Black Vinyl, White Powder: The Real Story of the British Music Industry [Hardcover]

The lowly third position of musical pursuits in the familiar cry of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" suggests what Simon Napier-Bell's book Black Vinyl White Powder makes all too clear: from it's mid-1950s beginnings: pop music has always been intrinsically linked not only with sex, but with all manner of illegal substances. Indeed, it is an often-repeated fact that success in the music business will frequently be accompanied by more than mere musical activity. "Drugs are sometimes as important as talent," explains Napier-Bell in this entertaining and often compelling read, and it is from this angle that he presents his gripping 50-year history of pop.

The author's previous memoir, the often-hilarious You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, detailed his career in the pop industry from his esteemed position as joint-roller for the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra to his later role as manager of huge acts such as Japan and Wham! With such a career behind him, his range of contacts and experiences result in an often breathtaking sprint through the history of pop, incorporating major icons such as Elvis and the Beatles to leading figures from numerous late 90s dance movements. In Black Vinyl he diligently notes the particular pharmaceuticals used in order to satisfy the creative and, more often, hedonistic needs of the artists in question. Fascinating anecdotes abound, from the amusing, (such as the report of keyboard player Graham Bond's frequently heard airport custom's cry, "If you want the drugs I've got them up my arse"), to the tragic, (as figures from Syd Barrett to Kurt Cobain fall by the wayside, their drug habits supported, if not actively encouraged by an industry where such behaviour is the norm).

If a fault can be aimed at this mostly enjoyable read, it is that Napier-Bell's insistence on maintaining the link between drug-taking and the music it frequently accompanies often results in a sensationalist tabloid feel which steers him away from the more revealing anecdotal style that proved so enjoyable in his earlier book. However, his droll approach is always entertaining and Black Vinyl White Powder is recommended to anyone interested in an industry where, according to one interviewee, half of those involved are left with "scrambled eggs for brains". --Steve Price

'Rewarding, titilating...a genuine insight into hhow things really work behind the scenes'

'Funny, entertaining and shrewd'

'The most authoritative, diligently researched and unpretentious analysis of the British pop scene yet written. Masterly'

'The cold print equivilant of a sparkling eveing with a world-class raconteur'

'The greatest ever book written about english pop...breathtakingly brilliant'

'...authoritative, intelligent, diligently researched, conscientiously indexed, throughouly unpretentious...' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'The cold print equivalent of a sparkling evening in the company of a world-class raconteur...' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'...honest but funnny...Napier-Bell knows that if you scratch the surface of pop music you will find more surface.' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'I read it so fast I have to read it again' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Welcome to the pill-popping, thrill-seeking, boy-loving, law-breaking, never-ending moey-making British drugs and Music buisness.A terrific insight into what went on behind the scenes of sixsties pop music-The classic hidden history of sixties pop.

Here it is...money, sex and drugs. What more could you ask for, except perhaps a little music?

BLACK VINYL WHITE POWDER charts the amazing fifty year history of the British music business in unparalleled scale and detail.

As a key player across the decades, Simon Napier-Bell - who discovered Marc Bolan and managed amongst others the Yardbirds and Wham! - uses his wealth of contacts and extraordinary personal experience to tell the story of an industry that has become like no other.

Where bad behaviour is not only tolerated but encouraged, where drugs are as important as talent, where artists are pushed to their physical limit in the name of profit and ego.

Filled with the voices of hundreds of artists, managers, record company execs and producers, BLACK VINYL WHITE POWDER is the most exciting and revealing history of English pop ever written. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Simon Napier-Bell was manager of the Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, Japan and Wham! to name but a few. He still manages today.

ALL THE WRONG PARTIES By the beginning of 1966 I was managing the Yardbirds.

Although after my first meeting with Paul Samwell-Smith I’d felt the opportunity to manage them had passed me by, he had brought the others to meet me and they’d decided I was the right person.

Their biggest hit was ‘For Your Love’, a great pop song, but really The Yardbirds had never been pop. They’d started out playing blues.

Georgio Gomelski, who ran the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, had planned to sign the Rolling Stones for management but at the last minute they were snatched from his grasp by Andrew Oldham. The Yardbirds were the next group to play at the club and Georgio signed them straight away. He did well for them. Under his guidance they had a hit with ‘For Your Love’, and a second one with ‘Heart Full Of Soul’. After that he suggested they mix Gregorian chant with blues and they had a third hit with ‘Evil Hearted You’. Then they made a live album with American blues singer Sonny Boy Williamson. But from all this success the group had hardly earned anything.

Georgio was extravagant in everything he did. He poured money into recording and promotion, and when the group went on tour he went with them, egging them on to eat at expensive restaurants when they would rather have had hamburgers. All this expenditure came out of their income. One time in New York, Georgio needed some cash to take someone to dinner. He went to United Artists and offered them the publishing on the next Yardbirds single for the cost of the meal - $60.

Initially the Yardbirds had included Eric Clapton on guitar, but he was a gloomy, troubled person who told people he expected to die before he was thirty. He was far too dedicated to pure blues to follow the Yardbirds into pop, so he left to form Cream and the Yardbirds replaced him with Jeff Beck. Then they decided to change their management and chose me. At the time, the Yardbirds probably knew more about the music business than I did, but I grabbed the opportunity. I also treated it with respect - this wasn’t like messing around with Diane & Nicky. The Yardbirds were one of the five most important rock groups in the world - the Beatles, the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals and The Who. To start with I looked at what the managers of the other top rock acts were doing for their acts.

Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp had found The Who playing in a pub on a stage made of beer crates. The singer had crossed teeth. Kit and Chris offered the group twenty pounds a week, then, in the ensuing struggle to pay their wages, they sold both furniture and clothes. Eventually, to pay for the singer’s teeth to be fixed, Kit pawned some cufflinks given to him by his father, the celebrated classical composer Constant Lambert.

Initially The Who’s image was all pop - music, art and fashion. Their managers told them to watch mods in the audience as they danced then recreate their steps on-stage so the next audience would think the band had originated them. Pete Townshend insisted. ‘The mod image was forced on us. It was dishonest.’ Nevertheless, mods seemed to hang on his every word. When ‘I Can’t Explain’ was released, they mobbed him, saying, ‘You’ve managed to say something in the song that we’ve never managed to say for ourselves.’ ‘But I only said “I can’t explain”,’ Pete responded. ‘That’s just it,’ they told him. ‘That’s what we find so difficult to tell people … We can’t explain!’

The truth was, the only real connection between The Who and mod culture was the group’s excessive use of amphetamine. Nevertheless, when Roger Daltrey sang ‘My Generation’ with the stutter of a pill freak, it made The Who the figureheads of the Mod movement. The Yardbirds were complaining of having nowhere to live. The best thing I could do for them was to get them a lump sum of money - say, £5,000 each. The only way to get that was from the record company. Their recording contract was with Georgio Gomelski, who leased their records to EMI. I decided that if the agreement for their management could be broken, so could their agreement for their recording. So I went to Len Wood, the general manager at EMI and told him the group would want £25,000 to sign a new recording contract, and that EMI could have first option, but not for long.

From EMI, I went to Jack Baverstock at Philips who offered me £10,000, the most they’d ever paid for any artist. I called EMI and said Philips had offered the full £25,000 that we needed and within an hour EMI agreed to pay the same amount. They then had to negotiate with me over the royalties about which I was now becoming something of an expert. In the end, the Yardbirds got more than the Beatles were getting.

Since each of the Yardbirds’ hits to date had been distinctly different from the other, I thought their new single should contain elements of all of them. Moody, monk-like chanting, exhilarating lead guitar, bluesy riffs. But having once persuaded them of that, I was in the group’s hands rather than they in mine. I’d never made a record with a rock group before and was surprised at their technique of first devising a backing track, then a song. Moreover, coming from a jazz background in which lush harmonic structures were everything, it seemed strange to have Paul continually telling the others to simplify the harmonies. In the end the entire first verse was played over one single chord. But this was rock music, and I was learning.