Magical Mystery Tours

by Tony Bramwell

  However, I was stunned when I saw him come on stage. He had just gone through some sort of breakdown and now he was wearing tuxedo trousers, shiny cowboy boots, a frilly shirt and a denim jacket. He carried a guitar and did Tim Hardin songs, like “If I Were a Carpenter.” The audience hated it. They wanted “Mack the Knife,” “Dream Baby,” “Splish Splash” and “Nature Boy,” all the Darin songs they had come to hear. They shouted for them, and Bobby hissed back at them.

  “Fuck off!” he snarled, very diplomatic. Then he took his Vegas wig off, picked up a banjo and went crazy on it. It was wonderful, absolutely unbelievable. He looked great and he sounded great. The guys and I whooped and cheered, trying to drown out the hecklers. It was a very eventful and exhilarating evening.

  A couple days later, I went to L.A. and Bobby Darin was there as well, doing the Troubadour this time, with Roger McGuinn from the Byrds backing him with banjo and twelve-string. I went to see him on the last night and was again blown away. The Troubadour was the perfect venue for the metamorphosed Bobby Darin. The buzz went around, “You’ve got to see Darin, he’s totally flipped.” Every night more and more people were going to see the show for themselves. By the end of the week, everyone from Crosby, Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, and the Byrds were all on stage with Bobby, a huge, star-studded folk-rock band, all picking away or singing. Acts like the Mamas and the Papas and Lovin’ Spoonful were packing the venues out in New York, and the Troubadour had picked up on this very quickly. They had taken a leap of faith by booking Bobby Darin and they were vindicated, too. It was wonderful to see this rebirth of a man whose career had hit the bottom.

  39

  I was sitting around one slow day in London with David Mindal, a friend and neighbor of mine in Barnes. Dave, a songwriter and a jingle writer, married Cherry of Pan’s People—the dancers on Top of the Pops—thereby breaking a million hearts. We were debating what to do, when he said, “Come on, Tone, let’s go to L.A.”

  It was early in March 1974, my birthday was looming, so I thought, why not? Packing nothing, not even a toothbrush, we hopped on a plane. On our arrival, we checked into a lavish suite at the Sunset Marquis and after a rest and a swim, called a few friends. It so happened that Jane Seymour, another of our neighbors in Barnes, was in L.A. at the time. I knew Jane well, because, apart from being a neighbor, she was in Live and Let Die. I had also just been to her wedding.

  When I telephoned her, she said, “Let’s go out to dinner. Susan’s here, and Olivia and her sister.” She was referring to Susan George and Olivia Newton-John.

  That night, we met up and ate in a Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica. Included in the party, which seemed to grow larger as we progressed through the evening, were some people from Chrysalis Records. We got totally jugged out of our heads on margaritas and were served mind-blowingly hot chili. In those days even guacamole dip seemed hot to anybody who grew up on roast lamb and mint sauce and fish and chips. I can remember how our eyes watered. We all grabbed the margarita jugs and drank from them.

  The following day, having barely recovered from the night before, I was wandering down the street—that nice bit along Santa Monica and la Cienega with palm trees and a view of the sea—when I bumped into Ron Kass and his wife, Joan Collins, whom I hadn’t seen for a long time—not since Kenneth Richards had run off with all our money. Joan had gotten Ron into the English habit of taking a stroll before lunch to sharpen the appetite. They asked if I would join them. We went to the Brown Derby and while ordering, I casually mentioned that it was my birthday.

  “Are you having a party, Tony?” Joan immediately asked.

  I said, “No, I thought I would just go out for a few beers with the lads.”

  “Oh, you must have a party,” Joan said, her eyes sparkling. She was really lovely, with her huge eyes, cute nose and fantastic skin and profile. She was a very beautiful woman—and still is.

  I shook my head, “It’s okay, I’ll just hang out.”

  “No, you will have a party, I insist,” said Joan. “Talk to him, Ron.”

  Ron grinned and shrugged. “You heard the lady,” he said. “She’s unstoppable when she gets an idea. You’d better just lie back and enjoy it, Tony, because it’s gonna happen.”

  Joan winkled out of me that I was staying at the Sunset and she said, “Right, I shall send a car for you at eight.” It was job done, so to speak, so we settled down to lunch and a good gossip.

  That night, the huge limo swished me up to Joan and Ron’s amazing home in Beverly Hills. I thought I’d seen it all, but this was very swish, very Hollywood. I don’t know how or where she had conjured them up at such short notice—obviously Joan had some kind of a magic wand—but when Dave and I walked in we found big smiles and gifts for the birthday boy, Tina Sinatra, Roger Moore and his wife, Luisa, Cybill Shepherd—and of course, Jane Seymour and friends.

  My gift from Roger was an obscene pair of Y-fronts with a rude message printed across the front and a ruder picture on the rear. He suggested I put them on immediately. I didn’t, of course. I wish I still had them. I like to think they might still be floating in the pool where they ended up. I fancied Tina, but wasn’t sure about the potential father-in-law. However, it started to dawn on me during the course of the evening that Joan had decided to do a little matchmaking of her own. She decided that Cybill and I were just made for each other. Sadly, despite some neat footwork on Joan’s part, it never happened.

  I was back in L.A. a few weeks later and this time the Don was involved—Don Arden, that is. I was head of promotions for Polydor with whom Don had a big distribution deal. One of his stars was Lynsey de Paul, who was Ringo’s current girlfriend. Ringo and Maureen were still married, and wouldn’t get divorced until July 1, 1975, but Ringo suddenly decided he didn’t want to be married and was playing the field. I promoted Lynsey’s single “Sugar Me” for Don, and did a good job.

  After leaving Apple, Ron Kass went to Warner Bros., home to Don’s Jet Records. Under Ron, Jet soon became a real contender in the industry. One day in 1974 Ron asked my help with promoting Lynsey’s new release, the title song from the TV sitcom, No, Honestly, which starred John Alderton and his wife, Pauline Collins—who eventually played “Shirley Valentine.” I dropped into Ron’s top-floor office in Greek Street and we chewed the fat a bit, catching up on news and gossip while we waited for Don to arrive.

  Don came in and he’s all business, no how are you, no polite chitchat. He said, “So! When yer gonna start then, Tone?”

  I did some quick mental calculations. Pressing plant. Advance copies. PR handouts. I said, “Probably tomorrow, Don. That okay?”

  He said, “Thursday, huh? Yeah I suppose that’ll be all right. Just make sure you’re on the case. I got a lot riding on this record.” He hadn’t. He was doing a number on me, a power trip, flapping his wings, playing the heavy.

  I hid a grin and said, “No problem. Come tomorrow, I’ll be round the radio stations, on the phone. Doing the business.”

  “Make sure you are,” he said, wanting to get in the last word. I thought to myself, “Prat!”

  That night, while I was having dinner at home in Barnes, Marty Machat called from New York. “Can you come over tomorrow, Tony? Phil Spector’s doing an album with Leonard Cohen and wants to discuss the promotion with you. I’ll meet you in L.A. In fact, I’ll buy you lunch at the Polo Lounge.”

  I jumped on an early plane, flew over the pole and arrived in L.A. When I walked into the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, there was Marty, sitting with Phil, Leonard Cohen, Steve Marriot—and Don Arden. Don’s mouth dropped open when he saw me. Everyone got up and greeted me warmly except of course Don, who was scowling. The others looked at him and thought, “Oh-oh! Heads down. Incoming.”

  Don glowered at me and said in his best menacing hood voice, “You shit! It’s Thursday! You’re s’posed to be promoting my record in London.”

  I looked at him as if I didn’t quite understand, looked at my watch and said,
“I’m here on regional promotion, Don. I just popped over for this meeting, okay? I don’t know why you’re giving me a hard time. After all, it’s only a time-zone thing. It may be lunchtime here on the West Coast but we’re so far ahead of London that in fact it’s still yesterday there and when I get back it’ll still be today.” Don went to say something. Stopped. Shut his mouth. Frowned.

  Marty cracked up and waved me to sit down with them. Besides handling Phil Spector’s affairs, Marty was also heavily involved with ELO, who were signed to Warner Bros. Records—who also distributed Jet for Ron and Don. Mo Ostin, who was running Warner in the States, had just put out a worldwide memo to the staff that they should not allow themselves, or Warner, to be intimidated by faux gangsters or hooligans, and that Jet Records must be dropped.

  Don had managed to get hold of a copy of this confidential memo and waved it about while he ate. “They’ve called me a persona non grata!” he said. “What the fuck’s going on?”

  Several decades earlier, Warner had the reputation of being connected to the mob through Bugsy Siegel, so it became a hilarious joke within the music industry for Warner to say they wanted no truck with the mob. Unbelievably, the memo started quite a panic and, as well as Jet Records, a lot of vowels got dropped. Overnight, according to the rumor mills, top executives at Warner went from being “Mr. Rossi” to being “Mr. Ross”—that kind of thing.

  Don and Marty had met up in L.A. to discuss some kind of united policy. It was agreed that with Jet doing so well they could look for another deal. After the meeting, Marty, as Don’s lawyer and representative, went straight to Walter Yetnikoff at CBS to negotiate a deal. Yetnikoff was delighted, always happy to pull a stroke on Warner. In fact, Walter, whose intake of recreational products rivaled Keith Richards’s, was always happy to pull a stroke on anyone. “Wildman” Walt took care of Michael Jackson, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand and Bruce Springsteen. He “never kissed anybody’s ass”—except for “the Japs at Sony,” who Walt was secretly talking into buying CBS for $2 billion. This would make Walt very powerful. He was so arrogant and rude that if someone like Keith Richards interrupted his flow, he’d tell him to fuck off to Switzerland and get a brain change to go with the blood change. Anything would rile him. After a heated argument over a joint with one rock star on his roster, the star moved to a new label.

  The fact that Jet was falling into Walt’s lap because of an antigangster memo at Warner didn’t alarm him at all. Walter appreciated the joke and was delighted to pay off the opposition to the tune of $15 million for ELO. This might seem a lot of money, but not many people appreciated that the record divisions of the huge conglomerates and industrials like CBS and Phillips were considered “toys” and “sidelines.” Another consideration was that companies like CBS had radio and television stations and if they didn’t have music, they had nothing popular to broadcast. It was a case of “feed the beast.”

  Similarly, Polygram (which was part of Phillips) and Thorn/EMI made hardware such as record players and tape machines. So it made perfect business sense to make records so that consumers would have something to listen to, and a reason to buy their equipment. Sony said that they bought CBS purely for the sake of getting software for their hardware, not for the records themselves. At first, these toy-town divisions made a few pennies here and there until suddenly the whole record industry caught fire in the wake of the Beatles and billions were pouring into their coffers. Music was very, very lucrative, but, as usual, no one was ready for it. Accountants were put in charge to run these enterprises. Alarmingly, accountants were even made head of A & R. After dithering for years, one day the American stock market crashed and Akio Morita—the man from Sony—stepped in, and picked up CBS Records for a song.

  At the close of the meal at the Polo Lounge, I could see that something else was still bugging Don. “So it’ll still be today when you get back to London, will it?” he suddenly said.

  “That’s right,” I replied. “Like I said, it’s all a matter of timing.”

  Don got his pen out and, frowning, while giving me the occasional evil eye, started to work it out on a napkin. Marty and I got up. Phil followed suit. As I made my escape, I looked back over my shoulder and saw Don still drawing diagrams and Steve Marriot, rocking back and forth, trying to drink some beer but laughing so much his hand was shaking.

  On the way out, we bumped into Jerry Weintraub, who owned a country club in Beverly Hills. He also managed Bob Dylan, John Denver and the Moody Blues and was married to Jane Morgan, who had a big hit many years ago with “The Day that the Rains Came Down.” I’d had dinner with him just the week before in London to discuss the promotion of the Blue Jays, the offshoot from the Moodies. He looked delighted to see me and pumped my hand enthusiastically. He shook hands with Phil, who looked completely mystified, and with Marty.

  “Hi Tony! What are you doing in L.A.?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, and said, “Right now I’m escaping from Don Arden.”

  Jerry nodded knowingly and quick as a flash, insisted that we accompany him to his club. Marty was all for it, so we leaped into a taxi to the club, where we spent the afternoon drinking and hiding. I got to work on Lynsey’s record a few days late, but since it did well, Don was none the wiser. At least, he seemed a happy man as it steadily climbed the charts. It even won an Ivor Novello award. Big kudos for me, and I still had a full complement of legs.

  In September 1974, Warner asked me to promote Ronnie Wood’s first solo album with the strange title of I’ve Got My Own Album to Do. The reception to launch it was held at Ronnie Scott’s club in Soho. It was the usual lavish Warner Bros. Records bash with a continuous buffet lunch and drinks all afternoon so it was almost inevitable that everyone got well oiled, especially, I have to admit, me and Ronnie.

  At some stage we got into a huddle with the American contingent who had flown over: Jerry Moss, head of A&M, and Mo Ostin, Warner’s famed L.A. boss, he of the notorious antimob memo. As afternoon gave way to the evening and we were still partying, I suddenly remembered in a bit of an alcoholic haze that Ravi Shankar was performing that night at the Albert Hall. George had asked me to come, but I told him that I had the record company bash to attend.

  “Well, bring all the lads,” George had said, enthusiastically.

  “Right,” I’d said. Well, I didn’t want to let George down, so I announced, “C’mon boys, we’ve got to go to the Albert Hall for one of George’s things.” I hustled Ronnie, Jerry, Mo, Eric Clapton and a couple of others out of the club and into a taxi. We arrived at the Albert Hall a bit late and a lot noisy. Very rowdy and boisterous. Thoughtfully, George had laid on the royal box and drinks for us. On the stage, seated cross-legged on a cushion, Ravi was doing his thing.

  Somewhat baffled. Mo leaned across and asked, rather loudly, as only someone quite drunk can do, “What kind of music is that, Tony?”

  “Ravi is doing a raga, Mo,” I said. At least, it was what I presumed was a raga, because that’s the only word I knew for describing a jolly Indian tune for the sitar and tabla and the various other Eastern instruments littering the stage.

  “Is he? A raga, huh?” Mo repeated, doubtfully. Then, he nodded solemnly as he sipped his Scotch. “Raga,” he muttered. “How ’bout that? A fuckin’ raga!”

  Some twenty minutes later, when Ravi finally finished the long and tedious number, mainly for George’s sake—because it had bored the pants off us—we started applauding. In fact, being in a very generous mood, we gave Ravi a standing ovation, holding up our cigarette lighters, whistling and shouting, “More! More! Author! Author!” It must have been obvious to everyone that we were well plastered.

  George went potty. He came running into the box, waving his arms and yelling. He had a walkie-talkie clamped to his head. I suppose this was in order to be in touch with the engineers on the desk and to help his mate Ravi get a really good sound balance. But now George was in a really bad temper.

  “You’re being disrespectful to a
great artist!” George shouted.

  “But, George, we’re cheering,” I protested.

  “He’s only been tuning up!” George ranted. I was about to say something smart, but George wasn’t done. I think he was embarrassed because people mistook Ravi’s “tuning” for the real thing so frequently that he had come to use his tuning-up thing as a bit of a gimmick. George went on to accuse us of being “leeches” and “living off the music industry.” From the stage, Ravi squinted up at our box, wondering what his mate and best benefactor, George Harrison, was up to. During all this time, the audience gazed up at the right royal rumpus in the royal box. George finally calmed down, we settled down, and Ravi started his performance in earnest. I have to say it was grim from that moment onward.

  Afterward, there was a party for Ravi in what I always called “the house of green tiles” up Holland Park way. This was a house with white stucco walls and an emerald green roof, famous for its “strangeness,” for its for bizarre happenings and the peculiar people who drifted in and out of its doors. Plenty of Indian vegetarian and macrobiotic food was laid out. Eric Clapton and Ronnie Wood evidently didn’t approve of the offerings because they started a food fight, with beanshoot bhajis and handfuls of brown rice hitting the assembled guests and spattering the walls. That did it. George hit the roof.

  “There are people starving out in India, you know!” he shouted at them. We knew that, we really did. We’d just had too many drinks at the record company bash, and now it was too late for any decorum. The “house of green tiles” ended up a mess and with George almost in tears. We left to party on through the night, I’m not sure where—but it was somewhere without sitars, green tiles, brown rice and George.

  40

  Toward the end of 1975, I got another phone call from Marty Machat in New York. This time it was to say that after a long period of derangement, Phil had calmed down. I immediately looked at the calendar. Yes, Christmas was coming round again and—guess what?—Phil wanted to put out the famous Christmas Album, again. Foolishly, I agreed to help. I went back to Warner and set up another nice deal. I told them that we should call the album, Phil Spector—Out of His Christmas Tree, but in the end we just pressed it up in blue vinyl, packaged it in a seasonal Christmas-balls effect, used the proper title, made it nice, and once more it did really well.