We spent very little on promoting artistes at UK, relying on effort in promotion - the huge success with Ricky (and with Simon Turner) was massive coverage in the fan magazines; both got far more than Darren.

The flaw in both cases was making them popular with girls before they had hits, thus alienating the boys and cutting back our target sales group by 50%.

Hmmm, JK, I don't know about alienating the male record buyers, but I was a male (and still am) and I thought Darren's first record was marvellous and went out and bought it straight away. I can't remember how much a single cost in 1973...probably about £1. I also thought that Ricky Wilde's full front cover photo on the March 31st, 1973, Record Mirror, was the most eye-catching front cover of the year. Darren's full back page Record Mirror photo a few months later on August 25th, 1973, was more of a candid shot done in poor light, probably in Studio 2 at Abbey Road and not as impressive as the Ricky Wilde one, which you had pinned to the wall of your office at UK records, wherever that was somewhere in London.

REPLY TO DJONES: No idea for sure, DJones, but by the time of Darren Burn's launch in July, 1973, they had already spent £150,000 at 1973 prices...which would be millions of pounds at 2009 prices and they would have spent a lot more by the time they ended his contract just over a year later.

At the time of his initial two singles, there seemed to be a big poster in every record shop with his photo on and bearing the legend "Introducing Darren Burn." His first single was played a lot on the radio and it was chosen as Tony Blackburn's Record Of The Week on Radio 1 from Monday, July 23rd, to Friday, July 27th, 1973. In addition, he was in most of the newspapers and fan magazines and the BBC must have considered him important enough to make the Man Alive film about him, which, with hindsight, could now be regarded as the documentation of a prelude to tragedy, seeing that EMI, while they thought he was going to make a lot of money for them, treated him like royalty, but callously got rid of him when they realised they were not onto a good thing after all. Well, that's show business.

Someone who worked for EMI at the time told me he reckoned that they didn't spend as much on Darren as they could have done, because it would have looked odd, with his father being an executive at the company.

I don't know how much JK spent on Ricky Wilde's promotion at the time, but my guess is nowhere near the vast amount EMI spent on Darren Burn.

Thanks for the answer, DR.

"I can't remember how much a single cost in 1973...probably about £1"

When I started buying records in London (1975), singles cost about 60, 65 pence. In 1978 the price was about 75p. With all the marketing gimmicks (introducted by Stiff Records) like coloured vinyl, shaped discs etc. the price rose very quickly at the end of the decade.

In July, 1988, fifteen years after the Man Alive programme, John Pitman, the original reporter on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, tracked Darren Burn down to flat 7 at 146 to 156, Grosvenor Terrace, in Southwark, south London. He had gone to interview Darren for the "Whatever Happened To…?" section of the BBC Television "People" programme, presented by Derek Jameson.

John found Darren a shadow of his 1973 self. He was by then a 26 years old unmarried and unemployed computer programmer and living alone. He looked thin; pale; ill and unhappy and was suffering from depression and taking medication for it...in complete contrast to the bubbly, full of life and full of hope for the future eleven year old of fifteen years earlier. He also seemed to be blaming his parents, especially his mother, for the 1973 / 1974 disaster at EMI and, obviously suffering from low self esteem, he was denigrating his talent.

DARREN: “It didn’t work out particularly well. It didn’t make any money for EMI or for me. I mean I went through that experience and I had the power of a major record company behind me and it didn’t work out. It left me with a feeling of failure. It was a very strange thing for a young child to go through. At school, it was a bit rough. I remember I used to get called Top of the Flops a lot. So that was a favourite. And of course, when the records weren’t particularly successful, it added fuel to the fire.”

JOHN: “Did that…did that upset you at the time?”

DARREN: “Oh, yes, sure. I mean it’s impossible not to get affected by things like that. I mean I was only a child and it was really the kind of decision that should have been made by a responsible adult.”

JOHN: “What, like, by one of your parents?”

DARREN: “Well, ideally, yes. But even now my mother seems to think that I was perfectly able to make such decisions for myself in a responsible manner at the age of eleven.”

JOHN: “Do you think you were able to?”

DARREN: “No. It was largely my mother’s decision and, err, she’s a very ambitious woman. She wanted to be an actress when she was younger and it didn’t really work out for her and I think she was living out her ambition through me to the extent.”

JOHN: “Have you said this to your mum?”

DARREN: “Oh, sure…”

JOHN: “I mean it would come as a horrible shock to her…”

DARREN: “No, it wouldn’t come as any kind of horrible shock to her, but she doesn’t like to discuss it. She…hmmm…she sort of avoids the issue, I think. I’m not a performer, which stood out like a sore thumb at that time. I mean if you see the old film of me ”performing” at the Sundown, Edmonton, I look like a dead sheep. You can’t take anybody and make them into a performer…a star. They have to have that innate talent which I, I don’t believe I ever had. Well, not in that respect. Perhaps I’m being unkind, but I don’t think it was ever really considered that seriously in terms of what it really meant for me as a child. I certainly wouldn’t allow one off my children to do that…should I ever have any.”

He was obviously not pleased with the way things had turned out. The pride in himself and the self-confidence he exhibited in 1973 were now totally gone. Three and a half years after this 1988 interview, on Wednesday, October 30th, 1991, Darren was found dead in his flat. He had left a suicide note and was found on the floor of his bathroom. An autopsy revealed that he had died from inhalation of vomit and Dothiepin poisoning (he had taken an overdose of his anti-depressant tablets). He was thirty years old. An inquest was held at Southwark Coroner’s Court on Wednesday, January 15th, 1992, where the coroner recorded a verdict that Darren had killed himself. It was an absolute tragedy of the first order and a tragic waste of a wonderful, intelligent and unique person.

I know this adds nothing to the conversation but the office I run my business from is on the same floor as Ricky Wilde's recording studio. Even bumped into Kim a few times in the corridor!

Not the most exciting of stories but never mind

That is certainly an interesting coincidence, Vince W. I'm pleased that Ricky successfully made the difficult (for some) transition from child star to adult. But even in the Man Alive film, he came across as a tough, streetwise little cookie who could handle success or failure with equal ability. Darren was altogether a different person, proud; sophisticated and sensitive and he just couldn't handle the disappointment and failure of all that being treated like he really was somebody coming to nothing. It's interesting to ponder, though, how the opposite extreme would have affected him if he had indeed become a superstar.

In fact, watching the Man Alive film today, you can see the rot beginning to set in as far back as the posh reception to promote his first single, “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart”, held at EMI House in London on Friday, July 20th, 1973. Darren, nibbling daintily on a tomato and with his dad Colin by his side, is introduced to Roger Greenaway, co-composer of the song and, at the suggestion of Colin, chirpily relates to Roger the scathing review of the single by music critic Roy Carr in that week’s issue of NME. “If I were songwriters Cook and Greenaway, I’d get hold of Darren by the throat. In the quest for an equivalent to Donny or Jimmy Osmond, this beautiful ballad, which represents Gene Pitney’s finest moment, has been totally savaged. Own up, how can you expect some weenybop warbler to attempt such a difficult song?” chuckled Darren. “Actually”, said Roger, “I think I sort of agree with that.” “Do you really?”, asked Colin. “Yes”, answered Roger, “I think the song is too old for him.” At that, Colin looks merely embarrassed, but Darren’s face drops as he stares incredulously at Roger and he looks very, very hurt and betrayed. It was the film’s cruelest moment and still looks potent today.

Later, Colin Burn was asked by John Pitman if he was prepared for people to say that he was exploiting Darren. “In fact, I am not exploiting him”, came the reply. “He wanted to make a record and I said well, you do what you want, you want to make a record and, as I said, if he wants to stop making records, the decision will be his. But, I think that it is always a good thing, if you have an opportunity like this, to do it. Because in later years, if you decline the offer, you could forever kick yourself.”

As for the 1988 interview in the “People” programme, I understand that this upset Darren terribly when the final cut went out on air and not only because it showed him as a down and out shuffling aimlessly around the street of south London, but by the way it was edited, that showed him in a very negative light. For instance, the scene with the waiting crowds of hundreds of fans outside the Sundown, Edmonton, on the morning of Saturday, July 28th, 1973, was edited in such a way as to make it look as though the girls being interviewed by John Pitman thought that Darren was rubbish, while in the original version of the interview in the Man Alive film, it’s clear that these girls were having a bit of fun at the expense of Pitman, pretending they’d never heard of Darren, with remarks such as “Who is he?”, “We’ve never heard of him” and “He’s rubbish”, and so on. “But that’s who you’ve come to see isn’t it?”, asked Pitman. “No!”, laughed the girls in unison.

And as for Darren’s rather derogatory remarks about his mother heard in the “People” programme, whether or not his statement was true, or just imagined in his depressive state, or just his way of getting back at his mother over what happened at EMI fifteen years earlier, it can only be surmised what affect this statement had upon his mother and his family when the programme went out on national television. But I do know that Darren rapidly went downhill in his mental health from there on and became a heroin addict for the last three years of his life.

I wonder if anyone recognises the names listed below by John Pitman as they are shown in the Man Alive film from thirty-six years ago and knows what became of any or all of them. I know Eric Hall is still around and presenting on BBC Radio Essex. But what about the others?

“EMI’s big guns are ready to fire master Burn at the public. It’s an impressive line-up.

Marketing Co-ordinator UK, PAUL WATTS.
Marketing Executive, BOB MERCER.
Record Promoter ERIC HALL.
Promotion Manager RONNIE FOWLER.
Marketing Co-ordinator, US and father, COLIN BURN.
Publicity Manager MICHAEL PHILLIPS.
Press Officer DAVID SANDERSON.
Publicity Executive MIKE HARVEY
and Label Managers JOHN POPE and DAVID CROKER.

And there are more where they came from, all concentrating their efforts on one little boy.”

And not forgetting the NME’s resident and very cynical music critic ROY CARR, who obviously didn’t like the weenyboppers:

“The Jackson Five came along, who are excellent and are fine artists and performers and they showed that it could be done and then after that, it seemed that every little tyke walking along the street who had a pretty face was open game to be made into a contrived pop star. I mean the record companies have just gone into the toy business. But the records these kids are churning out are absolutely dreadful. They’re just jumping on the tail end of a bandwagon…an American bandwagon. I mean if it became the fashion to walk around in Wellington boots, with miners helmets on their heads and singing Bantu war chants, there’d be thousands of them going out. Someone comes along with something original and whoop!…they all come in, riding on the gravy train.

There’s an old saying in this business. If you throw enough crap against the wall, some of it’s bound to stick and I think that’s what they’re attempting to do. Out of all these teenybop records that are coming out at the moment, one of them may stick! But they’re not selling music. It’s just a commodity, like beans. I mean you take an eleven years old kid. You shove him in a studio. That kid doesn’t know what the hell’s happening to him. So he makes a record. It gets played on the radio. It gets bags of publicity. It doesn’t sell. The contract is dropped. That kid has got to live with that for the rest of his life. So he’s either a has-been before he’s been anything or, if he makes a record and it doesn’t do anything after that, he’s a has-been!”

Well, you can't get much more cynical than that!

We can write altogether to RPM Records to ask them release Darren Burn songs on CD.

JK you said you spent very little on promotion at UK which sounds pretty cool
but if you were running a label today, would you hire a plugger and PR person
or will you keep it all inhouse?

I shall reply on a new thread J&B - this thread is very old (over the years it's had 43,000 views!).