I had never heard of Darren Burn until I watched this documentary two days ago, from the Man Alive series. Having seen this I don't think I will forget him in a hurry.

Darren was an 11 year old boy who EMI records tried to turn into a British equivalent of the likes of American's Donny Osmond and David Cassidy who were topping the charts in 1973. He recorded a cover version of Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart which was pressed into a single and even played on Radio 1 at the time and promoted by Tony Blackburn as his record of the week.

Yet the single did nothing and neither did a couple of follow ups either and a year later he was dropped.

There was something about watching the way this 11 year old boy was feted by EMI (and his pushy parents) that quite frankly looked quite disturbing to me and even in 1973 it looked like failure waiting to happen. This young child, clearly intelligent, nice looking and personable was led up the garden path to believe he was going to become so famous like Donny Osmond he would no longer be able use public transport openly. They raised a child's expectations enormously instead of keeping things grounded in hard reality of his chances of making it.

There is a very well said comment from JK in this programme, if only they had listened to it.

Darren Burn - Man Alive - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - 1973.

youtu.be/MQ1NGOiCWiQ?si=bVcd4fyLrgrITveQ

Fifteen years later in 1988 a TV show tracked him down again, a completely different personality.

youtu.be/p_33qGE0pg0?si=R0Tcmk5b9vj4lgRi


Sadly Darren took his own life just weeks after his 30th birthday in 1991 having battled depression and there can be little doubt that the way the music industry, EMI, puffed him up so massively and then spat him out as unwanted comntributed greatly to this outcome. As Darren said in 1988 - "I was never a performer". Wiser heads should have noticed that at the time in 1973, it's clear to see in this documentary.

The final irony here is that not long after they caught up with Darren Burn in 1988, that song he recorded hoping to set him to stardom in the early 70's became a huge No1 hit for the original artist Gene Pitney along with Marc Almond in duet at the beginning of 1989.

Very interesting post Rich. EMI probably didn't care much for him and it's an bad song choice for a kid to perform. I wonder if his mother threw bags of cash at EMI or even herself.

Even in the clips the lad seemed unhappy but wanted to please his parents and the men in suits.

I think in 73 or so, EMI also heavily promoted Taggett, who came and went very quickly.

I remember my mother telling me I had a wonderful singing voice and should sing for the church or school choir. My father spat out his tea out then a burst of laughter followed.

What a superbly thoughtful and I agree interesting contribution to this forum Rich, I watched the whole lot.

Even if he had made it as a 'weenybopper' I think the shelf life would have been brutally short anyway. Even Donny Osmond's hits had dried up completely by the mid 70's, as did Cassidy's and they were at the top of the game selling millions.

It was all about making a quick buck for the music biz and this poor boy was the predictable victim.

If Jonathan notices this discussion I do hope he contributes a few thoughts on this like he did in the original documentary.

We tried BEFORE David Cassidy and Donny O with Simon Turner and Ricky Wilde. It was only later that I came to think this was not a good idea - cruel to those involved. Indeed when I broke and launched The Bay City Rollers I thought it a great way to make millions. But the ramifications dawned on me by the 1980s.

JK2006 wrote:
We tried BEFORE David Cassidy and Donny O with Simon Turner and Ricky Wilde. It was only later that I came to think this was not a good idea - cruel to those involved. Indeed when I broke and launched The Bay City Rollers I thought it a great way to make millions. But the ramifications dawned on me by the 1980s.

Didn't BCR have several lineup changes before Rollermania kicked off?

Yes including the lead singer (Nobby for my first top ten hit with them) - Les took over.

I don't know why 12-year old Darren Burn was groomed to follow in the footsteps of David Cassidy and Donny Osmond. Cassidy was 22/23 and Donny Osmond was 14/15, which is completely different. A 12-year-old boy is too young to appeal to anyone other than a few grannies who want to mother him and a few pedos. Sexually aware teens wouldn't be interested in anyone under 14, particularly singing ballads from 10 years before in the case of Somethings gotten hold of my heart. Cassidy was already famous through the Partridge family and Donny was singing with his brothers. They weren't hyped up from obscurity.

JK2006 wrote:
We tried BEFORE David Cassidy and Donny O with Simon Turner and Ricky Wilde. It was only later that I came to think this was not a good idea - cruel to those involved. Indeed when I broke and launched The Bay City Rollers I thought it a great way to make millions. But the ramifications dawned on me by the 1980s.

The rollers had been going since 1967 as the Saxons with Alan and Derek Longmuir been original members who made it to the classic line-up.

What a tremendously sad story this ultimately is, and thankyou JK for what you have said here so far but if I may go further and ask, as you appeared in this programme at the time, what would you have done with this boy had he been handed over into your professional music industry care at the time, would you have been broadly going at him the same as EMI, even though you expressed reservations in this programme and have admitted your change of attitude by the 1980s.

It is quite awful to make any child feel a failure at such a terribly young age. Even when they revisted him in the late 80s he was still only 26 for heaven's sake. If he was unable to make a career as a pop chart singles act, even briefly, surely with his voice he could have been directed into the many other opportunities available. Most people with greta voices have never been in the charts at all or sold a single record. Many are on stage in theatre for example. What a shame none of these other life chances were not seemingly explored for this charming boy.

The performer bit was apt in this case. You can have the loveliest voice and nicest face going but it still needs that bit extra somewhere. Robbie Williams had a very mediocre and unspecial voice in my opinion but had bags of personality and could perform and own the stage he was on.

The previous comment was also apt. I wonder why they wanted to make a pop star of a pre-pubescent 11/12 year old child like this? I was thinking of him more along the lines of Jimmy Osmond than older brother Donny, but Jimmy was and remains an exceptional case from a big showbiz family.

It wasn't really until my friend Steve Greenberg had a hit with Hanson (Mmbop) whose drummer was 11 that it dawned on me (and him) the damage that could be done for children before they became capable of developing without the fame spotlight. Both Ricky Wilde (my attempt pre-Donny) and Simon Turner (pre-Cassidy) went on to have happy and successful lives thanks to - in Ricky's case - having a good family and, in Simon's, to his being slightly famous (as an actor) before we met. Who knows how it would have been different had we turned them into the huge stars they should have been. I knew Darren's Dad (Colin?) who was an EMI executive. These days it is far more important for a Manager to look at the future life of an artiste than just breaking them. Prime example of a dreadful manager - Colonel Tom for Elvis, who died fat and miserable. My dear friend Brian Epstein used to admit to me he was an appalling manager but that was more on a business level and his "boys", as he called them, were older. One of my great regrets is that I did not become a better friend to Michael Jackson - I think he would still be alive today.

JK2006 wrote:
It wasn't really until my friend Steve Greenberg had a hit with Hanson (Mmbop) whose drummer was 11 that it dawned on me (and him) the damage that could be done for children before they became capable of developing without the fame spotlight. Both Ricky Wilde (my attempt pre-Donny) and Simon Turner (pre-Cassidy) went on to have happy and successful lives thanks to - in Ricky's case - having a good family and, in Simon's, to his being slightly famous (as an actor) before we met. Who knows how it would have been different had we turned them into the huge stars they should have been. I knew Darren's Dad (Colin?) who was an EMI executive. These days it is far more important for a Manager to look at the future life of an artiste than just breaking them. Prime example of a dreadful manager - Colonel Tom for Elvis, who died fat and miserable. My dear friend Brian Epstein used to admit to me he was an appalling manager but that was more on a business level and his "boys", as he called them, were older. One of my great regrets is that I did not become a better friend to Michael Jackson - I think he would still be alive today.

Beatles got about 13 cents each per record sold and took about 25% which most managers took about 10 to 15%. Yet he was clever enough to make sure the Beatles got top billing.

It seems that Simon Turner didn't like you also JK. I do remember the Simon Turner LP and the King Of Luxembourg era.

www.theguardian.com/music/2011/nov/17/si...r-turner-soundtracks

Thanks for the comments to my opener on this programme and story, especially the ones from yourself here JK, I'm reading them with genuine interest.

Robbie I have noticed you place a comment under this programme on You Tube regards Man Alive and I agree with you entirely. They may not have seemed it at the time but many of these documentaries provide a very important cultural, societal and historical record of the times they were first broadcast and if the BBC had any sense of purpose they would see this and place them long term on their iPlayer archive to be viewed on demand.

When Stella drew attention to the young age Darren Burn was when they checked in on him many years later and he was still only in his mid to late 20's it reminded me of seeing David Cassidy on Top Of The Pops early in 1985 when he suddenly returned to the charts with a great top ten hit called The Last Kiss, having not touched the charts in ten years since the mid 70's. I was too young to recall him the first time around in his heyday but watching his re-emergence with that song in '85 I vividly recall thinking of him as a long forgotten has been from a time long ago standing out like a sore thumb, and yet he was only 35 years old! Even with Cassidy there seemed to be a sadness at the heart of him and even he, with his hugely successful story seems to have ended up troubled, leading to an early passing.

But to counter this it is at least good to see that Donny Osmond has managed to navigate all the perils of such early childhood success and come through looking and sounding just great and with a happy and likeable peronality to this very day and at 66 remains very young at heart and in all round good shape.


JK you mentioned Ricky Wilde here and of course he was prominent on the Man Alive programme. BUT WHY WAS NOBODY NOTICING KIM? She was kept well out of sight. In the summer of 1973 at the time of the documentary she was just a few months older than Darren Burn. Yet she was the real deal set for well deserved stardom within just another 8 years, I've bought her records and enjoy them to this day. Obviously she was giving no vibes of future potential at 13 then. I suppose this was seen as a boys thing at the time. The only girl I can think of in this 1973 era who charted is Lena Zavaroni and look what happened there too, yet more misery and gone at 35.

Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to see how Elvis looked and sounded as an 11 year old child. What a shame no such footage likely exists.

As for the manager, wasn't he responsible for keeping him out of the UK? It's still shocks me that the biggest star in the world bar none never came to the UK or set foot in London or anywhere else over his lifetime, except for the quick military stopover at Prestwick airport, although I did read a weird little story not so long back that suggested he might have done an incognito tour of the London landmarks with Tommy Steele in 1958, but it's probably an urban legend.

Funnily enough after the Partridge Family broke (AFTER Simon was launched) we sent Simon over to Los Angeles - the producers wanted him as the English cousin, as they thought he could be huge in America. Sadly the audition came to nothing.

Rich wrote:
Thanks for the comments to my opener on this programme and story, especially the ones from yourself here JK, I'm reading them with genuine interest.

Robbie I have noticed you place a comment under this programme on You Tube regards Man Alive and I agree with you entirely. They may not have seemed it at the time but many of these documentaries provide a very important cultural, societal and historical record of the times they were first broadcast and if the BBC had any sense of purpose they would see this and place them long term on their iPlayer archive to be viewed on demand.

When Stella drew attention to the young age Darren Burn was when they checked in on him many years later and he was still only in his mid to late 20's it reminded me of seeing David Cassidy on Top Of The Pops early in 1985 when he suddenly returned to the charts with a great top ten hit called The Last Kiss, having not touched the charts in ten years since the mid 70's. I was too young to recall him the first time around in his heyday but watching his re-emergence with that song in '85 I vividly recall thinking of him as a long forgotten has been from a time long ago standing out like a sore thumb, and yet he was only 35 years old! Even with Cassidy there seemed to be a sadness at the heart of him and even he, with his hugely successful story seems to have ended up troubled, leading to an early passing.

But to counter this it is at least good to see that Donny Osmond has managed to navigate all the perils of such early childhood success and come through looking and sounding just great and with a happy and likeable peronality to this very day and at 66 remains very young at heart and in all round good shape.


JK you mentioned Ricky Wilde here and of course he was prominent on the Man Alive programme. BUT WHY WAS NOBODY NOTICING KIM? She was kept well out of sight. In the summer of 1973 at the time of the documentary she was just a few months older than Darren Burn. Yet she was the real deal set for well deserved stardom within just another 8 years, I've bought her records and enjoy them to this day. Obviously she was giving no vibes of future potential at 13 then. I suppose this was seen as a boys thing at the time. The only girl I can think of in this 1973 era who charted is Lena Zavaroni and look what happened there too, yet more misery and gone at 35.

I think Kim was quite shy as a child/young teen and didn't have the confidence until she was 20 or 21 and Ricky Wilde took a tape to Mickie Most. Mickie suggested that Kim should sing and the rest is history. With regards to showing these programmes on demand, I guess there might be issues with clearing the shows with the people involved.

robbiex wrote:
Rich wrote:
Thanks for the comments to my opener on this programme and story, especially the ones from yourself here JK, I'm reading them with genuine interest.

Robbie I have noticed you place a comment under this programme on You Tube regards Man Alive and I agree with you entirely. They may not have seemed it at the time but many of these documentaries provide a very important cultural, societal and historical record of the times they were first broadcast and if the BBC had any sense of purpose they would see this and place them long term on their iPlayer archive to be viewed on demand.

When Stella drew attention to the young age Darren Burn was when they checked in on him many years later and he was still only in his mid to late 20's it reminded me of seeing David Cassidy on Top Of The Pops early in 1985 when he suddenly returned to the charts with a great top ten hit called The Last Kiss, having not touched the charts in ten years since the mid 70's. I was too young to recall him the first time around in his heyday but watching his re-emergence with that song in '85 I vividly recall thinking of him as a long forgotten has been from a time long ago standing out like a sore thumb, and yet he was only 35 years old! Even with Cassidy there seemed to be a sadness at the heart of him and even he, with his hugely successful story seems to have ended up troubled, leading to an early passing.

But to counter this it is at least good to see that Donny Osmond has managed to navigate all the perils of such early childhood success and come through looking and sounding just great and with a happy and likeable peronality to this very day and at 66 remains very young at heart and in all round good shape.


JK you mentioned Ricky Wilde here and of course he was prominent on the Man Alive programme. BUT WHY WAS NOBODY NOTICING KIM? She was kept well out of sight. In the summer of 1973 at the time of the documentary she was just a few months older than Darren Burn. Yet she was the real deal set for well deserved stardom within just another 8 years, I've bought her records and enjoy them to this day. Obviously she was giving no vibes of future potential at 13 then. I suppose this was seen as a boys thing at the time. The only girl I can think of in this 1973 era who charted is Lena Zavaroni and look what happened there too, yet more misery and gone at 35.

I think Kim was quite shy as a child/young teen and didn't have the confidence until she was 20 or 21 and Ricky Wilde took a tape to Mickie Most. Mickie suggested that Kim should sing and the rest is history. With regards to showing these programmes on demand, I guess there might be issues with clearing the shows with the people involved.

You are right Robbie. A friend of my partner was involved in the wrestling scene in the 70s and 80s for various promotions. ITV have about roughly 80-90% of the archives that exists, there is no clear figure. He was at the meeting when Greg Dyke axed the wrestling.

He wanted to release the release the archives on to DVD for retail.

ITV wanted £90 per tape from him, then he was warned he had to pay clearences to the the Kent Walton estate and the wrestlers estate. Everyone wants to be paid.

Music rights was soon added in the equation. There was a disco ladder match he wanted to put out and remaster it.

Then to add more arse-ache he told by WWE not to has some wrestlers are under a trademark in the WWE etc.

On hearing of the death of Liam Payne I immediately thought of this discussion I added to previously on Darren Burn. Almost the same age too. Either end of the extreme in the business, so you can't win, one had fantastic fame and the other didn't, but similar outcomes. The list of pop's young victims grows longer.