how does the songwriting
Speaker 3: continue with Graham?
Speaker 2: I thought of the titles A Heart full of Soul.
Speaker 2: That's my claim to fame. So technically I'm a co writer,
Speaker 2: and technically I wrote half the lyrics because it's repeated
Speaker 2: about nine times. But other than that, yeah, So I
Speaker 2: got involved. Kevin Lolan was done. Next thing we did,
Speaker 2: and Kevin now brought me beautiful songs. Graham and I
Speaker 2: we were going to publish them, and we we did it.
Speaker 2: We decided we joined the company together myself and Graham
Speaker 2: called our new Music, and I think we also put
Speaker 2: some of Graham's songs in it as well. I think
Speaker 2: maybe even no milk today went in it. And we
Speaker 2: just did that fifty to fifty myself with Graham, so
Speaker 2: it was like it was done with Campbell Connelly. They
Speaker 2: had fifty and we had fifty percent. I was fed
Speaker 2: up about for your love's royalties. Graham was getting fifty percent,
Speaker 2: and then it was fifty percent for Overseas Publishing, which
Speaker 2: was just so that was the end as far as
Speaker 2: I was concerned. And we I just did a heart
Speaker 2: full of soul deal because we didn't have time to
Speaker 2: really and afterwards we said, right, we'll go our own
Speaker 2: publishing company. We're not going through all this nonsense again.
Speaker 2: And that was it and we formed man Well, I
Speaker 2: formed mankm Us in America and that was in sixty
Speaker 2: five or something. And yeah, so that that's what goded
Speaker 2: me to do my own publishing company.
Speaker 3: Okay, So when you put Graham's new songs in that
Speaker 3: publishing company, how was the split? And it was just
Speaker 3: the two of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we split and we split the publishing share with
Speaker 2: Cambel Kennelly and then Graham got the writer's share.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you split twenty five and he got fifty
Speaker 3: he got Okay, who owns that stuff?
Speaker 2: Today Campbell and Early brought it back and it's bought
Speaker 2: by Wise Music. Now it's gone down the chain. You know,
Speaker 2: Campbell Cannelley was sold, this was so and acquired and
Speaker 2: so forth.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess what I'm saying. Have you sold your
Speaker 3: share and as well?
Speaker 2: Now I sell my share. I'm graham share A long
Speaker 2: time ago. Was mistake. Obviously we sold it in about
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven. I think we got two and a
Speaker 2: half thousand pounds each for it. And does he still
Speaker 2: have his writer's share? No, No, I sold that too,
Speaker 2: the writer's share. I acquired the writer's share when they sold.
Speaker 2: They sold all their rights virtually in nineteen ninety three
Speaker 2: or six or something. They sold to Saint Ann's was
Speaker 2: sold to EMI firstly, and then every member of Tennessee
Speaker 2: C other than Long sold their rights because of various
Speaker 2: financial implications they had at the time. They needed money
Speaker 2: and they couldn't acquire it or whatever, and they sold
Speaker 2: for considerable amount of money. And I acquired the American
Speaker 2: rights because I asked Graham, Eric and Kevin I think
Speaker 2: at the time, you know, said, look, if you're going
Speaker 2: to sell to EMI for the world, why do you
Speaker 2: let me buy the rights, I'll give you a better deal,
Speaker 2: which I did, and you know, let me look after it.
Speaker 2: They're my babies as well. So I still published the
Speaker 2: the songs even to today, of subjects to reversions obviously
Speaker 2: of Tennessee c in America.
Speaker 3: And in America we have the right of reversion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that will all work. When it works. Yeah, when
Speaker 2: it works.
Speaker 3: A good point.
Speaker 2: When it works, I'm talking about on the time period
Speaker 2: of the thing, right.
Speaker 3: So do they have any of their rights back?
Speaker 2: They will have.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's get back to the narrative. So you're working
Speaker 3: with Graham. You're having this incredible success. How do you
Speaker 3: get the songs to the Hollys.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I think Graham got them through it one
Speaker 2: way or another because of Graham Nash. Although the Hollies
Speaker 2: were managed by fellow or Michael Cohen, who's my wife's
Speaker 2: first cousin. I was quite close with him. But I
Speaker 2: think Graham got them to Graham got them to Graham Nash. Somehow.
Speaker 2: I got the song and I tried to get it
Speaker 2: for Herman's Hermits, and I went to Mickey Most who
Speaker 2: just rejected it. And I was very upset because I
Speaker 2: thought it was a super song. I was in Israel
Speaker 2: and when I got back, Graham said, I've written a
Speaker 2: new song. I said, okay, and I come around to
Speaker 2: the house. He came out to my house and we
Speaker 2: had this horrendous Epstein furniture which was like so big
Speaker 2: you could filled the whole room. And he sat in
Speaker 2: this huge armchair with one foot laps on both sides
Speaker 2: with this thick material. And Graham gets on and starts
Speaker 2: playing bus stop. He plays it right through with the
Speaker 2: reff everything, and I just sat back. I thought, oh
Speaker 2: my god, that is incredible. It's possibly his best song,
Speaker 2: you know. It was just it was amazing. It had
Speaker 2: the feel of the time, The lyric was charming, the
Speaker 2: song was incredible. How can Mickey most turn it down? Well,
Speaker 2: in one word, No, that WASNX and the the exide.
Speaker 2: I think Grahamer got it to the Hollies. The Hollis
Speaker 2: had done an initial song of Graham had written a
Speaker 2: song with Charlie call look Through Any Window, So that's
Speaker 2: probably how they got it because that had a success
Speaker 2: as well. That was a top twenty in England, so
Speaker 2: that's probably how that happened.
Speaker 3: So how does Graham as an individual song writer morph
Speaker 3: into ten CC, Strawberry Studios, Eric Stewart and everybody.
Speaker 2: He starts off with Oerx Stewart. I mean I bought,
Speaker 2: as I saying, to the agency, Kennedy Street Agency. I
Speaker 2: bought the partners out of that. They had Freddy and
Speaker 2: the Dreamers and when Fontana and between us we had
Speaker 2: one two and three in Billboard one week with when Fontana,
Speaker 2: Freddie and Herman one two and three. So that was
Speaker 2: all right from Manchester, which was our aim always to
Speaker 2: stay in Manchester. I I'm trying to think, and yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right. Then Wayne Fontana had the big the Game
Speaker 2: of Love. I think then the mind Wayne Fontana and
Speaker 2: the mind Benders split up mind Men as a hit
Speaker 2: called Groovy Kind of Love, which went to number one
Speaker 2: world wide. I think was was it Gothinking might have been.
Speaker 2: I don't know who it was. It was, It was
Speaker 2: a very big writers anyhow, it was a great song.
Speaker 2: And then Graham joined with Eric in the Mind Benders.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but that happened. So that's their
Speaker 2: first thing together. I'd met Wayne Fontana and Eric in
Speaker 2: America on tour when I was touring home and I
Speaker 2: met him for the first time. Very good looking, very charming, nice,
Speaker 2: very nice, very nice person and at the time, so
Speaker 2: they got together. Then then we always had this dilemma
Speaker 2: of having to go to London to record, which was
Speaker 2: a pain in the ass. So they decided they wanted
Speaker 2: to start a recording studio in Manchester. We invested in
Speaker 2: the studio Kennedy Street, our company. Dixon, who was managing
Speaker 2: Eric at the time, also was employed by Kennedy Street.
Speaker 2: He was supervised a lot of the work in the
Speaker 2: studio and they developed a Strawberry studio. Once that studio
Speaker 2: was going, Graham in the meantime had been writing and
Speaker 2: he was doing songs. He went to America to write
Speaker 2: for Kaznuts Cats on some kind of a deal, and
Speaker 2: then he used to do demos of the songs and
Speaker 2: put them out in England to try and have success
Speaker 2: with various tracks that they all wrote together. Really good
Speaker 2: stuff read songs that nobody's ever heard, but they were
Speaker 2: really good. They were utilizing the studio to get it.
Speaker 2: Then when it really happened was when they were testing
Speaker 2: drum equipment or something and kevil Ola and Eric came
Speaker 2: up with neanderthal Man, which was huge hit in England,
Speaker 2: a song Obscure Song, And when Graham joined, then that
Speaker 2: band to put with Moody Blues on some tour, and
Speaker 2: then the four of them used to do session work
Speaker 2: all the time for anybody that came. So we had
Speaker 2: an artist called Ramses and they did a whole album
Speaker 2: with Rameses. And then through my meeting Tony Christie and
Speaker 2: being my real second act, probably after Herman's Thermit's or no,
Speaker 2: after Graham, Tony Christie was the next person on the
Speaker 2: scene and he had a very good voice. You liked
Speaker 2: Tom Jones. I was in America the bal Building with
Speaker 2: Donny Kirshner, who I was quite friendly with her liked
Speaker 2: a lot, And I said, whatever happened to Nil Sadhaka,
Speaker 2: one of my teenage loves, And he said he's upstairs.
Speaker 2: He said, you're kidding. He said, can I hear it?
Speaker 2: Because I'm with my wife Carol, Let's go and see him.
Speaker 2: So we went up to this little room ten feet
Speaker 2: by six with a big upright piano, and Donnie says, Neil,
Speaker 2: playing some of your new stuff. They played five tracks.
Speaker 2: The last one was is this the Way to Amarillo?
Speaker 2: And I said that's it. That's a smash. I like that,
Speaker 2: and Donnie looked at him. It's Neil, and Neil looked
Speaker 2: at Donnie and they said, this guy is crazy. They didn't.
Speaker 2: They just looked at it. They didn't. They didn't like
Speaker 2: the song. Anyhow. I get back to England and now
Speaker 2: Carol's driving me mad. Have you got a demo for
Speaker 2: that song? Get the demo? And I'm phoning Donna Cashion.
Speaker 2: It was like with Mickey most It's like getting things
Speaker 2: out of people was so hard. You had to have
Speaker 2: my kind of persistence or ignorance or whatever you call it,
Speaker 2: or what there's a better word than that kutzper to
Speaker 2: truly drive people mad. So and finally he sent me
Speaker 2: a demo of Amarillo. I went to London. It was
Speaker 2: recorded the next day. It was put in the charts.
Speaker 2: Two weeks later he got to eighteen, which I thought
Speaker 2: was crap. I thought that it was much better than that. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: twenty five years later, Peter care comedian did a thing
Speaker 2: for BBC which is a Red Nose Day, which is
Speaker 2: to do with charity, and they did a new video
Speaker 2: and they used it is this the way to Amarilla.
Speaker 2: It became the biggest record of two thousand and four
Speaker 2: and was number one for twelve weeks in the UK charts.
Speaker 2: That's the history of that. But going back to why
Speaker 2: I started, so when even when he got to eighteen,
Speaker 2: Danny Kirshn who was ecstatic, He says, God, I thought
Speaker 2: I had good ears. That's amazing, Harvey. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: why do you send Kneel over to England? And that's
Speaker 2: let the boys do a bit of recording with him,
Speaker 2: you know, because they're very good and they had had
Speaker 2: a hit with I think that, yeah, they might have
Speaker 2: had a hit with Neanderthal Man. By then they were
Speaker 2: having success and Graham had had a pedigree, and you know,
Speaker 2: Graham just had hit. He was a joke. So anyhow,
Speaker 2: and also so I become a brother in law of Graham.
Speaker 2: We married sisters, and that was in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: so this was seventy one. Everything was happening at the
Speaker 2: same time. So Danny said, okay, I'll send him over
Speaker 2: to do a session. So he came over to do
Speaker 2: a session and he did two albums. Monster never stopped recording.
Speaker 2: We used to go into the studio. He used to
Speaker 2: sit at the piano to start with, and then he
Speaker 2: goes calendar girl breaking up his heart to do and
Speaker 2: everybody's sitting on the floor getting a concert before his starts.
Speaker 2: And I used to bring bagels and locks from north Manchster,
Speaker 2: best bagels in the world, best locks from a shock
Speaker 2: called Titanic, which was named after some of his grandparents
Speaker 2: who died in the Titanic or something. And he loved it,
Speaker 2: and the so and so credited me on the album.
Speaker 2: I was quite instrument I was responsible. Yeah, I can
Speaker 2: say I was responsible for Neil's Darker having a revival.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, okay, Elton John put the record out,
Speaker 2: and Elton John did this and that and the other.
Speaker 2: But he wouldn't have seen Elton John unless this had happened.
Speaker 2: The credit was Harvey didn't even have full name Harvey
Speaker 2: Bagels and lucks. That's the darker story. So then then
Speaker 2: he said to them boys, because he'd done beautiful music
Speaker 2: with them, it was magnificent, he said to them, well,
Speaker 2: why don't you do something yourself? And I think that
Speaker 2: goaded them. They've now done a Ramses album which is
Speaker 2: pretty damn good. They've done. It's a darker album with
Speaker 2: tracks which are amazing, right solitaire, I mean just incredible.
Speaker 2: And then so they started fiddling around themselves. That's the
Speaker 2: beginning of the tense siemaur together. And then they did
Speaker 2: a song called Waterfall, which I didn't like. They thought
Speaker 2: it was the greatest thing since Last Bread, and they
Speaker 2: pedaled it everywhere themselves more or less, and Apple said
Speaker 2: they liked it. You know, Apple, it was the most
Speaker 2: disorganized organization in the world. They liked it. So you
Speaker 2: know what happened to that. Jonathan King comes up one
Speaker 2: day and they they done a track called Donner, which
Speaker 2: is a ripoff of O Darling by the Beatles, which
Speaker 2: is a ripoff of Valance Darling. I mean, the thing
Speaker 2: oh Darling has been used not I can't describe it
Speaker 2: to the Beatles. It goes back to American whoever did
Speaker 2: it to start with. So they did this and we
Speaker 2: thought it was a joke. I mean, Lol had a
Speaker 2: high pitched voice, and you know, they all thought Waterfall
Speaker 2: was great. And Jonathan King said that's a hit. Oh yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: right right, yeah, we know it's a hit. So well,
Speaker 2: I'll give you I think he gave him five and
Speaker 2: offered some money or something for it. Was crazy. Okay, right, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll do it, and he I got to number two
Speaker 2: in the charts, and that was the beginning of the
Speaker 2: Nathan King thing. We signed a contract with Jonathan King
Speaker 2: on a very low loyalty. I think we were on
Speaker 2: four percent, I think. And my idea was, Okay, we'll
Speaker 2: sign this, but if they become successful, I'm sure he'll
Speaker 2: renegotiate and that will be great for us. We can
Speaker 2: we'll have all the benefits of his enthusiasm. We'll have
Speaker 2: a hit, we'll have another hit. Great, and then he
Speaker 2: won't be happy. He wants us to earn money. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: that was the wrong thing. He didn't anyway. They had
Speaker 2: a load of success. This is between seventy two and
Speaker 2: seventy four, tremendous, many of many hits. Nothing in America,
Speaker 2: not a smell in America. Number one in England with
Speaker 2: rubber bullets, The Dean and I was a hit, or
Speaker 2: Frant's Saint's a hit, Mandy Flymy Classic was a hit,
Speaker 2: and nothing in America all and the boys said, we're
Speaker 2: on four percent, We're on one percent. Jonathan is getting
Speaker 2: more himself than all of us put together. It's not right.
Speaker 2: So I speak to Jonathan. I said, look, this isn't right.
Speaker 2: Will you change it? No, the contracts at contract public
Speaker 2: school is you signed a contract. That's the contract. And
Speaker 2: the law in England stipulates you can't force somebody to
Speaker 2: do a management contract. And it was I managed Jimmy White,
Speaker 2: for instance, a snooker player. He tried to get out
Speaker 2: of his contract. My only all I could do is
Speaker 2: get damages. I can't force him to carry on with
Speaker 2: me and that so we did the reverse with Jonathan.
Speaker 2: King said, well, look they're not going to give you
Speaker 2: any more product. You're not going to work for less
Speaker 2: than you getting more than the whole group put together.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. And incidentally, by the way Jonathan said, finally
Speaker 2: was forced into meeting and we went on the train,
Speaker 2: myself and my attorney to meet Jonathan King at eight
Speaker 2: o'clock in the Westbury Hotel. The train broke down in
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere and we were stuck on this
Speaker 2: train from Manchester to London. We got into the Westbury
Speaker 2: Hotel at four thirteen and there were no telephones. There
Speaker 2: was no mobile phone. We were in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: He was at the hotel. We got there at four
Speaker 2: point thirty were still sitting there waiting, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: believe that he'd waited all that time. And now we
Speaker 2: did the deal, and he got a very good deal.
Speaker 2: He got a reversion of the rights from me. First
Speaker 2: of all, we got permission to leave and go on
Speaker 2: to another company. And the other company being Phonograph, had
Speaker 2: done a deal with him to acquire the rights for
Speaker 2: those albums for that period of time, the rights reverting
Speaker 2: to him again, they could sell them again and again.
Speaker 2: And I spoke to Jonathan a few weeks ago and
Speaker 2: they said it was the worst decision he ever made. Now,
Speaker 2: the reason we left was was we had no success
Speaker 2: in America. The reason we had no success in America
Speaker 2: because we're on a crappy label. London Records was born
Speaker 2: on the worst label I've ever been associated with. Not
Speaker 2: that we went to a much better one in Mercury,
Speaker 2: but London was particularly bad. I mean, we went with
Speaker 2: Mercury because of the money, and Phonogram because of their
Speaker 2: pedigree Deutsche Grammarphone. For the rest of the world, that's
Speaker 2: a different story. But London didn't get us a sniff.
Speaker 2: And my son Paul said to me, well, maybe it's
Speaker 2: because the American radio weren't playing that kind of music
Speaker 2: at the time. It was very formatted American radio and
Speaker 2: TENCC just didn't fit into that at all. And there
Speaker 2: is an element of truth in that. But the talent
Speaker 2: was so great and the publicity was so wonderful, even
Speaker 2: in America, that one would have thought they'd have had
Speaker 2: some kind of success with all that magnificent, but they didn't.
Speaker 2: So we went to Phonogram.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you have all those albums. I bought them more.
Speaker 2: I was a big fan.
Speaker 3: The album comes on on Phonogram Mercury, I'm Not in Love.
Speaker 3: Tell us the story there.
Speaker 2: I went into the well. The great thing about inger
Speaker 2: manager then of TENNESSEC, was I didn't have the problem
Speaker 2: of finding the song. I sat back and they presented
Speaker 2: me with all this magnificent so and the only thing
Speaker 2: is to decide which song goes out first or which
Speaker 2: is the hit. So they pre into this album and
Speaker 2: because the record company, I went into the studio and
Speaker 2: I heard I'm Not in Love unmixed in the studio
Speaker 2: and talking about atmosphere. That was the Bee's Knees. That
Speaker 2: was That was definitely the best thing they did from
Speaker 2: a point of view of atmosphere, it was incredible difficulty
Speaker 2: being it was six minutes and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of discussion was resulted in them putting Minnestronia as the
Speaker 2: first single in England. Anyhow, I'm Not in Love just
Speaker 2: took over the world. It was the biggest record and
Speaker 2: it was even in America, even on Mercury, probably the
Speaker 2: worst record company there. And the other thing why it
Speaker 2: really didn't happen was the group, who were always very
Speaker 2: meticulous about the sound in concerts did not give it well,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say they didn't give it off. They didn't
Speaker 2: pay much attention to the visuality of their show. So
Speaker 2: they never they would go on in genes with a
Speaker 2: T shirt like like Steve Jobs. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 2: even they weren't even interested in anything, whereas Dave Bowie,
Speaker 2: Mark Bowl and Freddie Mercury, you know, you just go
Speaker 2: on and on of all the stars that did get
Speaker 2: that additional visual thing. And concerning how good Kevin Low
Speaker 2: were on visuality and artistic work, as subsequently they proved
Speaker 2: with their video stuff, it just wasn't used for them.
Speaker 2: So when we were off they were interested in sound
Speaker 2: sound sound. Oh it's to me mad. I said to them, well,
Speaker 2: if they want the sound and by the bloody record,
Speaker 2: I want to go to a concert. I want to
Speaker 2: hear them singer sing flat. I don't care if he
Speaker 2: drops a few notes. I don't care if the string breaks.
Speaker 2: I want a live performance. I want an interaction with
Speaker 2: Surely that's the game for a live show. But they
Speaker 2: didn't see it that way. Well, they weren't prepared to
Speaker 2: do anything. We were off at the Eagle store while
Speaker 2: the record was in the charts, and of course it
Speaker 2: was rejected, wasn't it because of some bloody sound thing
Speaker 2: or something? Or I didn't want to go into it.
Speaker 2: I thought, well, you know, and also I think I
Speaker 2: think Frank Barcelona was actually looking after tency See as well.
Speaker 2: I think so it might have come from his packaging ideas.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but they were perfectly suited as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, when we played with the Rolling Stones, that
Speaker 2: was not a clever match. It was totally different. But
Speaker 2: the Eagles and TENCC, that just that would have been easy.
Speaker 2: And I think if they'd have done that, they'd have
Speaker 2: had a number one album, and I think we wouldn't
Speaker 2: be talking about them in the same way. I mean,
Speaker 2: they are definitely not first division. You know, they're not Beatles,
Speaker 2: Queen Pink, Floyd Prince, Michael Jackson. But I think they
Speaker 2: could have been if they'd have had a few number
Speaker 2: one albums in America and the American public had got
Speaker 2: to know the humor and the genius of them. And
Speaker 2: of course they didn't stay together again, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: talking about I'm not in Love with only half the
Speaker 2: band as well in the end, because the others had
Speaker 2: left were leaving.
Speaker 3: Okay, so tell us about the being breaking up in
Speaker 3: the Gizmo, etc.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, the band were always two sided affair. It
Speaker 2: was Graham and Eric with the establishment. They could have
Speaker 2: had both eyes on and Kevin Lol. Were the hippies
Speaker 2: they wanted. They didn't care about commerciality. That was not
Speaker 2: their game. Their game was doing what they want, unrepressed, unedited, unproduced.
Speaker 2: You know they did. Consequences was three albums, a three
Speaker 2: album set. You know, it's crazy. And all I said
Speaker 2: is give me a single, Please give me a single.
Speaker 2: And they played a track called Honolulu Lulu, which is
Speaker 2: seventeen seconds of a brilliant idea. Aloha, I'm Honolulu, Lulu
Speaker 2: from Hawaii. I saw you from the corner of my eye,
Speaker 2: which and it was beautiful music, and I said, that's it.
Speaker 2: We've got a single. It's going to be a smash. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: a few weeks later I went to the rest of
Speaker 2: their track, put like a fifteen minute orchestral piece on
Speaker 2: top of the seventeen seconds, and that was all. That's
Speaker 2: their commerciality. They weren't. They weren't at all interested in commerciality.
Speaker 2: But Kevin loll but Graham and Eric, they think, right,
Speaker 2: we've got to do an album. We've got to do
Speaker 2: it by this time. We've got to have the singles.
Speaker 2: We've got to do this, We've got to do that.
Speaker 2: And I think the obviously they've been together for four years,
Speaker 2: and there was there was, I don't know, not musical differences.
Speaker 2: There were I don't even think of his personality differences.
Speaker 2: I just think, you know, the instead of nowadays an
Speaker 2: artist would take off for a year and then go
Speaker 2: back and do it. In those days, it was like
Speaker 2: they created a brand. It had a tremendous marketing aspect worldwide,
Speaker 2: with the exception of America. They could everywhere they went,
Speaker 2: and so Graham and Eric joined together and they did
Speaker 2: The Things We Do for Love, which was half done
Speaker 2: before Kevin long left or that, and Kevin just hated
Speaker 2: it when they heard it. They hated it, and it
Speaker 2: was very much liked in America, and Graham went to
Speaker 2: see beat Middler, who was a favorite song at the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it was a very popular song,
Speaker 2: and it actually outsold I'm Not in Love, which I
Speaker 2: didn't understand, but go figure it.
Speaker 3: Okay, the BM split support, but you're still looking after
Speaker 3: Eric and Graham? Do you continue with Kevin and Lawell?
Speaker 3: How long does that last?
Speaker 2: I did a deal with Kevin Lowell, but I carried
Speaker 2: on publishing their material and they could go on their
Speaker 2: way because they wanted to be involved in new things
Speaker 2: for video work and everything, and I said, fine, that's fine.
Speaker 2: But so I retained the publishing on everything they did,
Speaker 2: and they had some hits on their own, which was
Speaker 2: very good, and it was very nice, and it was
Speaker 2: always a very friendly relationship. And to this day, I'm
Speaker 2: very friendly with loll. Lull's the lucky one really because
Speaker 2: he didn't sell any rights, so he didn't have any
Speaker 2: handy and beefs or anything. He just let the money
Speaker 2: keep rolling in because he had some kind of a
Speaker 2: case in America against the previous management where he'd been
Speaker 2: awarded a nice chunk of money, and I think it
Speaker 2: just kept him able to retain everything he had because
Speaker 2: everybody else was probably overspending at a tremendous rate. And
Speaker 2: then there's always the tax implications of earnings which you've
Speaker 2: not put aside for which is very typical of lots
Speaker 2: of people. Although everybody had accountants, the accountants can't control
Speaker 2: the spending. If you're going to get three ferraris, what
Speaker 2: do you want?
Speaker 3: Okay? So they do that outun deceptive Benz the two.
Speaker 3: Then they do dreadlock howaday ah they're to hit and
Speaker 3: then it peters out. What's going on there?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there was a lot of well Graham
Speaker 2: and Eric didn't get along then, particularly, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think of dates now, because what date are we talking
Speaker 2: because nineteen the band like disbanded for a while in
Speaker 2: about nineteen eighty three or something like that. I think
Speaker 2: they tried various things that Andrew Gold came in as
Speaker 2: a kind of a producer and tried all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: We moved from Mercury to Warner Brothers for what it did.
Speaker 2: Didn't do any good. But we did move to a
Speaker 2: des label, and I think I don't know that they
Speaker 2: just grew apart. You know, it was just pretty much impossible,
Speaker 2: So I think Graham decided to do his own thing. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: punk had come in. Their music was not fashionable. They
Speaker 2: were self in, dundant algent capitalists, and it wasn't what
Speaker 2: the sex pistols were about. And the sex pistols took
Speaker 2: over the airways, and so you.
Speaker 3: Know, okay, so then you manage some other singers, but
Speaker 3: then you manage a snooker player. Where does that come from?
Speaker 2: And when I got out at the same time, I decided, right,
Speaker 2: I want to get into sport. Now they're not going
Speaker 2: to play any music. I'm want to rest for a while.
Speaker 2: Have had a nice career the sixties, the seventies, we've
Speaker 2: missed out Rice Weber. But anyway, we go on to
Speaker 2: the seventies and the eighties, and I thought, right, can't
Speaker 2: any music played. I did ultimately succumb to getting a
Speaker 2: kind of group that fitted in with the contemporary situation,
Speaker 2: but before that I had Wax came together. Graham and
Speaker 2: Andrew Andrew was a very big favorite of mine. I
Speaker 2: really think he's a very talented person, could play every
Speaker 2: instrument and was absolutely tremendous. And Graham and Andrew, I
Speaker 2: think together had the best time of their respective lives
Speaker 2: as far as musical music was concerned. So Graham had
Speaker 2: gone from a situation where it was probably always battling
Speaker 2: whether it be on editing Kevin Lowl or whatever edit
Speaker 2: or falling out with musically with with Eric or whatever production.
Speaker 2: He was now with somebody that he was completely well,
Speaker 2: completely in bed with. They just they got on like
Speaker 2: a house on fire. They were wonderful together. We have
Speaker 2: some great stories of theirs. I mean, on Andrew's thirty
Speaker 2: third birthday, we went to Morton's in London. It was
Speaker 2: a restaurant and we both loved the producers. Everybody I'd
Speaker 2: ever been associated with, going back to twenty years, had
Speaker 2: always had the producers film and we knew every single
Speaker 2: word of it. And we're sitting down at the table, myself, Cara,
Speaker 2: Andrew and Graham, and mel Brooks walks in and he
Speaker 2: goes and sits down with a fellow called Joe Lustik,
Speaker 2: who I knew as an agent. So I, in my
Speaker 2: inimitable manner, I sent a bottle of beautiful red wine
Speaker 2: over to their table and saying it's from Harvey over there,
Speaker 2: so the way to take something over to mel Brooks.
Speaker 2: And mel Brooks gets hold of the wine, is drinking
Speaker 2: and says the way to take this pig swill away
Speaker 2: and get this. But later in the later in the meal,
Speaker 2: I feel the mass somebody massaging my shoulder and I thought,
Speaker 2: what's going on around? It's mel Brooks And I said
Speaker 2: to him, I said, would you be embarrassed if you
Speaker 2: repeat a line from the producers and Graham and Andrew
Speaker 2: will give you the next two lights? He says, how
Speaker 2: can I be embarrassed? An old Jew? Then he were
Speaker 2: at the whole room, from table to table. Yeah, Andrew,
Speaker 2: we all love the producers and that was great and
Speaker 2: it's very interesting the producers. Actually I met Gene Wilder
Speaker 2: and he was appearing in a play and Neil Simon play.
Speaker 2: You were asking about anti Semitism earlier on. We're sitting
Speaker 2: in this playhouse in London and it's Neil Simon play
Speaker 2: and we're sitting down in a woman behind. I didn't
Speaker 2: know that Neil Simon was Jewish, and this is what
Speaker 2: you're dealing with. That's part of England. That's probably a
Speaker 2: clrent of Wisconsin or somewhere. I don't know, but he's like,
Speaker 2: you know, there's England, and there's a hit places, and
Speaker 2: there's places from the wild that you just don't know
Speaker 2: what's going on. So anyhow, I said to Gene Wilder
Speaker 2: next morning we were staying at the hotel, I said,
Speaker 2: why don't you do a musical of the Producers? It's
Speaker 2: so obvious you've already got music in the film. And
Speaker 2: he said something that was really interesting. He said, well,
Speaker 2: he said, no, always like to keep that close to
Speaker 2: his chest. Interesting, isn't it. And that's at least ten
Speaker 2: years before it was I mean a long time before
Speaker 2: it was released. Interesting because Gene Wilder was amazing in
Speaker 2: the film.
Speaker 3: Absolutely with the uh oh, we're not going into the Producers.
Speaker 3: So you have this run, you decide to take a break,
Speaker 3: and then you ultimately don't come back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did come back. We did an album with
Speaker 2: We did an album with ten CC. They were back
Speaker 2: in the nineties. We got to do with a Japanese
Speaker 2: company called Avex, which was unbelievable. It was a I
Speaker 2: think Eric was very impressed with that management. I think
Speaker 2: they got a fortune. They sold every song I think
Speaker 2: on it publishing for ten thousand pounds song, so that's
Speaker 2: like fifty or sixty thousand. They got another few hundred
Speaker 2: grand for the album that were flown to Japan. They
Speaker 2: had like a revival. But making of the album, the
Speaker 2: boys hardly spoke to each other. One did it in
Speaker 2: their studio, the other one did it that there was
Speaker 2: a complete concoction, a total disaster. And I didn't really
Speaker 2: get out of the business because I was always publishing
Speaker 2: all the American music anyhow, and then I came in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two. I bought a property in Rancho Mirage
Speaker 2: and I became a snowbird. And from there I went
Speaker 2: to see the Indian Wells Tennis garden, which was used
Speaker 2: for three weeks in the year for tennis, very nice tournament,
Speaker 2: and my wife Carol said, what the hell did they
Speaker 2: do with this for the rest of the year. Well,
Speaker 2: they don't do very much, and the staff are very happy.
Speaker 2: The staff are working for eight weeks in the year
Speaker 2: and they're on Sistan the other and I said, it's
Speaker 2: a marvelus amphitheater. So I got hold of Raymond Moore
Speaker 2: and Passerell, who was his tennis player from a Maria
Speaker 2: Charlie Passerell, and I said, look, why don't we put
Speaker 2: some concerts on here. I knew they'd put one thing
Speaker 2: on which was pretty much a disaster, but it was
Speaker 2: I think they put Pacelli on and it was all wrong.
Speaker 2: And I then got hold of a William Morris agent
Speaker 2: called Peter, whose second name has eluded me on a
Speaker 2: Peter thank you, Peter Groslite, who's absolutely charming, lovely guy,
Speaker 2: great golfer as well. And I got the stadium to
Speaker 2: agree that I could be an agent for them to
Speaker 2: bring action in. So my first act was the Eagles,
Speaker 2: and we get the Eagles, and then we have a
Speaker 2: meeting there and they say we can't charge two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars a ticket. I said, why, you've only
Speaker 2: got the wealthiest community in America. Why should we charge
Speaker 2: one hundred when everybody else charges to fifty. Anyhow, we
Speaker 2: sold out three nights on the Eagles at the price.
Speaker 2: Then we put the Who on, Tom Patty and the
Speaker 2: Heartbreakers Lewis Neguel who you know that we did with
Speaker 2: all those concerts and all they were worried about was
Speaker 2: the tennis surface, and god knows what was happening. It
Speaker 2: wasn't really equipped as a stadium. But of course, as
Speaker 2: I said, without I thought, right, the answer is this,
Speaker 2: Barbara Streison won't work open air, right, this one won't
Speaker 2: do that, this one won't do the other. I said, right,
Speaker 2: we're going to do what Wembley Stadium does. We'll get
Speaker 2: a roof put on the place and then we can
Speaker 2: work it all year. We don't have to worry about
Speaker 2: her in twenty degrees. So I get an architect who
Speaker 2: tells it for twenty million dollars they could do a
Speaker 2: roof that closes, right, But there were twenty people who
Speaker 2: who are ten people involved? Raymond wore and ten or
Speaker 2: fifteen other a committee, and of course the committee rejected it.
Speaker 2: And now in Palm Springs they have got a ten
Speaker 2: thousand arena which has been put up, and they could
Speaker 2: have had it easily, and I saw world championship boxing
Speaker 2: matches everything coming from there. Anyhow, my three years expid
Speaker 2: as an agent. It wasn't renewed and they not had
Speaker 2: a concert since. So that was fifteen year. How many
Speaker 2: years ago, and now I'm just writing books and doing
Speaker 2: other things.
Speaker 3: Like Okay, in the book, you famously say a few things.
Speaker 3: You were a big spender, you lived large, you drove
Speaker 3: expensive cars, and you were a big gambler. So did
Speaker 3: you piss away all the money?
Speaker 2: Well, not really piss away all the money. Because of
Speaker 2: my accountancy training, it allowed me to have control. I
Speaker 2: wasn't the gambler. That a friend of mine had a
Speaker 2: horse and he used to back the horse. He was
Speaker 2: a big gambler. And the horse won seven races on
Speaker 2: the row and the eighth races also, And I said
Speaker 2: to the guy's wife, I said, well you must have
Speaker 2: made a fortune. No, we lost. So why he put
Speaker 2: every single bit of his winnings on the next and
Speaker 2: the next and the next. That's what you call a gambler.
Speaker 2: When I was a gambler, I'd have four hundred pound
Speaker 2: on me if I lost. That that was it. And
Speaker 2: the other thing about gambling. When I went with Horman
Speaker 2: Swimmits to Las Vegas, which is relevant to show business,
Speaker 2: it was in a June's hotel. They said, we're comping
Speaker 2: everything you've got, mister Lillisburg. All food is free. Your
Speaker 2: runs three anything you want. And by the way, you
Speaker 2: and every member of the band will have a credit
Speaker 2: of one hundred thousand dollars. That's in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that is worth today. And I
Speaker 2: said no way, I said. I didn't say no way.
Speaker 2: I said, thank you very much. If we need it,
Speaker 2: we'll ask you. And that so all the people like
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra or Elvis or anybody. I mean, the Colonel
Speaker 2: was an enormous gambler. Brian Epstein was in an enormous gambler.
Speaker 2: But these people were, I mean, they were permanently in
Speaker 2: the money. I mean, I think ultimately, probably somehow the
Speaker 2: Colonel got out lost it. I don't know. But no,
Speaker 2: I wasn't. I didn't. I didn't blow it all away.
Speaker 2: My son said to me two days ago, he said, well,
Speaker 2: maybe you got something right. So why, I said, because now,
Speaker 2: if you put all your money away and you had
Speaker 2: one hundred million in the bank, you wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: able to go around the world because you wouldn't be
Speaker 2: you wouldn't be fit enough. Or because I decided when
Speaker 2: I was fifty that was going to go around the world.
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to wait till I was eighty. So
Speaker 2: that was my mentality, and I think somewhere in between
Speaker 2: the two is right. I don't think what I was
Speaker 2: doing was right. It was excessive, and I can criticize
Speaker 2: myself for that. I got carried away. I had Joseph
Speaker 2: and the dream Coat, which they came to me, and
Speaker 2: I had that. I tried putting it with sixteen people
Speaker 2: who all rejected it. Now, if i'd have got the
Speaker 2: publishing on that, when I met t him Rice in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, he told me that his earnings
Speaker 2: from I think it was a quarter and a half
Speaker 2: on Joseph, which had been rejected, was three hundred and
Speaker 2: ninety thousand pound. That was twenty five years after it.
Speaker 2: So you know, if I'd have had all that money,
Speaker 2: I don't think I would have had yachts, and you
Speaker 2: know there's no limit. You'd have era planes. You'd if
Speaker 2: you were acting stupidly, and you would think you're infallible,
Speaker 2: you'll believe in yourself. You start becoming like Robert Stigwood.
Speaker 2: You know, you think you everything you do is you
Speaker 2: know you're our for cameeron Macintosh. All these people are
Speaker 2: like kind of egomaniacs in a way, you know, they're
Speaker 2: becoming a different league. I never got into that league.
Speaker 2: I don't think Epstein was in that league either. I
Speaker 2: think he had the money, but I think he was
Speaker 2: just he had a lot of problems. When I met him,
Speaker 2: Clein had tried to get me to see him about
Speaker 2: getting a piece of the Beatles for him management of
Speaker 2: the Beatles. Would I speak to Brian and if I did,
Speaker 2: Alan Klein, in his imitable manner, would give me a percentage.
Speaker 2: So I went to see Brian Epstein in his flat
Speaker 2: in Belgravia. Meeting was at six point thirty at night,
Speaker 2: and I walked through the door and it was all white,
Speaker 2: white walls, everywhere was white. And I said to him,
Speaker 2: look are you interested in Klein looking after the Beatles?
Speaker 2: We want to sell it. And his face went to
Speaker 2: the same shade as the walls. You know, he obviously
Speaker 2: Clian had obviously been busier around all the everywhere else,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And it was he that
Speaker 2: was the end of that conversation. We just carried on
Speaker 2: from there. But I thought that it's funny. I thought
Speaker 2: the Beatles would end up with Alan Clin somehow, because
Speaker 2: you were talking about how do you protect yourself? Well
Speaker 2: against the one person from Manchester, that's one thing, but
Speaker 2: from people with the experience and the tentacles of Alan Klein,
Speaker 2: it's not easy to avoid. I mean, you got the
Speaker 2: biggest in the world.
Speaker 3: Okay, So how many of the people from the past
Speaker 3: you still talk to?
Speaker 2: Right? And I speak to Lord Crean, Peter Noon, Tony Christie,
Speaker 2: John Lee's from partner James Harvest. Harvey Andrews is an
Speaker 2: English songwriter. Unfortunately Peter gross Like passed but I was
Speaker 2: very close with him. Janny Patsha's partner with speak to
Speaker 2: him regularly. I've not spoken to Graham for a while.
Speaker 3: Is there any bad blood there?
Speaker 2: Well, it's not on my side. I mean we were brothers,
Speaker 2: we were brother in laws. Well stay together fifty five
Speaker 2: years and then unfortunately we got divorced. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: It wasn't to do it wasn't. It wasn't my idea.
Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't. It was kind of inexplicable to me.
Speaker 2: But I suppose that people have their reasons. And if
Speaker 2: you analyze all the patterns that split up and all
Speaker 2: the split ups that happen and these things happen, not
Speaker 2: usually after fifty five years, I don't think, but you
Speaker 2: never know. I still think he's a very talented person,
Speaker 2: and I don't think he's got it right. But that's life.
Speaker 3: I have to ask, since we covered this earlier, was
Speaker 3: it split about the money?
Speaker 2: No? Oh, this as split with Graham?
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I know. I wish it would have been
Speaker 2: money is easy if he said I I just want money.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that it was. There was also I don't really,
Speaker 2: to be quite honest, my feeling is that somebody got
Speaker 2: at him, and I don't know who, and I don't
Speaker 2: really care. I think somebody tried to try to poison
Speaker 2: him against me, I think. But my trap record, I
Speaker 2: think speaks for itself. I was surviving before I met Graham,
Speaker 2: you know, so I think I helped. But as I say,
Speaker 2: managers aren't looked at very kindly. I mean, Peter Grant wasn't,
Speaker 2: the Colonel wasn't, Brian Epstein wasn't, Andrew Olter wasn't. I mean,
Speaker 2: where do you go? I mean, it's you create an act.
Speaker 2: They become the biggest thing in the world. And then
Speaker 2: I had a thing Robert Graves, the famous writer. He
Speaker 2: said a friend is like an ass. He waits thirty
Speaker 2: years to give you a good kick, and that applies
Speaker 2: to a lot of people in own business.
Speaker 3: On that note, Harvey, I think we're going to leave it.
Speaker 3: I want to say your book is very readable. A
Speaker 3: lot of these books are just you know, people have
Speaker 3: nothing better to do. But if you're interested in this era,
Speaker 3: if you're interested in what Harvey talked about, there are
Speaker 3: many more facts and stories in the book, and in
Speaker 3: a couple hours you'll finish. It's a great read, which
Speaker 3: is why I wanted to talk to you. In any event, Harvey,
Speaker 3: thanks so much for taking the time to talk.
Speaker 2: To my audiences. But a great pleasure.
Speaker 3: Until next time. This is Bob left sets
Speaker 2: Sh