- Simon Napier-Bell
Simon Napier-Bell (born
April 22 1939 ,Ealing Common ,London ,England ) has undertaken many jobs in themusic industry , including bandboy, manager, producer, songwriter, journalist and author. But he is best-known as manager, particularly ofThe Yardbirds ,John's Children ,Marc Bolan , Tyrannosaurus Rex, Japan, London,Wham! andBlue Mercedes .The early years
He went to both a private prep school, Durston House in
Ealing , and to a state primary school atPerivale . Then to both a grammar school (Harrow County, later the school ofMichael Portillo ) and to a public school (Bryanston inDorset ). At Bryanston he formed the school’s firstjazz 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 toCanada but after working as amusician for two years he decided he wanted to do something different. He spent a year hitch-hiking across America.The music business
ongwriter
When he returned to
England he worked as an assistantfilm editor . With a thorough knowledge of music, he soon progressed to being a music editor and landed the job of working withBurt 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 byClive Donner .In 1966,
Dusty Springfield approached Napier-Bell and Vicki Wickham to write an English lyric to an Italian song she’d heard at theSanremo 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 music management. He started by putting together an act himself; Nicky Scott & Diane Ferraz; a boy fromLondon and a girl from theWest 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 ofJimmy 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 upstagingThe 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 includedPaul McCartney 's brother,Mike McGear ),Peter Sarstedt , Forever More (which went on to change itself intoThe Average White Band ) and lesser known acts, Plus and Brut. He also spent a year inAustralia where he producedAlison McCallum and Bobbi Marchini andJohn Paul Young (whom he later claimed, somewhat erroneously, to have discovered).Following this, Napier-Bell worked in
Spain andSouth 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 forWham! to become the first ever Western pop artist to play incommunist China. They eventually played a concert there in April 1985 at the Worker's Stadium inBeijing .At the end of 1985,
Wham! ended its relationship with Napier-Bell and Summers whenGeorge Michael leftWham! for a solo career. Napier-Bell went on to manage the duoBlue 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 groupBoney M. to reform and had all their old tracks remixed byStock 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 thanUltravox 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 managingAlsou , a girl singer, thenSmash!! , a boy duo withWham! 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! toChina .*
*
*He now lives mainly in
Thailand where he is working on a new book.ee also
Bryanston School External links
* [http://www.simonnapierbell.com/ www.simonnapierbell.com]
* [http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/simonnapierbell.html The Knitting Circle: Popular Culture]
* [http://books.guardian.co.uk/top10s/top10/0,6109,625380,00.html Favorite music books]
*imdb name|0621048|Simon Napier-Bell
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