For thirty years, John Weller managed the career of his son Paul, through the salad days and success of The Jam in the Seventies and early Eighties, the ups and downs of The Style Council and Paul’s re-emergence as a solo artist in the Nineties. Theirs was a unique father-son relationship in the music industry, built on John’s unwavering belief in Paul’s talent and shared values like hard work and pragmatism.
John could be blunt, and once refused to have lunch in a record company’s executive dining room, remarking to the managing director: “I didn’t come here to eat, I came to do business.” But his bark was worse than his bite.
John’s success was all the more remarkable since he started in his forties after years working in factories, on building sites and driving a taxi. When The Jam signed to Polydor in February 1977, for a £6,000 advance and a six per cent royalty rate, John admitted he didn’t have a bank account and asked for cash instead of a cheque. A&R man Chris Parry duly we…
Poor choice for a single...Aim high would've been a far better choice if indeed a fourth single 'needed' to be culled from the LP.. It's all getting a bit 'S Club 7' releasing almost every album track as a single or a B side...
ReplyDeletebye bye weller singles. aint gonna buy em anymore. I think its a shameful policy. double aside my arse.
ReplyDeleteShopping, Butterfly Collector,Ghosts of Dachau, It Just Came To Pieces In My Hands, Fly On The Wall,A Year Late-even Golden Leaves.
ReplyDeleteThey are B sides. No one's surely claiming anything like the same importance is being placed on PW B sides these days.
'Wake Up The Nation' is a fuckin astounding release.It's great to see weller retain a modernist approach, but the singles policy negates that a bit-without even talking about the expense.It was once a genuinely exciting thing to buy a weller single.It isn't now. Come on,man-sort it out...The Cap is right- a remix is not a double A side mate.