1 = GEORGE MICHAEL £90m ($138m)
2 = MICK HUCKNALL £35m ($54m)
3 = KYLIE MINOGUE £35m ($54m)
The richest UK popstar of all is ex-Beatle
Sir Paul McCartney £475m ($731m).
Source: Sunday Times Rich List 2010
[Alas this sound recording no longer works]
Posted in 20th century, History, influencers, musicians, Pop music, rock music, Youth culture, zeitgeist
Tagged George Michael, Kylie Minogue, Mick Huicknall, Paul McCartney
Having a blast: Siouxsie Sioux at Troxy, London, jaunty and relaxed and chatty. (Photograph by James Watkins)
“ There was definitely an air of expectation awaiting the return of Siouxsie Sioux live in London after a ten-year hiatus. . . Dressed in baby-blue flowing light bodysuit with voluminous sleeves, pussy bow and flared, long hair streaked with grey, this was Morticia in unexpected cocktail glamour mode. The fashion belied the opening which was the gates of hell grind ‘Night Shift’ with uncompromising refrain guaranteed to throw any new fans in the deep end (visit the live album Nocturne 1983 if you need an introduction) but sated the appetite of the rest of us.
“ We took a trip through both the Banshees’ back catalogue and tracks from Siouxsie’s solo album Mantaray and work with Budgie and The Creatures. What was engaging about this evening was how jaunty and relaxed she was on this surprise return to the live stage, more chatty than I can ever remember and because she was having a blast so were we. This osmosis between audience and artist galvanised her performance. . . that unwavering support from fans and how songs reignite so many potent memories of past teenage lives and how these songs signposted myriad experiences. . . ” / Continued at apolarisview
Posted in Concert, London, punk, Reviews, rock music, Youth culture
Tagged Andy Polaris, Banshees, Siouxsie Sioux, Troxy
On the road for the finale, 2022: Steve Mackey, Rob Arthur, Frampton, Dan Wojciechowski and Adam Lester
❚ SIXTIES ACE FACE and prolific British guitarist and composer Peter Frampton arrives this weekend in the UK for Finale, the Farewell Tour which includes the Royal Albert Hall on Tuesday, postponed from 2020 by the Covid lockdown. A degenerative muscle disorder means that, at the age of 72, he will be seated on stage during his final European performances. “Standing,” he told GuitarWorld.com, “would be dangerous for me now, because I get so carried away when I’m playing that I’m liable to fall over.”
Having gone to high school in Bromley with David Bowie where they fronted rival bands, Frampton became the lead singer and guitarist in The Herd, his good looks being celebrated on the cover of the trendy Rave! magazine as The Face of ’68. He then formed Humble Pie with Mod “little” Stevie Marriott from the Small Faces. Major international success came as a solo artist in 1976 with the block-busting live album, Frampton Comes Alive!, from which came the self-penned arena rock singles Show Me The Way, Baby I Love Your Way and Do You Feel Like We Do. The album stayed for 55 weeks in the Billboard top 40 as the top-selling album of that year.
Stardom: 1968, Rave! magazine cover as The Face of ’68… and 1976, Frampton Comes Alive! to sell 17 million copies
Platinum albums and a Grammy award have proved his talent as a survivor, working with Jerry Lee Lewis, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bill Wyman, David Bowie, BB King and many more legends. Rolling Stone named him its Artist of the Year, claiming that Frampton “was loved by teenage girls, and their older brothers” and in its 2012 poll of all-time favourite live albums, FCA! was voted No 3. In 1979, Frampton received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2021 he released the instrumental album Frampton Forgets the Words, the second since announcing his retirement. The Finale tour embarked on its American-Canadian dates before lockdown – “The most moving tour I’ve ever done,” Frampton told Guitar World. “It’s very emotional for me saying goodbye to anybody, let alone ten thousand people a night.” Now he’s braced for Stoke, Glasgow and London: “My band and I have been chomping at the bit to play and can’t wait to keep our promise to play for you again.”
➢ Search for last-minute tickets
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s:
2011, How Bowie changed my life at Bromley Tech
Seven Webster: probably the nicest guy in rock
He said yesterday: “I am extremely honoured to have been appointed an ambassador for the first ever BA (Hons) Music Business Degree in the UK. Encouraging fresh entrepreneurial spirit is the very essence of what is going to help shape, strengthen and sustain the future of music. To lend my support to future generations of creative like-minded spirits is wonderful.”
Announcing his appointment, The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (ICMP) declared: “Seven is a successful and well-respected music industry professional, who has worked across various parts of the sector. The kind of entrepreneurial spirit he embodies is at the heart of our course and his insight and experience will be an invaluable asset for our students.
“His 7pm Management company has launched and managed the careers of numerous established top 40 artists and DJs over the last 30 years. This includes the likes of superstar DJs Sasha, John Digweed and Carl Cox through to the multi-million selling singer-songwriter Dido and rock band Skindred.”
Other ventures have included running music publishing companies and organising live music events. In 2015 which Seven described as “a very buoyant time for rock”, people were actively signing rock acts and wielding what he believed was “a cumulative fist”.
Seven Webster when we first met, 1983 at the Padded Cell… and as guitarist in postpunk band Geschlechts-Akt, 1984
Seven is one of a seemingly small band of brothers who is determined to assert his creative ideals. He draws on a lifelong love of music, saying “it’s my heart and soul”, having kicked off playing guitar in a post-punk band called Geschlechts-Akt (a messy German mouthful meaning Sex Act). He is also intensely sociable and has a quip ready to account for most eventualities. As he told us at the age of 20: “I just hate staying in. I’ll go to ice-cream and jelly parties, anything.”
➢ IMCP breaks the news of Seven’s appointment
➢ Previously at Shapers of the 80s:
1983, Deciphering the code of the Padded Cell
Posted in business, Clubbing, education, London, rock music, Swinging 80s, Youth culture
Tagged 7pm Management, BA (Hons), Geschlechts-Akt, IMCP, Padded Cell, Seven Webster
Little Richard in 1957: So many saxophones in the band that Bowie as a child went out and bought his own
“Some cat was layin’ down some rock n roll…” The young David Jones soaked up influences like a dry sponge and he found the music and attitude of Little Richard, among others, inspirational to say the least. As a 15-year-old in 1962, Jones saw Little Richard live for the first time and then again the following year with The Rolling Stones as one of the support acts. He listed the 1959 album, The Fabulous Little Richard, among his favourite 25 for a Vanity Fair feature in 2003.
Bowie’s own Star Pic of Little Richard: described as his most treasured possession (© The David Bowie Archive)
Here’s Bowie talking in 1991: “I sent away for a photograph of Little Richard when I was seven years old, it was called Star Pic and it took eight weeks to arrive and when it arrived it was torn… and I was absolutely broken-hearted. The first record I think I bought was called I Got It, which he later re-wrote as She’s Got It. And ever since I saw that photograph, I realised he had so many saxophones in his band. So I went out and bought a saxophone intending that when I grew up I’d work in the Little Richard band as one of his saxophonists. Anyway it didn’t work out like that, but without him I think myself and half of my contemporaries wouldn’t be playing music.”
We’ll leave you with a Tweet posted by David’s son, Duncan Jones: “From what my dad told me about his love of this legend growing up, it’s very likely he would not have taken the path he did without the huge influence of Little Richard. One of the highest of the high. Enjoy whatever’s next, Superstar.”
Bowie and Richard 1991: click pic to view video interviews in a new tab
Excerpt from Charles White’s authorised biography, The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Quasar of Rock (Harmony Books, Sept 1984)
Richard meets Connolly: Click on pic to run BBC video in a new tab
❏ ABOVE: In one of his first TV appearances, the Evening Standard’s Ray Connolly interviews rock-n-roll’s irrepressible icon Little Richard for Late Night Line-up in 1972. “I used to be an opera singer, Oh-ooohhhhhh!” (© Posted by BBC Archive)
Little Richard in 1971: “his queerness made him dynamic”
➢ Little Richard’s queer triumph – The legend himself sometimes sought to distance himself from the LGBTQ community but his queerness is what made him a dynamic performer – by Myles E. Johnson in The New York Times, 10 May 2020
➢ Prime force of rock-n-roll who made an explosive impact with songs such as Tutti Frutti, Good Golly, Miss Molly, Lucille and Long Tall Sally – by Michael Gray in The Guardian, 10 May 2020
➢ Too black, too queer, too holy: why Little Richard never truly got his dues – How did a turbaned drag queen from the sexual underground of America’s deep south ignite rock-n-roll? We unravel the mystery behind Little Richard’s subversive genius – by Tavia Nyong’o in The Guardian, 12 May 2020
➢ How Little Richard changed the world: The legacy of the singer, who died last week, goes beyond music and helped change our attitudes to race, sex and class – by Daniel Finkelstein in The Times, 12 May 2020
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent has returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm… Catch Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
◆ Who was who in Spandau’s break-out year of 1980? The Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s draws a selective timeline for The unprecedented rise and rise of Spandau Ballet –– Turn to our inside page
✱ If you thought there was no more to know about the birth of Blitz culture in 1980 then get your hands on a sensational book by an obsessive music fan called David Barrat. It is gripping, original and epic – a spooky tale of coincidence and parallel lives as mind-tingling as a Sherlock Holmes yarn. Titled both New Romantics Who Never Were and The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet! Sample this initial taster here at Shapers of the 80s
✱ Jawing at Soho Radio on the 80s clubland revolution (from 32 mins) and on art (@55 mins) is probably the most influential shaper of the 80s, former Wag-club director Chris Sullivan (pictured) with editor of this website David Johnson
➢ Search for all on Bowie here
at Shapers of the 80s
✱ “I’m not a rock star” Bowie often said – No, David, you were a messiah – Obituaries and key videos on the godlike one
✱ Prince Rogers Nelson RIP: ‘A funny cat’ and ‘sole authentic genius’ of the 1980s
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