Simon Napier-Bell

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Simon Napier-Bell (born 22 April 1939, Ealing Common, London, England) has undertaken many jobs in the music industry, including bandboy, manager, producer, songwriter, journalist and author. But he is best-known as manager, particularly of The Yardbirds, John's Children, Marc Bolan, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Japan, London, Wham! and Blue Mercedes.

Simon Napier-Bell (born 22 April 1939) is a pop and rock manager and author.

The early years

He went to both an independent prep school, Durston House in Ealing, and to a state primary school at Perivale. Then to both a grammar school (Harrow County, later the school of Michael Portillo) and to an independent secondary school (Bryanston in Dorset). At Bryanston he formed the school’s first jazz band, much frowned on by the authorities. When he left school at the age of seventeen it was with the idea of becoming a professional musician, preferably in America. A year later, unable to get a visa for the States, he emigrated to Canada but after working as a musician for two years he decided he wanted to do something different. He spent a year hitch-hiking across America.

The music business

Songwriter

When he returned to England he worked as an assistant film editor. With a thorough knowledge of music, he soon progressed to being a music editor and landed the job of working with Burt Bacharach on What’s New Pussycat, re-editing the score Burt had written for it. Later, he also scored, wrote and edited music for Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, a film directed by Clive Donner.

In 1966, Dusty Springfield approached Napier-Bell and Vicki Wickham to write an English lyric to an Italian song she’d heard at the Sanremo Festival. The result was "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" which became Dusty’s first number one.

Manager

His friend Vicki Wickham, who booked all the acts for the TV show Ready Steady Go, persuaded him to move into music management. He started by putting together an act himself; Nicky Scott & Diane Ferraz; a boy from London and a girl from the West Indies. The inter-racial mix was a first for the British music business.

On the back of the publicity Napier-Bell generated for Scott and Ferraz, The Yardbirds asked him if he would manage them. They were looking for a replacement for their original manager, the eccentric Russian, Giorgio Gomelsky. With the group’s bassist, Paul Samwell-Smith, Napier-Bell then co-produced the Yardbirds’ first studio album – Roger the Engineer. He then oversaw the entry of Jimmy Page into the group and produced the group’s next single, "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", considered one of the most avant garde rock records of the time.

Napier-Bell went on to manage John's Children, who were known more for their ability to shock than for their music and who were thrown off a major tour of Germany for upstaging The Who with an act that included running round the audience throwing feathers in the air and whipping each other with chains.

Napier-Bell then teamed up with ex-comedian Ray Singer to produce records for various artists including the Scaffold (a group which included Paul McCartney's brother, Mike McGear), Peter Sarstedt, Forever More (which went on to change itself into The Average White Band) and lesser known acts, Plus and Brut. He also spent a year in Australia where he produced Alison McCallum and Bobbi Marchini and John Paul Young (whom he later claimed to have discovered).

Following this, Napier-Bell worked in Spain and South America for two years, managing one of Spain’s biggest stars, Junior, with whom he co-wrote several Spanish hits, in particular the biggest selling Spanish language singles of the seventies, "Perdoname".

In 1976, Napier-Bell came back to London and returned to management with two new groups, London, a group in the then current punk vein, and Japan, an art-rock group. London was a short lived project (two national tours, two singles, a 4 track EP and an album for MCA Records) but Japan involved him for the next seven years. Napier-Bell persevered with them through five lean years to eventually help make them one of the most influential groups of the early eighties, both musically and fashion-wise.

He then teamed up with manager Jazz Summers and together they took on the management of Wham!. The group had already had three hit singles in the UK but wanted to terminate their contract with the record company, Innervision. Napier-Bell and Summers led them through four months of legal complications (during which they were unable to record), and finally settled the case by signing a new contact with CBS.

Napier-Bell spent eighteen months travelling backwards and forwards to China negotiating for Wham! to become the first ever Western pop artist to play in communist China. They eventually played a concert there in April 1985 at the Worker's Stadium in Beijing.

At the end of 1985, Wham! ended its relationship with Napier-Bell and Summers when George Michael left Wham! for a solo career. Napier-Bell went on to manage the duo Blue Mercedes, who had one worldwide hit, "I Want To Be Your Property" (1987), which stayed at #1 in the US dance charts for 4 weeks. Napier-Bell also arranged for the defunct pop group Boney M. to reform and had all their old tracks remixed by Stock Aitken Waterman. The result was an album that stayed at number one in the French charts for four months but sold little elsewhere.

Following this, Napier-Bell teamed up with another manager, Sir Harry Cowell, and they took on the management of two once major groups looking to revive their careers – Asia and Ultravox. Asia fared better than Ultravox but eventually Napier-Bell gave up on both of them and spent three years writing a book, Black Vinyl White Powder, Napier-Bell chose to go back to management, this time working in Russia, first managing Alsou, a girl singer, then Smash!!, a boy duo with Wham! similarities. In both cases, big success in Russia was not followed up with success in the rest of the world.

Author

When Japan broke up, Napier-Bell wrote his first book, You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, about his experiences in the music business in the 1960s. When he ceased managing Asia and Ultravox he wrote another book, Black Vinyl White Powder, about the British music business which was received with favourable reviews. In March 2005 he published another book, I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch, the story of how he took Wham! to China.

• Napier-Bell, Simon (1998). You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. Ebury Press. ISBN 0-09-186573-5. 
• Napier-Bell, Simon (2001). Black Vinyl, White Powder. Ebury Press. ISBN 0-09-188092-0. 
• Napier-Bell, Simon (2006). I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch: A Fantastic Tale of Boys, Booze and How Wham! Were Sold to China. Warner Books. ISBN 1-932958-56-8. 

He now lives mainly in Thailand where he is working on a new book.

See also

Bryanston School

External links

• www.simonnapierbell.com
• The Knitting Circle: Popular Culture
• Favorite music books
• Simon Napier-Bell at the Internet Movie Database