I've just read on Wikipedia - so it must be true - that Don Arden was chart-fixing before you started running the Decca label Ken.

Apparently, he found £12,000 to get their first single "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" to chart at Number 13 back in 1965, setting their career in motion. In those days £12,000 must have been a lot of money I'm sure.



I still can't work out how he could have bought enough of his own vinyl singles to do this; maybe he did it in another equally as underhand way.....but I don't think you were the first chart-fixer.

Indeed that may well have been true - typical Don Arden - and I was certainly NOT the first chart fixer; it had been going on for years and still is. But I was the first to supply the small quantity of shops that then contributed returns to the lower reaches of the 50 with free copies of singles for sale. Perfectly legal but a good (and, then, cheap) way of encouraging retailers to promote the 45rpm vinyl platter to customers.

There was really no "official charts" until BMRB started compiling the charts in 1969. That was when the "diary" was first used; initially in just 250 shops. From that point onwards, there was just one "official chart" to fix. Before then there were 4 charts to fix, and the one broadcast by the BBC on a Sunday afternoon was compiled by amalgamating the four independently compiled charts. Without doing the research now, I think the four charts were NME, Record Mirror/Record Retailer, Melody Maker and Disc & Music Echo, but I’m happy to be corrected if that wasn’t the case. So, I assume Don Arden would attempt to fix all 4 charts in order to get a high position on the BBC Chart. If what I previously have heard about how those charts were compiled, it was basically based on somebody at each publication telephoning a panel of record shops. It wasn’t until 1969 that any “constructive research and sampling” was introduced.

I still don't understand how Arden could have done though. When you consider that he was a manager not a label executive so he couldn't done what Ken has admitted to and "give away" vinyl singles. Did he pay the the complilers of the 4 separate charts to "rig" the Faces' chart position?

Thus, with free singles on their shelves they would be in an excellent position to undercut the likes of Woolworths, Boots and Smiths, thereby flooding the market with very cheap singles. But mightn't that have attracted attention from certain quarters?

After all Ken, you were there, did that, got (as they say) the t-Shirt?

Blue Kenney wrote:
Thus, with free singles on their shelves they would be in an excellent position to undercut the likes of Woolworths, Boots and Smiths, thereby flooding the market with very cheap singles. But mightn't that have attracted attention from certain quarters?


In those days, retail price maintenance applied to records, so no retailer could reduce the prices. If he did anything, it is likely that he employed "buying in teams" to go around the shops to buy the records up.

I think Don was active before "buying in" - it was the old ticks in diaries and small gifts which, in Don's case, quite often involved kindly offering NOT to break your legs.

JK2006 wrote:
I think Don was active before "buying in" - it was the old ticks in diaries and small gifts which, in Don's case, quite often involved kindly offering NOT to break your legs.

Diaries didn't exist until the BMRB days, so it was pre-old tricks in diaries. So that leaves "small gifts" or avoidance of broken appendages.

I knew Don quite well and rather liked him (I used to nag at Sharon and Ozzy to repair their relationship which happily they did before he died) but he was quite up to going the broken appendage route. That single by the Small Faces came out around the same time and on the same label as my first hit. Indeed, some promotion gigs at the Marquee featured them, me, the Stones, the Who and several others, all crammed into the tiniest backstage dressing room you've ever seen, sweating profusely.

Though I was still just a school boy at the time, and actually only obtained some of those early Decca Hits on a very cheesy series called "World of Hits". in fact, The Small Faces appeared on Volume 3. Here's the track Listing:
SIDE 1:
"What'cha Gonna Do About It?" by The Small Faces
"Jesamine" by The Casuals
"Without You" by Donnie Elbert
"Terry" by Twinkle
"Caroline" by The Fortunes
"Train To Nowhere" by Savoy Brown
"Night Of Fear" by The Move

SIDE 2:
"I'm Gonna Get Me A Gun" by Cat Stevens
"Please Stay" by The Cryin' Shames
"Beggin'" by Timebox
"Angel Of The Morning" by Billie Davis
"Boulevard De La Madelaine" by The Moody Blues
"Nothing But A Heartache" by The Flirtations
"Yesterday Man" by Chris Andrews

I didn't get backstage at the Marquee until the late 70s/early 80's but I rember all the walls painted black and the place being significantly smaller than I imagined.