Displaying items by tag: Dennis Munday

The Style Council Serie A Leaders  

I am an Italian football critic and an avid Style Council fan and like my favourite sport, the Council’s career is a tale of two halves. Paul Weller formed his new squad when he left his previous champion wining side, just as they were ready to topple the mighty Manchester United. The tactics were the same every match, there was talk of fights on the training ground and they played too many games. Although they had a wining formula, there was no width to their game and it was typically English - all kick and run.

In the music business, once you hit 30 you are considered over the hill, and this still applies in the 21st century. As far as middle-aged artists go, very few make an impact on the current generation, with most inclined to live off their back catalogue. They tour the world, coining it in with merchandising sales, and endless re-issues, and deluxe packaging of their greatest hits.

The music business is littered with A & R faux pas, the most notable is Dick Rowe's. Dick was the head of A & R at Decca in the 50's and early sixties. He'd made some very good signings, which include Them, The Moody Blues, The Zombies, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, The Tornados, Tom Jones, The Small Faces, Marmalade, and The Rolling Stones. However, when Brian Epstein turned up in his office and, after a lengthy audition, he turned down The Beatles.

When I started work at Polydor in the early '70's, it was a dream come true. I'd worked at HMV records in Oxford Street for five years, and was bored with working in a shop, even though it was the biggest in Europe. Laurie Adams, who was Polydor's Tape Marketing Manager, turned up unexpectedly and took me out to lunch.

The record business has changed dramatically over the last two decades. There are now four large conglomerates, who control over 80% of the output of music in the world. Sales have plummeted, the industry is losing about 5% per annum and given that the current economic crisis will last for another ten years, will they be able to turn this around? And more importantly, will the record industry survive?

I have been fortunate to work with many famous and great artists from many different spheres of music, but the greatest has to be Ella Fitzgerald.Ella’s early life was hard and she suffered, particularly when her mother died in 1932, from injuries received in a car accident. Having already lost her real father, tragedy struck again when her stepfather died of a heart attack and her little step sister Frances moved in with her.

Although I enjoyed working with Oscar and Norman, and dining out at restaurants where supper cost more than double my monthly mortgage payments, I couldn’t relax and be myself. I was a little out of my depth and my working class upbringing hadn’t educated me to wine and dine with the (extremely) rich and famous.