Independence Days

by Alex; Ogg

  Among the label’s roster of stellar acts were PP Arnold, John Mayall, Savoy Brown, the Small Faces, the Nice, Fleetwood Mac, the Groundhogs and Humble Pie, spanning anything from straight blues-rock to folk, psychedelia and prog. The label was behind dozens of touchstone recordings (notably the Nice’s eponymous album, the Small Faces’ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, PP Arnold’s The First Lady Of Immediate etc) until the Small Faces left in 1969 as the debts began to mount. The label closed in 1970 due to financial problems, or alleged impropriety. Kenny Jones of the Small Faces, who claims they didn’t receive a fraction of the income due to them for their string of hits, states that much of the money the label generated was spirited away by one of the senior accountants to offshore bank accounts.

  Questioned about accusations made in pianist Ian McLagan’s book, Oldham would concede that after 1970 there were issues about unpaid royalties, caused by his sale of masters to Patrick Meehan and arrangements with Castle/Sanctuary (the subsequent rights holders). However, he insists that monies owed up to 1970 were faithfully accounted, and the black hole that appeared in the Small Faces’ finances were due entirely to their own profligacy.

  “Independence?” ponders Loog Oldham now. “Independence in those days was a pipe dream. A pretend game. That said, we still pursued it. It was not even pragmatic. You exchanged a producer/artist royalty, which had the overheads of studio, musicians etc, for a larger royalty and a larger overhead. Seemingly some of the annoyance of dealing with a major record company were removed, but some of the restraints, which in hindsight, sometimes had their blessings, went out of the window as well. At the end of the day, I probably achieved us much independence with Decca and The Rolling Stones and Marianne Faithfull as I did with Immediate and the Small Faces; except that when I was right with Decca, they paid the bill. Please do not think that I look back in anger, or rancour, but if, as Woody Allen once said, cocaine was God’s way of telling one that one had too much money, then Immediate was God’s way of telling me the same. I love the effect Immediate had on the world of music as much as anyone, but know better than anyone the house of cards upon which it was built. I love the fact that, in the UK at least, a lot of the recordings are life-changers and life-givers but the Woody Allen ode remains the truth. By ‘65 I too stoned to deal with majors. I was banned from the Decca building because my driver cum minder roughed up a doorman who did not whistle me in fast enough for my speedy ego. By ‘68 I was banned from the EMI building in Manchester Square for putting sleeping pills in the soup of the reps and salesmen at a sales dinner. EMI by now distributed Immediate, having taken over from Philips, who were headed by Leslie Gould, the man who first did a deal with us and let us ‘in’. In any event, we paid all the acts and writers’ wages, paid the rent on most of their flats, paid their doctor’s bills, etc, and their dealers. And when they only sold so many records and people came along whispering sweet nothings and trying to steal them, most of the acts forgot what we had in fact done, and soon the dream was gone. And without the faith and the dream …”

  In common with other UK independents, Loog Oldham admits to owing “a great debt to America”, and, “in particular Jim Lee and Bob Crewe for the independent idea. To Phil Spector I owe a lot, but not structure. Jim Lee wrote, produced and published the Chris Montez record ‘Let’s Dance’ [a # 4US/# 2UK hit released on Monogram Records]. Whilst doing their PR in ‘62, he was very gracious with his time and sharing and I learnt a lot. He was also the record company. Bob Crewe produced and sold independent masters and he was also generous with lessons about the game.”

  Crewe is an interesting example of the independent writer-producer ethos in that in some ways he was almost the polar opposite of Joe Meek. A handsome former model and an effortlessly charismatic man, he charmed all he met. Responsible for the lyrics of classic songs such as ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You’, ‘Lady Marmalade’, ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ and ‘Walk Like A Man’, he would enjoy enormous success with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in the 60s. What is most arresting about Crewe in this context, however, is his early years with former bandleader Frank Slay Jr. They were able to place songs with a number of labels, but feared that the inferior nature of the final recordings would damage their reputation. To that end they decided instead to create their own masters, starting labels to market that product.

  “But we were all mad and not entitled to be heads of companies,” Loog Oldham concedes. “England had a good history of independent producers, way before Immediate or Track. You had the likes of Joe Meek and Robert Stigwood who had velvet entry into Sir Joseph Lockwood at EMI.” Please read into that what you will. “Having John Leyton and his looks helped, I’m sure. Then you had Denis Preston and his Lansdowne studio set-up and his success with Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan. and the often forgotten great couple of harlots; Michael Barclay and Phillip Waddilove, who had a huge house on Gloucester Place, all built upon the questionable longevity of [sixties pop idol] Eden Kane.”

  David Platz is the other key figure in the development of an independent aesthetic in British popular music, his influence still evident today, long after his death. By the mid-60s his Essex Music was the dominant independent music company in the UK. It held the publishing of The Rolling Stones, The Who and Marc Bolan, and he had a thriving independent production company that would fund producers on individual projects that would then be licensed to majors. This was generally done through the auspices of a raft of production companies such as Straight Ahead, founded in July 1967, by Platz and South American-born but privately educated English producer Denny Cordell. Instead of artists, Straight Ahead used a roster of producers who would cut master recordings at Trident and other studios, their efforts administered by Platz’s publishing offices. Cordell would oversee the music side, while Platz hooked up the various projects with interested major labels, notably Decca’s Deram and EMI’s Regal Zonophone. Major commercial success resulted via hits by The Move, Procol Harum and The Moody Blues. Meanwhile, those session producers that came through the system included Tony Visconti, who started out as Cordell’s production assistant, and Gus Dudgeon, who was producing Elton John.

  It was the Platz connection that led to Visconti working with Bolan and David Bowie. Both artists were struggling at the time, though Platz managed to revive the latter’s ailing progress by using his publishing connections to encourage other artists to cover his material. “Bowie was still signed to Deram when I was asked to produce him,” says Visconti. “Deram didn’t like our efforts, ‘Let Me Sleep Beside You’ and ‘Karma Man’, which led to him being dropped. Platz knew nothing of Bowie and Feathers [a temporary congregation featuring Hermione Farthingale and John ‘Hutch’ Huchinson] until I took them into the studio without his approval or knowledge and recorded the ‘Ching A Ling’ song and the b-side. Platz was very angry with me. I thought he’d love it once he’d heard it, but that was not the case, and I nearly got fired.” In the event, the breakthrough that the Platz/Visconti team were looking for came with Bolan’s ‘Ride A White Swan’. It was eventually released on Fly Records in October 1970, at which time the single (credited to T-Rex) became a number two hit in the UK charts.

  There was a nice line of continuity with its indie forerunner Immediate. When Loog Oldham’s label sundered, Fly acquired its stock of distinctive lilac labels. Building on his breakthrough, Bolan then piloted T-Rex to huge album success with Electric Warrior, which topped the British charts. Fly’s success with T-Rex was followed by releases from Joe Cocker, John Williams, Third World War and Vivian Stanshall. However, Fly’s brief ascendancy concluded with the release of Georgia Brown’s non-charting ‘I Scare Myself’. Label manager Malcolm Jones departed, as did Cordell (to form Shelter Records in the US). The label changed name to Cube, and was home to artists including Bolan, Cocker, Budgie and others), with pop chart success for John Kongos, Joan Armatrading, Gordon Giltrap etc. There was also a selection of Pete Cook and Dudley Moore’s Not Only… But Also TV s
hows released on The Clean Tapes.

  Alongside Immediate, the other most notorious 60s independent in the UK was Track Records, founded by Who managers Kit Lambert, once famously described as an ‘aristocratic hothead’, and Chris Stamp, brother of actor Terence. They were an interesting partnership. Lambert, an Oxford graduate and son of composer Constant Lambert, could hardly have offered more of a contrast to Stamp, son of an east end tug boatman. Their initial problem was in extricating The Who from their contract with Shel Talmy and Brunswick, which went to court. As an interim measure, they had released Who material on Robert Stigwood’s Reaction Records, started a year previously. Stigwood, an ex-pat Australian entrepreneur, is inextricably linked with so many other aspects of the music industry’s development – he had John Leyton on his books as an actor at the time of his success with Joe Meek, which convinced him there was potential in Meek’s model of the independent producer. He would also initially sub-let office space to Lambert and Stamp, who legendarily teased him mercilessly.

  Talmy, speaking to Ritchie Unterberger, gave some insight into the way the duo announced themselves to the world. “My problems with The Who were with Kit Lambert, who was out of his fucking mind – I think he was certifiably insane. If he hadn’t been in the music business, he would have been locked up. The problem with him was his giant-sized ego plus paranoia. He felt I was usurping his authority because I was producing these [Who] recordings. His partner, Chris Stamp, was hardly ever around. I always got along with Chris, I thought. But Chris never said a word.” Track became an outlet for The Who, but also a nursery for the emerging talent of Jimi Hendrix (after Chas Chandler had beaten them to a management contract). Both Track and Reaction were dependent on Polydor Records in the absence of any independent distribution network; part of an experiment in Polydor developing its claim on the emerging 60s pop phenomenon, having previously been best known as an easy listening and orchestral specialist.

  Track can lay claim to having released possibly the greatest opening salvo of rock singles – a sequence that ran ‘Purple Haze’ (Hendrix), ‘Pictures Of Lily’ (the Who), ‘Desdemona’ (John’s Children) and ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ (Hendrix) – at the start of 1967. These were accompanied by albums including Are You Experienced? And The Who Sell Out all in the same year. Though it was impossible to maintain that level of aural splendour, the label continued through the 70s, working with acts such as Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and Thunderclap Newman. However, an inability to diversify away from The Who and Hendrix saw them stall, especially after Hendrix’s death and The Who’s move to Polydor following Quadrophenia. The latter came about when the band discovered gaping holes in the accountancy at the label, with concomitant tax issues. Group members had also become alarmed by Lambert’s rapidly advancing alcoholism. It resulted in a writ served in July 1975, which brought the onset of a two-year legal tussle. That left the label with just Golden Earring on its books during that period. Track finally closed in March 1978 – ironically a year after it released the Heartbreakers L.A.M.F., a harbinger of the punk boom, but an album Track effectively signed up for as a last throw of the dice with their creditors circling.

  Track made a concerted effort, as best as their sensibilities and finances allowed, to garner a foothold with punk, placing adverts for new bands in Sniffin’ Glue. As author Marcus Gray would recount, “Lambert played for time by using The Who’s name to secure a bank loan of £56,000, but when Leee [Black Childers; Heartbreakers manager] approached Track, time was about to run out. A manic looking Christ Stamp seemed enthusiastic about the idea, seeing it as a last desperate lifeline. The contract that Stamp presented to Leee and business manager Peter Gerber offered a £50,000 advance – coincidentally almost exactly what Lambert had borrowed.” Under the guidance of Malcolm McLaren’s assistant Nils Stevenson, Siouxsie & The Banshees would record demos for Track, though Stevenson was aware of the situation at Track and quickly circulated the paid-for demos among other labels. When Track finally went phut, Childers arranged to have the offices broken into to secure the master tapes from the hands of the Official Receiver (they were released by Jungle in 1984, in remixed form). Lambert died just three years later. The label has now been revived under the guidance of former Stranglers, Cult and Big Country manager Ian Grant. Stamp, meanwhile, is a psychotherapist specialising in addiction.

  The biggest UK independent record label of them all, until it was sold to PolyGram in 1989, was Island Records, originally founded in Jamaica in 1959 by Chris Blackwell and Graeme Goodall. Richard Branson, proprietor of nearest competitor Virgin, has openly acknowledged that Island was the model on which he based his own enterprise. Blackwell, the son of wealthy plantation owning Jamaican parents, named his label in tribute to Alec Waugh’s novel Island In The Sun. Laurel Aitken’s ‘Boogie In My Bones’ gave him his first hit, topping the Jamaican charts for 11 weeks. His first album release, jazz pianist Lance Heywood’s At The Half Moon Hotel, was given the catalogue number CB 22 – Blackwell was 22 years old at the time. At this stage, Blackwell maintained, he was only thinking in terms of a handful of releases documenting the Jamaican ska era and not building a global brand.

  In May 1962 he moved to London and took out a loan with the specific intention of providing a bridge to the UK for Jamaican artists. Renting a house from Church Of England Commissioners, he piled imported Jamaican records into the back of his Mini Cooper and made daily trips around London record shops. He also supplied sound systems in the bustling ex-pat Afro-Caribbean strongholds of Brixton and Notting Hill. Karlo Kramer at Esquire magazine gave him a list of 20 stores specialising in black music to set him on his way. Spooky Tooth (then called Art) and Stevie Winwood’s Traffic were the first major white artists to come on board once Blackwell took the decision to diversify the label in 1967, with the assistance of Steve’s brother Muff Winwood. He had already had Winwood’s Spencer Davis Group on his books, but licensed their hits to Fontana. At the time, he didn’t believe he had the wherewithal to take them to market.

  By the start of the 70s, Island had become the leading ‘prog rock’ label, enjoying huge commercial success with King Crimson, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Free and Jethro Tull, and also, through producer Joe Boyd, the folk rock of Nick Drake and Fairport Convention. John Martyn and Cat Stevens were even more successful. In 1972 Roxy Music were signed, also yielding to solo Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno albums. But it was the breakthrough of defining artist Bob Marley, originally as a member of the Wailers, which returned the label to its Jamaican roots. In the process Island had “a black rock star as big as Jimi Hendrix”, according to Blackwell’s own rhetoric, promoted in the manner of mainstream white rock acts. Despite warnings that Marley was an untamed ghetto child, Blackwell invested £4,000 to finance the recording of The Wailers’ Catch A Fire. His sponsorship of Marley broadened the British musical landscape and legitimised a musical idiom Island was uniquely placed to profit from. As well as being the most popular artist on the label’s roster, Marley’s breakthrough helped highlight a generation of Jamaican acts, many of whom had already recorded for the label in the 60s, but found interest renewed, as well as indigenous UK reggae groups, notably Aswad and Steel Pulse.

  While Virgin prospered in the punk years, Island was more hesitant, counting only the Slits among its major discoveries, and even they were signed after protracted inner discussion (though that band’s intuitive connection to reggae was, with hindsight, self-evident). Outside reggae, the label’s major acts were Grace Jones and Robert Palmer. But as punk’s cannons cooled, Blackwell signed U2 in 1980, unarguably the most commercially arable seeding of post-punk guitar rock. By the mid-80s U2’s laborious ascent to the self-mythologised position of biggest rock band in the world had begun in earnest. In the meantime, however, Island, wrong-footed by punk, had lost some of its commercial momentum (Marley died in May 1981). Blackwell used the label as collateral to leverage Island Alive, a film distribution company. In fact, U2 were partially responsible for refunding the label.
In an astute piece of business, U2 provided Island with a loan, offset by their right to buy back their master recordings and enjoy a much higher royalty rate.

  In July 1989 Island was sold to PolyGram for $272 million, ending their era of independence (though by this time definitions of independence had, by popular assent, extended to means of distribution, which Island had long since routed through a succession of majors including Capital, Warners, Atlantic and Phonogram). The deal was overseen by lawyer Allen Grubman, who also handled the $295 million acquisition of publishing house SBK by Thorn-EMI, and EMI’s $75 million acquisition of 50% of Chrysalis Records just a couple of months later. It was a period of intense consolidation, triggered by Sony’s February 1988 $2bn acquisition of CBS Records at a hugely inflated price. And it wasn’t the end of it; in September 1989 Sony also acquired A&M for $460 million and in November 1990 Matsushita bought out MCA.

  It’s perhaps telling to relate a tale from the board meetings that took place around the time of these transitions. One senior management figure at Island, who wished to remain anonymous, recalls being told that, henceforth, artists would only be paid mechanical royalties if they came after the new-look label with a lawyer. PolyGram, meanwhile, began a major reissue campaign, converting the Island back catalogue to compact disc. The Island Records of the 21st century is little more than a rubber stamp for PolyGram, Blackwell having long since fled, resigning officially in November 1997. Just over a year later, it was part of the Seagram take-over of PolyGram that saw it merged into Universal Music Group, where it currently resides, a meek shadow of its former glory.