The Secret History of Entertainment
Barry Manilow, uniquely, can call upon his legions of faithful admirers no matter where he may be booked, and his contract simply informs the promoter that ‘Barry’s fan club shows up at 11.00 am to decorate his dressing room’.
Elton John is clearly no stranger to the ‘do you know who I am?’ gambit, which is why the contract warns darkly that the star ‘will not wear his pass once he has arrived backstage’.
Cher needs a room just for her wigs.
Years touring the heartland gave Johnny Cash an unrivalled instinct for what works, which is why he demanded ‘an American flag is required in full view of the audience throughout the show’.
There are certain things that not even the biggest show can afford to carry around, which is why Michael Bolton expects the promoter to provide ‘the services of the best African/American or ethnic/mixed gospel choir in your market’.
Like a true Brit, Joe Cocker feels that the whole event should be built around drinking. His contract is most specific about the proper temperature: ‘Beer to be iced at 6 pm, re-iced at 8pm and again at 10.45 (“With A Little Help From My Friends”)’.
Busta Rhymes could just be showing off when he asks for ‘one box of Rough Rider condoms (ribbed)’, but it’s best not to ask.
Foo Fighters are known as a group with a sense of humour and a due sense of their place in the scheme of things. Hence they quietly assert that they ‘shall not be required to share a dressing room with any other performer, except Supergrass, Oasis or maybe Led Zeppelin’.
BB King will be on the bus and halfway out of town by the time the crowd have got to their feet to applaud, which is why under ‘After-show food and beverages’ he ticks the box marked ‘nothing’.
Ever since the 1960s James Brown has sought to foster the illusion that his act puts such a strain on him that his health is in danger whenever he is on stage. The promoters are warned: ‘There must be an oxygen tank and mask on stage at all times’.
Finally, Chuck Berry never encumbers himself with such frills as a band. He expects the promoter to be ready with ‘three musicians including drummer with set of drums, one pianist with piano and one bass player and bass’.
DELIA SMITH MADE THE LET IT BLEED CAKE
Arguably rock and roll’s most famous piece of patisserie, the garish cake on the front of The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed album was baked by a young Delia Smith. At the time, August 1969, the album was destined to be called Automatic Changer and designer Robert Brownjohn was given a budget of £1,000 to produce the sleeve. Delia Smith, mean-while, had just begun a column in the Daily Mirror and was a jobbing freelance home economist working for a food photographer.
‘One day they said they wanted a cake for a Rolling Stones record cover,’ she said later. ‘It was just another job at the time. They wanted it to be very over the top and as gaudy as I could make it.’ The confection, which sat upon a can of film, a tyre and a clock face, is a glacé-cherried paean to gaudiness, making it one she made earlier which has outlived all others.
CHANGING SEX IN SHOW BUSINESS
Changing one’s gender is difficult enough in civilian life. In show business it rarely escapes comment entirely. In her biography, the composer and synthesiser pioneer Wendy Carlos makes no mention of the fact that her first records, Switched On Bach and the music from the soundtrack of A Clockwork Orange, originally came out in the late 1960s under the name of Walter Carlos. She recently successfully took action against the avant-garde group Momus for including a song speculating about the prospect of a marriage between her male and female selves. The Walter Carlos records have since been ‘re-badged’ as Wendy Carlos albums.
Wally Stott was one of the most distinguished arrangers of the 1960s, responsible for the sound of hits for Frankie Vaughan and Shirley Bassey, the soundtrack of The Looking Glass War and, probably most famously, the distinctive tuba tune which is forever linked in the memory with Hancock’s Half Hour. Since the late 1960s his work, including the Academy Award-nominated arrangements for The Little Prince and The Slipper and the Rose, has been appearing under the name Angela Morley. She now lives and works in Arizona.
Transsexuals working in the punk rock field didn’t match the discretion of the two above. Wayne County (born Wayne Smith in 1947) was a member of the Warhol circle and was already performing in drag when he was signed by David Bowie’s management in 1973. In the late 1970s he underwent surgery and re-emerged as Jayne County, under which name she continues to perform. Her life and times are chronicled in the book Man Enough to be a Woman.
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