Morning world,heard you missed me........well I'm back 1 I've been on a brief promotional tour of the Deep South...Brighton,Hove ,Shoreham etc etc signing copies of my new self-help book .....How To Be a Musical Genius in 3,678 Simple Steps .....available in good book stores near you ,or send a blank cheque made out to The Soul Guru,I will do the rest.
Now I bang on a lot about being The Godfather of British Black Music A&R and all the great bands I signed and ,like most A&R guys ,I neatly gloss over the many bands I signed that weren't successful....after all noone likes to mention their failures do they ? Especially mine with that great looking girl back in 1978...but thats another story for another day
The joy of signing a band and seeing them achieve great success is incredible but equally the despair and sadness of signing a band you genuinely believe in and care about failing is heart-breaking. I was very close to all the bands I signed ,I loved their talent and in most cases they were great people and we became friends too . I can honestly say that in my time in the business I have only ever fallen out badly with one person ......you know who you are and if you're reading this you're still an ignorant xxxx !
One of the best bands I signed that I still think should have been HUGE are Floy Joy - Mike and Sean Ward with the fantastic Carroll Thompson on vocals made an brilliant album Produced by Don Was ( that's when Don met Gemma who is now Mrs Was so I'm responsible for that too ! ) that contained the awesome " Weak In The Presence of Beauty " that was a big hit for Alison Moyet . I thought ( and still think ) that they were just so good that the world wasn't quite ready for them........
It was tough for me when a band failed ,but I knew it was far far worse for the artists whose dreams had been shattered ..........to all of you that I worked with and couldn't make it happen for I'm sorry I really am
I will be back tomorrow with more wise words
TSG xx
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