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…
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…
Nice to see Paul doing sessions for a good ole' Tory paper...very 'working class' old chap!
ReplyDeleteWhy the fuck is Paul Weller doing anything for The Sun? Total letdown.
ReplyDeleteThe Sun???? Jesus!....still could have been worse I suppose, The Mail for example!
ReplyDeleteIt all falls in line with the fan-milking, money making philosophy… £60 for a ‘Fred Perry’ here, £80 for a stripy ‘Ben Sherman’ there, ..countless reissues and deluxe versions of this that and the other, remixing the ‘A’ side to make the ‘B’ side to fuel the CD/Vinyl package of tracks already issued under some other guise. A very sad decline indeed..
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