A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...

Some personal reminiscences...

Forty years ago, on January 2, 1961, I walked into EMI Records' head office
in London for the first time as an employee. It was not only a very different
EMI back then, but it was also a very different music industry.

All the guys wore suits and ties while the girls wore dresses although in the mid-'sixties, EMI begrudgingly followed the BBC's lead and allowed the
female staff to wear trousers but, as the memo posted on all floors instructed: 'the wearing of jeans will not be tolerated' ! Dress code was even more noticeable at the Abbey Road Studios where engineers walked around in
white coats, giving the initial appearance of a hospital rather than a recording facility.

In 1961, there were four main record companies in Britain: EMI, British
Decca, Philips and Pye. All were fiercely competitive, so much so that a secretary at EMI was fired after she leaked the release date of a record to a friend over at Decca's Albert Embankment office.

Musically, Britain was dominated by the pop singles chart,published each Monday morning by the New Musical Express. Radio exposure was limited
to government-controlled needle-time on the BBC's Light Programme
resulting in the nationwide popularity of Radio Luxembourg, a non-stop pop record format beamed daily in the evening hours from the small European country of Luxembourg; known affectionately as '208' (its medium-wave frequency),

Radio Luxembourg carried not only commercials but also sponsored
programs so all the key record companies bought airtime in the form of their own shows which were physically produced in Luxembourg's own studio in
the heart of London's Mayfair district.

EMI's biggest local recording artists included Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Rolf Harris, Helen Shapiro, comedian Peter Sellers, The John Barry Seven,
pianist Russ Conway, rock instrumentalists The Shadows, ballad singers
Matt Monro and Shirley Bassey, clarinet player Acker Bilk and jazz group
The Temperance Seven.

The Beatles didn't emerge until 1962 but besides Cliff & Adam in '61, EMI's other leading rocker was the great Johnny Kidd with his group The Pirates; dressed in black leather and sporting an eye-patch, Johnny turned in some cool covers including Marv Johnson's early Motown seller YOU GOT WHAT
IT TAKES and Arthur Alexander's A SHOT OF RHYTHM AND BLUES but really excelled with his own ground-breaking composition, SHAKIN' ALL OVER as well as PLEASE DON'T TOUCH. Another local EMI rocker had
been Vince Taylor who, with his group The Playboys, also cut "A Shot Of Rhythm & Blues" though his real claim to fame was the immortal 1959 self-composed BRAND NEW CADILLAC.

EMI had four key in-house A&R men: George Martin assisted by Ron Richards (who went on to produce The Hollies), Norrie Paramor assisted by John Schroeder, Norman Newell assisted by John Burgess and Wally Ridley.

These were the heydays of the British cover versions: each week, the A&R guys received the latest 45's from the States and local music publishers
would set UK release dates for the songs, allowing British producers to
ready their versions which, more often than not, were almost duplicate
arrangements of the originals! An example of the result of all this is that
Gerry Goffin & Carole King's UP ON THE ROOF became a Top 10 British hit for Kenny Lynch, produced by Wally Ridley for EMI's HMV label and a Top
40 seller for Julie Grant produced locally for Pye, while the original by The Drifters never made the UK charts.

However, American product was hugely successful in the UK back then with artists such as Roy Orbison, Connie Francis, Duane Eddy, Johnny Tillotson, Neil Sedaka, The Everly Brothers, Bobby Vee, Brenda Lee, Bobby Darin, Del Shannon, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Johnny Burnette, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Sam Cooke, Gary U.S. Bonds, Clarence 'Frogman' Henry, Johnny And The Hurricanes, The Drifters, Jim Reeves, Ricky Nelson and of course Elvis Presley was particularly prominent.

British Decca ruled the roost with their London-American label under which they released product from Atlantic, Atco, Monument, Liberty, Dolton, Big Top, Cadence, Jamie, Imperial, Scepter & Sun and they also had the RCA (previously with HMV) and Warner Bros. labels.

EMI had the local licences for MGM, ABC-Paramount, Canadian-American, Mercury, Roulette, Cameo/Parkway and United Artists, the latter having switched from British Decca. Capitol product had also been originally
released in Britain by Decca, but EMI's purchase of a controlling interest in that west coast label brought Capitol into the EMI fold in 1955. UK EMI also
at one time was the local licensor of American Columbia product but that
had switched to Philips in the late 50's, though EMI retained the Epic
catalog for a short period, hence Bobby Vinton's single of "Roses Are Red" becoming a UK hit on the local Columbia label. In addition, EMI bought out and took over the Rank Organisation's Top Rank Records whose artist roster included John Leyton, Craig Douglas & Andy Stewart (all of whom switched
to other EMI labels) as well as masters leased from American independents.

Eventually, American repertoire played an even greater role when EMI launched their Stateside label which, like its British Decca counterpart London, became the home of product from smaller U.S. indies; among the U.S. labels represented initially on Stateside was Motown.

Music publishing was a small part of EMI's business back then with their
local company (Ardmore & Beechwood) housed above the HMV Record
Store in London's Oxford Street.

I treasure my memories of EMI in 1961 because the company was about to become the hub of a musical revolution when the Merseybeat boom began
its meteoric rise in late '62. It was also the time when the British independent record producers began to emerge led by the likes of Joe Meek, Giorgio Gomelsky and Mickie Most.

My first job was filing records in the library, but I got to know folks such as George Martin and his secretary Judy (later to become his wife) back in the pre-Liverpool days when Peter Sellers and Scottish bandleader Jimmy
Shand were Parlophone's biggest-selling artists!

EMI which, incidentally stands for Electric & Musical Industries, was a wonderful training ground and was the place I met my longtime friend and fellow record-collector Tim Rice when he joined as a management trainee.

Staff members came and went but often turned up in very different places; I always remember a guy called Gerry Conway who sat near me in the general office in the mid-'sixties; all the department heads thought he was an idiot -
he hated what he did, shuffling some kind of papers aimlessly day after day, but he'd invariably beat out rhythms on his desk. He eventually left but definitely found his niche...he ended up playing drums on albums by John Hiatt, Kiki Dee, Fairport Convention and many others.

Luckily, the love of music always finds a way of manifesting itself and, given half a chance, I'll tell you just how much it still means to me!

ROCK ON !
Alan Warner

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