Farewell Robert Stigwood who died yesterday aged 81.
It was a game of two halves for Stigwood. He came from Adelaide, South Australia in 1954 to London where he worked with Joe Meek, Larry Parnes and others before forming his own production company.
Stigwood was also supposedly the man Don Arden’s heavies dangled out of a first floor window for trying to poach Arden’s band the Small Faces
The first record I’ve found with his “RS” logo was by soap star turned pop crooner John Leyton who spent 15 weeks at number one with the Joe Meek produced Johnny Remember Me
After that he managed The Graham Bond Organisation featuring Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. This lead to Cream being signed to Stigwood’s own Reaction label with its wonderful mod-tastic label design.
He lured the Who away from Brunswick for one Reaction album (A Quick One) and a handful of singles.
At one point Stigwood managed both The Bee Gees and Cream which lead to claims of neglect from both bands.
http://i.imgur.com/hfQj7Hl.png
The second half of Stigwood’s career was dominated by the Bee Gees and the movie Saturday Night Fever, plus other films and stage musicals, most of them not nearly as interesting to us here.
I love this picture of Stigwood with his first two big bands, Cream and the Bee Gees circa 1968. It was definitely a case of when worlds collide.
http://i.imgur.com/08fRAx7.jpg
Looks like a staff meeting at a trendy sixties 6th form college with RS as the headmaster
For the uninitiated , the two standing between Stigwood and Ginger Baker are Aussie musicians Colin Peterson (drums) and Vince Melouney (guitar) who made up the five man Bee Gees line-up for a while between 1966-69.
Colin Peterson being the former child actor who’d portrayed ‘Smiley’. (Not the spy)
‘Smiley Roams the Road’ was one of my favourite ever books when I was a kid. Still haven’t given up on my dreams of swimming with turtles.
Thanks @ianess – I’ve been trying to remember the title of ‘Smiley Gets a Gun’ for over forty years now and you’ve just prompted the answer for me. I loved that film.
Gosh yes, Smiley – I loved that film. Dear, dear Ralph Richardson was in it, I see, as well as the inevitable Chips Rafferty.
That’s some great trivia Ian.
Pedant note: Colin Peterson only played Smiley in the first Smiley movie; in “Smiley Gets A Gun” the character was played by one Keith Calvert.
True to form, Australian media reported on Stigwood’s demise with a glowing local boy done good tribute which was slightly marred by the Bee Gee song used to farewell him.
Would you believe ‘Stayin Alive’?
Why do you stay in a country you so clearly despise?
You might actually learn to like the place if you didn’t spend all your spare time shitcanning it on the internet.
ahem
Uh?
Sorry, mate, you know how it works
http://i.imgur.com/H655nhm.jpg
Totally unfair criticism that. I don’t spend my spare time shitcanning it on the internet, I do it in real life too. (Is shitcan a real word?)
And here he is, for red necks everywhere – the great Hag.
Tongue in cheek. No, really.
I didn’t tell him to leave. I asked him why he stays. There is a big difference.
Australia is a great country. Better than almost anywhere else I’ve been.
It just needs to stop trying so hard to convince itself of that.
And get a bit of a sense of humour.
you write some fantastic stuff GJ- that review of the Krays was one of the best movie reviews I’ve ever read but you do seem to spend a lot of time shitcanning various aspects of australian society, culture ,they way we speak etc.
Its not a case of love it or leave it ,drape the flag Cronulla type of thing.
Just seems unnecessary.
Sorry if it offends you JW but most of the time it’s t in c and to be fair there are some aspects of Australian society that deserves a bit of a serve. Aboriginal rights (or lack thereof for a start).
There are a million things that shit me about Australia, (don’t have time to list them all here) The thing that got my goat is I read the Chris Gayle thread and you were giving it to Australia and then the very next thread I open you were doing it again. I found that a bit much.
I always knew this quote would come in handy
Peter Ustinov said “All nations have their own sense of humour. Only the English accuse others of not having one”
That’s the English for you. Twats.
He may have said British
Alright lads, calm down, calm down!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STIvNjWobzA
In the Chris Gayle thread I was highlighting the hypocrisy of gender issues, hardly confined to Australia, that. The Stigwood thing was about a obituary using ‘Staying Alive’ as background music – which could well have been deliberate – how’s that bagging Australia?
And as for British – that’s worse. Don’t even get me started on the Scots….
How long have you lived here GJ? No agenda here – just interested to know . Sometimes you sound like a newcomer i.e. less tan ten years and then you will haul some stuff out about bands that suggests much longer.
don’t bother, just saw it on the other thread 1999,
Ok, here we go –
Aussie Reasons To Be Cheerful, 1, 2, 3
All of Paul Kelly, footie on the telly, Michael Rischitelli and roos.
Great barrier reef, wagyu beef, Nimbin bud and leaf and didgeridoos.
Vietnamese food, swimming in the nude, being slightly rude and Uluru.
Early acca-dacca, slagging off Macca, no more Kerry Packer, now over to you…
The rear end of Kylie,
The movie known as “Smiley”
Snaggs on the barbie,
Holden V8 twin carby
I’ve lived in Australia for 35 years and so much about it shits me (racism, sexism, social inequality, over-emphasis on sport, lack of support and appreciation of the arts etc etc). I have so many wonderful friends there (I say “there” because I’m home in NZ at the moment), brilliant, creative people, and they also have the shits with their own country, for the same reasons. The thing is, it’s actually a fantastic place in so many ways compared to the rest of the world – relatively wealthy, peaceful, you can say what you like and you won’t get locked up, etc etc. So why do Australians fuck it up for themselves?
Err human possibly. Pretty weird history.
Too much sun ?
Let us not forget he produced the film of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Marvellous.
The soundtrack LP is famous for many reasons:
From Wiki:
Regarded as one of the worst albums ever recorded, the release made history as being the first record to “return platinum”, with over four million copies of it taken off store shelves and shipped back to distributors. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the album ended up being destroyed by RSO. The company itself experienced a considerable financial loss and the Bee Gees as a group had their musical reputation tarnished, though other involved bands such as Aerosmith were unscathed in terms of their popularity.
And here’s the sleeve of that ill-fated 1978 double LP
http://i.imgur.com/OpInRaH.jpg
Back to you comments @johnny-concheroo re Satinwood and claims of neglect. The Derek and the dominoes albums were on RSO and from my collection I can see EC was here, 461 and One in Every Crowd also on RSO.
So why did Eric stay in the stable?
To be strictly accurate, the first two Cream LPs and first three singles were on Stigwood’s Reaction LP in the UK. All their other albums were released on Polydor.
First pressings of Layla were also on Polydor.
The RSO (Robert Stigwood Organisation) label was formed in 1973, so any Cream records you see on that label are re-issues. Ditto Layla.
The first Clapton solo LP to appear as a first pressing on RSO was1974’s 461 Ocean Boulevard.
As for the disgruntlement, both bands felt the other was getting more of Stigwood’s attention, but it can’t have been too much of a problem because RS was Clapton’s manager as a solo artist for many years and Eric stayed with RSO until 1983.
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag158/evan226/Pop%20Music/eric001_cr.jpg
that would explain why my copy (US) of Layla is on ATCO.
digression – saw a trailer on ECs site for the royal albert 70th birthday bash and there is that plodding unplugged version of Layla. Why oh why?
Cream were signed to Atlantic in America, hence the ATCO label.
A quick rule of thumb: RSO records didn’t exist until 1973, so any RSO records dating from earlier than that are re-issues.
Fully agree about the unplugged version of Layla. It’s a travesty compared to the mighty original version.
Satinwood -for God’s sake Stigwood.
And I should have said “Stigwood’s Reaction LABEL”