Simon Napier-Bell (b. April 22, 1939 in Ealing
Common, London,
England)
has undertaken many jobs in the music industry, including bandboy,
manager, producer, songwriter, journalist and author. But he is
best-known as manager, particularly of The
Yardbirds, John's Children, Marc
Bolan, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Japan, London,
Wham!
and Blue Mercedes.
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Contents
- 1 The
early years
- 2 The
music business
- 2.1 Songwriter
- 2.2 Manager
- 2.3 Author
- 3 See
also
- 4 External
links
|
The early years
He went to both a private prep school, Durston House in Ealing, and to a
state primary school at Perivale. Then to both a grammar school (Harrow
County, later the school of Michael Portillo) and to a public
school (Bryanston in Dorset). At
Bryanston he formed the school’s first jazz band, much frowned on by the
authorities. When he left school at the age of seventeen it was with
the idea of becoming a professional musician, preferably in America.
A year later, unable to get a visa for the States, he emigrated to Canada but after
working as a musician
for two years he decided he wanted to do something different. He spent
a year hitch-hiking across America.
The music business
Songwriter
When he returned to England he worked as an assistant film
editor. With a thorough knowledge of music, he soon progressed to being
a music editor and landed the job of working with Burt
Bacharach on What’s New Pussycat, re-editing the
score Burt had written for it. Later, he also scored, wrote and edited
music for Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, a
film directed by Clive Donner.
In 1966, Dusty Springfield
approached Napier-Bell and Vicki Wickham to write an English lyric to
an Italian song she’d heard at the Sanremo
Festival. The result was You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
which became Dusty’s first number one.
Manager
His friend Vicki Wickham, who booked all the acts
for the TV show Ready Steady Go, persuaded him to
move into the music managemet. He started by putting together an act of
his own – Nicky Scott &
Diane Ferraz – a boy from London and a girl from the West
Indies. The inter-racial mix was a first for the British music business.
On the back of the publicity Napier-Bell generated for Scott
and Ferraz, The Yardbirds asked him if
he would manage them. They were looking for a replacement for their
original manager, the eccentric Russian, Giorgio
Gomelsky. With the group’s bassist, Paul Samwell-Smith,
Napier-Bell then co-produced the Yardbirds’ first studio album – Roger
the Engineer. He then oversaw the entry of Jimmy
Page into the group and produced the group’s next single, Happenings
Ten Years Time Ago, considered one of the most avant garde
rock records of the time.
Napier-Bell went on to manage John's
Children, who were known more for their ability to shock than
for their music and who were thrown off a major tour of Germany for
upstaging The
Who with an act that included running round the audience
throwing feathers in the air and whipping each other with chains.
Napier-Bell then teamed up with ex-comedian Ray Singer to produce records for various
artists including the Scaffold (a group which
included Paul McCartney's brother, Mike
McGear), Peter Sarstedt, Forever More (which went on to change
itself into The Average White Band)
and lesser known acts, Plus and Brut. He also spent a year in Australia
where he produced Alison McCallum and Bobbi Marchini and John
Paul Young (whom he later claimed, somewhat erroneously, to have
discovered).
Following this, Napier-Bell worked in Spain and South
America for two years, managing one of Spain’s biggest stars, Junior, with whom
he co-wrote several Spanish hits, in particular the biggest selling
Spanish language singles of the seventies, Perdoname.
In 1976,
Napier-Bell came back to London and returned to management with two new
groups, London, a group in the then
current punk vein, and Japan, an art-rock group. London
was a short lived project (two national tours, two singles, a 4 track
EP and an album for MCA Records) but Japan involved him for the next
seven years. Napier-Bell persevered with them through five lean years
to eventually help make them one of the most influential groups of the
early eighties, both musically and fashion-wise.
He then teamed up with manager Jazz Summers and together they took on
the management of Wham!.
The group had already had three hit singles in the UK
but wanted to terminate their contract with the record company,
Innervision. Napier-Bell and Summers led them through four months of
legal complications (during which they were unable to record), and
finally settled the case by signing a new contact with CBS.
Napier-Bell spent eighteen months travelling backwards and
forwards to China
negotiating for Wham!
to become the first ever Western pop artist to play in communist
China. They eventually played a concert there in April 1985 at the Worker's
Stadium in Beijing.
At the end of 1985,
Wham!
ended its relationship with Napier-Bell and Summers when George
Michael left Wham! for a solo career. Napier-Bell
went on to manage the duo Blue Mercedes, who had one
worldwide hit, I Want To Be Your Property (1987), which stayed at
#1 in the US dance charts for 4 weeks. Napier-Bell also arranged for
the defunct pop group Boney M to reform and had all their old
tracks remixed by Stock Aitken Waterman. The
result was an album that stayed at number one in the French charts for
four months but sold little elsewhere.
Following this, Napier-Bell teamed up with another manager, Sir Harry
Cowell, and they took on the management of two once major groups
looking to revive their careers – Asia
and Ultravox.
Asia
fared better than Ultravox but eventually Napier-Bell gave up
on both of them and spent three years writing a book, Black
Vinyl White Powder, Napier-Bell chose to go back to
management, this time working in Russia, first managing Alsou, a girl
singer, then Smash!!,
a boy duo with Wham!
similarities. In both cases, big success in Russia was not followed up
with success in the rest of the world.
Author
When Japan broke up, Napier-Bell
wrote his first book, You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me,
about his experiences in the music business in the 1960s. When he
ceased managing Asia and Ultravox he wrote another book, Black
Vinyl White Powder, about the British music business which
was received with favourable reviews. In March 2005 he published
another book, I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch, the
story of how he took Wham! to China.
- Napier-Bell,
Simon (1998). You Don't Have to Say You Love Me.
Ebury Press. ISBN
0-09-186573-5.
- Napier-Bell,
Simon (2001). Black Vinyl, White Powder.
Ebury
Press. ISBN
0-09-188092-0.
- Napier-Bell,
Simon (2006). I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch:
A Fantastic Tale of Boys, Booze and How Wham! Were Sold to China.
Warner
Books. ISBN
1-932958-56-8.
He now lives mainly in Thailand where he is working on a new book.
See also
Bryanston School
External links
