Simon Napier-Bell - Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay: The (Dodgy) Business of Popular Music

The man in front of me was a jelly gorilla. His short-sleeved white shirt revealed flabby runnels of spare fat flowing down the underside of his arms like melting liver sausage. Sitting at his desk, the top of his stomach reached right up to his neck. He was three hundred and fifty pounds of collapsing flesh. How he could manage to pull all this weight upwards and get it balanced on two legs was amazing. But he did. And we shook hands.

This was Mike Stewart, president of United Artists Music, New York. Standing next to him was his sidekick, the companys vice-president, Murray Deutch, polished and petite, like a life-sized porcelain figurine.

Just five foot seven, Murray was packaged in an exquisitely cut charcoal suit with a perfectly knotted tie and a stiffly pressed collar. At the bottom of his suit, his shoes shone like black onyx. At the top, his rose-apple face stuck out like a dollop of pink mayonnaise on a prawn cocktail. This was Mike Stewarts pet sycophant a plaything for the boss. In the middle of our meeting a shoeshine boy knocked at the office door. Mike flipped him a quarter and told Murray to have a shoeshine.

I dont need one, Murray told him.

Nor did he. His shoes were like mirrors. But Mike snapped back, Murray, if I tell you youre gonna have a shoeshine, youre gonna have one. So Murray concurred.

This was 1966. Through a stroke of luck Id written the lyrics to a hit song, You Dont Have To Say You Love Me. Writing songs wasnt what I really did, I was a manager, though that was also due to a stroke of luck. One day out of the blue the Yardbirds had phoned me and asked if Id like to manage them. Well yes please!

The lyrics for You Dont Have To Say You Love Me had been co-written with Vicki Wickham who was a producer at Ready Steady Go!, Britains top pop show. She was also a friend of Dusty Springfield, whod found the song in Italy and asked us where she could get English lyrics for it. We knew nothing about writing songs but had a go at it. Next thing we knew the song was number one. And because management was turning out to be hard work, I thought, Maybe this is what I should be doing.

United Artists misguidedly thought the same. They approached me and Vicki and asked if wed like to sign an exclusive songwriting agreement. Apart from a nice advance they also offered a flight to New York to meet the head of the company, Mike Stewart, which is why we were there.

Mike had an idea. Murray why dont you take Simon and Vicki over to the Brill building.

He turned to us, You know about the Brill, dont you? Its where all the top songwriters work. Murray will show you round.

Mikes dapper little servant led us off to see something we knew about but had never seen.

It was a building heaving with activity cramped small offices, people running in and out of the passageways, everyone seemingly knowing everyone else, badly lit, hugely atmospheric but equally claustrophobic. This was the American music industry in microcosm. In this building were publishers, pluggers, music printers, demo studios, but most important of all songwriters.

Murray took us to a floor on which every door had a six-inch square window to see in through, like prison cells. Inside each room was a pianist at an upright piano and someone else sitting on a stool beside them. Pianos were banged, melodies hummed, chorus lines sung, and phrases tossed around between piano-players and stool-sitters. There was no air-conditioning. The temperature in the street was in the eighties. In here it was more like the nineties.

They all work 10 to 6, five days a week, Murray told us. They write Americas hits. We want you to join them.

But who are they? we asked. Who on earth agrees to sit in a little sweatbox and slog away at writing songs in such an atmosphere?

Murray opened a door. Neil, he said. I want you to meet a couple of guys from England. Theyve just written one of the greatest songs ever.

Turning from the piano we saw Neil Sedaka. Three years earlier his song Breaking Up Is Hard to Do had been number one. So why was he slaving away in here?

Vicki knew him; shed booked him on Ready Steady Go! a few months previously. Neil, she asked, why on earth do you spend your day working in a tiny room like this?

He grinned. Well the truth is Im under contract. But thats not really the reason. Its just that This is how we do it. And we love it. Were all here. All songwriters together.

Vicki shook her head in disbelief.

Murray opened the next door. Carole. Meet two friends from England.

The face at the piano turned towards us. It was Carole King. Carole had written one of the most memorable hits of the early sixties, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. It was unbelievable that the reward for having done so was to be imprisoned eight hours a day. Vicki knew Carole too, and asked her, Why do you work in a place like this?

It can be a bit of a nightmare sometimes, Carole admitted.

It was incredible like a car factory a conveyor belt of songwriters.

Murray shut the door. Burt Bacharach worked here until last year too, he told us. All the great songwriters do. We want you to join them.

When we got back to the office Mike Stewart was tucking into his lunch a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken and a half-gallon milkshake. Whadya think? he asked, spilling crispy bits into his lap. You wanna stay here for a few weeks and work with the best? Well pay your accommodation.

We both shook our heads.

Do you want to know what these guys earn?

We didnt. It was irrelevant. Our lives were about London. I tried to explain that back home I had the Yardbirds to manage and Vicki had a job producing Ready Steady Go!.

Mike got tetchy and banged his desk. You just dont get it, do you? In this business, the song is the one and only commodity. Dont let anyone tell you otherwise. The history of music publishing is the history of the music industry. Forget records, forget TV shows, forget rock groups theyre a mere triviality. Songs are forever. When youve finished your time in this business, all youll have left is the songs. You guys should stay here and get rich.

We both knew if we were serious about wanting to be top songwriters we should stay and work in that dreadful building. Even worse, we ought to try and make friends of these two men a slag heap of falling flesh and his perfectly tailored pet frog.

Without even looking at Vicki I knew what she was thinking it wasnt us who didnt get it, it was these guys. They were completely ignorant about the cool world we inhabited on the other side of the Atlantic. They knew nothing about pop groups and pirate radio, Kings Road and trendy nightlife, lazy dinners and easy sex. As far as we were concerned the music business was a British thing; America was just a backwater. Why would anyone want to exchange the pleasures of swinging London for a songwriters Alcatraz?

Im sorry, I told Mike. We really need to get back to London. Vicki nodded in agreement, and he gave a helpless shrug.

But back in London managing the Yardbirds, I soon found I needed to know more about music publishing. In fact, bearing in mind I was managing one of the worlds top rock groups, I thought it was about time I learnt more about the music industry in general how it worked, how it had come into existence, how it had managed to get by without me for a hundred years. So I started reading.