The thread might get lost, so I thought about starting a new one !

Re: Thunderclap Newman
In 1969, Pete Townshend, The Who's guitarist, created the band Thunderclap Newman to play songs written by former Who roadie, drummer/singer John 'Speedy' Keen (miscredited as 'Keene' on the single's label). Townshend produced the single, arranged its strings, played its bass under the pseudonym Bijou Drains, and hired for it eccentric GPO engineer and jazz pianist Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman and 15-year-old Glaswegian Jimmy McCulloch.

Bijou drains indeed!

Back to your time with Joe Meek, JK. I think the trick was to make yourself seem easy and prepared to do anything to get a record contract, which of course, put you out of the running!

One of the truly appalling Meek productions was Jess Conrad's "Hurt me"

A whole new can of worms macca!
Jess Conrad is a wonderful guy, and played footie in a charity match for my local team years back, and none of us could work out what he had done at the time!( and indeed many of us still cannot)
I am enjoying the way we are chatting about classic, and mostly, untalked about music at the moment(these days).
Moving over to the USA, wasn`t it tragic that Del Shannon commited suicide on his birthday in 1990, whilst working with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn.
He was about to be the next big thing (again),I believe, Jeff Lynn, had just done this in various circles.
Which brings us to compiracy theories.....Did Elvis jump ? or did he push himself?...........

When I was 12 we went to one of those oldies concerts with various people in Glasgow(My occasional trip to the mainland). Del Shannon was included and was the only one out of 6 or 7 very successful artists who seemed to be able to sing and was note perfect on all of his performances (No he wasn't miming).

Several of Jess Conrad's Decca singles ended up on Kenny Everett's 'the worst records of all time" along with Mrs Miller's glorious "Lover's concerto"

Check her out here

www.mrsmillersworld.com/

and go here for a brief clip of her rendition of "The Girl From Ipanema" but you'll need windows media player.

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000J6.../002-2699404-0136843

Was Meek's Triumph Records the first britsh independent label?

Got a best of album and I love it Runaway, Searching and Needles and Pins are fanstastic you can buy the cheap on amazon go on treat yourself.

Jk done many classic covers why hasn't he Needles and Pins it a classic song that everyone knows Jk could do it better I think.

Not all JK's covers are fabulous. Have you heard Mississippi? I do love his version of "Just like a woman"

nm

It definitely appears to be.

surely not - the old Top Rank label was independent, easn't it. Later sold to Pye ?

And yet another box of wet taglietelli is spilled to the floor/forum MM!
Now surely, all the record companies started out as independent, I am going to go right back and beyond, and plump for HMV (global), Trojan, (Jamaica,) Atlantic, (USA) and its so difficult to classify companies like Pye, as you would put a Pye record on a Pye audio system, much as you would these days put a Sony cd in a branded cd player of theirs.
This thread definetly needs a Google search now!
Who was the very first record company to qualify as independent????

nm

What qualifies as labels as independent?
Very good question, martin k!

In the USA Victor and Columbia controlled the rights to the phono-technology.

So independent labels were labels, which entered the market illegal (befor the relevant patents expired)

The first independents were Starr Records (1915) and Gennett (1917) (both owned by the Starr Recording Company).

In Britain the market was controlled by Columbia and HMV (later merged to EMI).

Decca was an instant major (if there is something like this).

I'm not sure about Top Rank (owned by a cinema chain?) as an independent.<br><br>Post edited by: JK2006, at: 2006/02/21 13:48

Surely in those days there were only a couple of national distributors anyway?<br><br>Post edited by: JK2006, at: 2006/02/21 13:55

Ok, lets try and nail this thread down, as the English language does not make it easy!
Now, I believe that the first independent record companies, probably consisted of very skint music fans selling their wares , without backing, and probably had little motor homes a bit like in the Tom Hanks movie.
The word &quot;Independent&quot;, in a typical English language mode, has now two meanings(at least), but in this forum, it is only correct to do the relevent ones.
1.An independent seller.
2.An artiste that has given a finger up to the industry, and declared I am going to do it my(our) way.
Its a hard one this, and impossible to pin down, lets just give it to UK records and chat about something else!

Does anyone know the name of the arranger of the original single records of Something in the Air and Where do you go to my Lovely?

mikemacca wrote:
The thread might get lost, so I thought about starting a new one !

Re: Thunderclap Newman
In 1969, Pete Townshend, The Who's guitarist, created the band Thunderclap Newman to play songs written by former Who roadie, drummer/singer John 'Speedy' Keen (miscredited as 'Keene' on the single's label). Townshend produced the single, arranged its strings, played its bass under the pseudonym Bijou Drains, and hired for it eccentric GPO engineer and jazz pianist Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman and 15-year-old Glaswegian Jimmy McCulloch.

Bijou drains indeed!

Back to your time with Joe Meek, JK. I think the trick was to make yourself seem easy and prepared to do anything to get a record contract, which of course, put you out of the running!

One of the truly appalling Meek productions was Jess Conrad's &quot;Hurt me&quot;

Blimey thats an old thread , I didnt know they were all still there!
I`m pretty sure Pete Townsend did all the arrangement on &quot;Something in The Air&quot;, and even played drums on it.
&quot;Where do you Go To My Lovely&quot;, there was little arrangement on , and I assume Peter Sarstetd(?), did it himself, I worked with him in 1997, and he was a lovely shy and indeed nervous guy. All the brothers in the family, I think, had hits.
I didnt google that, it was from memory.

...is responsible for This Pullover. A truly unbelievable track! All together now...

&quot;This pullover, that you gave to me...&quot;

That thread inspired me to do one about Clifford T ward it is one of the longest on the site. I did wanted to know what cds to buy and people wanted to know more about him.