Robert Stigwood - Business Deal With EMI

Business Deal With EMI

In late 1961 Stigwood had made a record production deal with Sir Joseph Lockwood, managing director of EMI, who proved to be the crucial link between the record company and the budding entrepreneur, just as Lockwood had been in the 1950s for Larry Parnes, and just as he would be a couple of years later for Brian Epstein and The Beatles. From that time on, all John Leyton's singles were released on the HMV label, distributed by EMI.

Other artists Stigwood signed to a management/recording deal included Mike Sarne, whose Meek-produced "Come Outside" charted in 1962, and another Meek protégé, Mike Berry, who had scored a hit with the Geoff Goddard-penned "Tribute To Buddy Holly". Under Stigwood's guiding hand, Leyton, Sarne and Berry were still scoring hits but there was a major flaw in the EMI deal: the minuscule percentage that EMI was paying meant that Stigwood was barely able to make a profit from these recordings. Nevertheless, the system he pioneered changed the style and direction of the UK pop charts forever and his success with Leyton was instrumental in expanding his business, becoming simultaneously agent, manager and producer, a role he evidently relished.

Simon Napier-Bell:

"He became fascinated by it. He loved its trickery and tease, and the apparent ease with which money could be made ... And what made Robert Stigwood different from his predecessors is that he expanded laterally. He didn't remain simply a manager or an agent. He moved into music publishing as well, and into pop concert promotion. But his real contribution to the British music scene was independent record production." "He was in every way the first British music business tycoon, involved in every aspect of the music scene, and setting a precedent that was to become the blueprint of success for all future pop entrepreneurs."

Stigwood's other big innovation was in the songs that he selected. British acts had conventionally covered US hits after they had become successful there, but Stigwood began making regular trips to America to find new releases he thought had potential, and then rushing out UK covers by his acts before the originals hit the American charts.

Stigwood became extremely successful because of his control over all almost every facet of the business of his recording artists — agency, management, production, publishing and concert promotion. His business rapidly expanded and (according to Napier-Bell) Stigwood even bought one of the major music papers in a "fit of pique" when a Stigwood act failed to appear in their Top 30 chart.

He is understood to be gay. Despite the severe legal situation in Britain until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in private, it would not have been a disadvantage for Stigwood, as other important figures in the music industry were also gay. Some Australian music writers have suggested that the main reason why so few Australian acts were able to break into the UK music scene in the 1960s was that they were locked out by the so-called "Pink Mafia" that supposedly dominated British showbiz.