Posted June 9, 200619 yr Rock'n'Roll Swindles In the light of the publicity of Sandi Thom's rise to the Top of the Chart and the allegations made against her, I thought it would be good opportunity to revisit other major artists who allowed porkies to be told about them or allow things to happen to enhance their careers. Here goes: 01 ELVIS PRESLEY Elvis Presley is the most important person in the history of Rock'n'Roll however did you know that when Elvis Presley's RCA landmark debut single "Heartbreak Hotel" was released on January 27 1956 his single failed in the first four weeks to get much National airplay. Things changed when his record company paid people (they allegedly spent $15,000) to phone up radio Stations up and down the country asking for this seminal track to be played. The track promptly received the airplay it deserved and the rest is history.... 02 THE BEATLES The Beatles are the most successful band ever & are arguably the greatest band ever, but did you know their debut single was struggling to break into the singles chart. However their manager Brian Epstein owned several music shops (N.E.M.S) in the Merseyside area, so what he did was buy up 2,000 - 3,000 copies of their debut single Love Me Do and give away or sell at a discounted rate to promote the single successfully into the Top30 so that it would pick up all important airplay on Alan Freeman's Pick Of The Pops Chart countdown ("not 'alf, mate!") :lol: 03 THE KINKS The Kinks are now rightly remembered as one of the quartet of great British groups from the 1960s (along with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones & the Who), but did you know that their first two singles "Long Tall Sally" & "You Still Want Me" failed to chart. They recorded their 3rd single "You Really Got Me" but the Kinks management & its record company Pye were not happy with the recording, so they paid session musicians guitarist Jimmy Page (future Led Zeppelin) & keyboardist Jon Lord (future Deep Purple) to enhance the sessions which included their follow up smash "All Day & All Of The Night". Jimmy Page has since claimed that he was paid £150 for the album sessions & was later paid £500 to deny that he played on the track! 04 THE BEE GEES The Bee Gees who were managed by Robert Stigwood and were promoted on their debut British & US singles as a vocal harmony group who had come back from Australia having had 11 #1s in Australia, being hyped as the Oz equivalent of the Beatles meets the Beach Boys. This was a bit of a fib as only two of the tracks "Starlight Of Love" & "Spicks & Specks" have topped the charts down-under! 05 DAVID BOWIE In 1969 after five years of flop singles & one flop album, David Bowie finally looked set for the big time when DJ Kenny Everett picked up on his single "Space Oddity", it was still struggling to make an impact so his then manager Ken Pitt bought 898 copies to give the track that extra push to successfully break into the chart. It finally peaked at #5. 06 BAY CITY ROLLERS Long before Milli Vanilli, The Bay City Rollers were dogged by allegations throughout their career of not playing on their records, it was only long after their demise that there manager Tom Paton admitted that none of the band had played on their tracks until 1976, so only lead singer Les McKeown had appeared on their 1975 chart toppers Bye Bye Baby & Give A Little Love. 07 KATE BUSH Kate's record company kept quiet that they had signed Kate back in 1975 (when she was 16 years old, 2.5 years before her debut single "Wuthering Heights" was released). In between they paid for her development taking dance (Lindsay Kemp), mime (Adam Darius) & singing, songwriting & recording engineering lessons. Not exactly an overnight success then. 08 MADONNA According to her blog, A&R head of Sire records, Mo Ostin was so keen to sign Madonna, that the signing ceremony took place at his hospital bedside while he was seriously ill in hospital. The truth was that Madonna signed for Sire in an office by the A&R's deputy. 09 MARIAH CAREY According to her blog, when she was starting out, Tommy Mottolla (CBS/Columbia Records president) met Mariah at a gig by singer Brenda K. Starr, where Mariah was one of her backing singers, and he was passed a demo tape of Mariah. When he listened to it in the car he was so impressed that he turned around to go back to the aftershow party to sign Mariah. The truth was that the demo tape did exist but Tommy Mottola went through less dramatic / more conventional methods to sign Mariah Carey. 10 THE ARCTIC MONKEYS Hailed as the greatest band of the 21st Century, but only last week the Feeling's bassist & (former) session musician Richard Jones revealed (on Channel 4s Album Show) that he was asked to enhance/fix the bass guitar parts of three tracks from the Arctic Monkey's debut album. "Their's b*llsh*t & b*llsh*t, it just goes by different names" - Paul Weller (The Jam) Beat Surrender 1982. :rolleyes:
June 10, 200619 yr Rock'n'Roll Swindles 05 DAVID BOWIE In 1969 after five years of flop singles & one flop album, David Bowie finally looked set for the big time when DJ Kenny Everett picked up on his single "Space Oddity", it was still struggling to make an impact so his then manager Ken Pitt bought 898 copies to give the track that extra push to successfully break into the chart. It finally peaked at #5. anyone got that gnome thing?
June 11, 200619 yr The Bee Gees did it twice. According to their autobiography the gave their fan club 5 pounds each to go round Adelaide record shops and buy their latest single [Wine and Women] therefore making the South Australian chart and getting airplay on chart shows. Spicks and Specks was there only pre-international number one hit down under and the record company, Spin, tried to keep them in Australia and prevent them signing to UK Polydor. In fact all the pre Satuday Night Fever Bee Gees discs were released on Spin in Australia.
June 11, 200619 yr Hi Thisispop I hope you don't mind me commenting on what you said about Colonel Parker, Elvis' manager ;) I'm no big fan of his (he was great for Elvis in the beginning but, like many Elvis fans, I wish Elvis had replaced him with a more forward thinking manager, by the mid 1960s) However, I've read a fair bit about the man but have never heard that he had been found guilty of sleeping with an underage child. Other rumours have emerged in recent years as to why he left Holland so suddenly, including one where he was supposed to have been involved with the death of a Dutch woman, but all have been refuted by those who knew him. Nothing however has been proved. Don't think I'm defending him, just stating what I've heard, that's all. We'll never know why Elvis never did a European tour. It wasn't neccesary for Col Parker to accompany him, as there were others he trusted to take that role, but Parkers' cash demands were legendary which is probably one of the reasons :lol:
June 11, 200619 yr Author Hi Thisispop I hope you don't mind me commenting on what you said about Colonel Parker, Elvis' manager ;) I'm no big fan of his (he was great for Elvis in the beginning but, like many Elvis fans, I wish Elvis had replaced him with a more forward thinking manager, by the mid 1960s) However, I've read a fair bit about the man but have never heard that he had been found guilty of sleeping with an underage child. Other rumours have emerged in recent years as to why he left Holland so suddenly, including one where he was supposed to have been involved with the death of a Dutch woman, but all have been refuted by those who knew him. Nothing however has been proved. Don't think I'm defending him, just stating what I've heard, that's all. We'll never know why Elvis never did a European tour. It wasn't neccesary for Col Parker to accompany him, as there were others he trusted to take that role, but Parkers' cash demands were legendary which is probably one of the reasons :lol: Apologises, I was factually incorrect regarding Col. Tom Parker allegedly sleeping with an underage girl. As you state the scandal was that he fled Holland because he was supposed to have been responsible for the death of a Dutch woman reference "The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker & Elvis Presley" by Alanna Nash amongst others. I can only think I was getting mixed up with Tam Paton (manager of the Bay City Rollers) who in 2003 was accused of sleeping with underage boys. :puke2: I have now removed my inaccurate comments from the original thread.
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