Obituary – Independent, May 2009
A modest man who did not push himself forward, Ron Richards was, nevertheless, one of the UK’s top record producers. He produced such familiar records as “Love Me Do” (the Beatles) “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (Gerry and the Pacemakers) and “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” (the Hollies), and when he sometimes saw others take the credit for what he’d done, he would simply say: “I know what happened.”
It took Richards some time to discover the circumstances of his birth. His mother, Mary Lipscombe, worked in a hotel in London’s West End and had an affair, it seems, with an Irish jockey, leading to her son’s birth in 1929. He was adopted and became Ronald Richard Pratley, which he shortened to Ron Richards for professional purposes.
As a child, he became a proficient pianist and, following conscription, he played saxophone in the Central Band of the Royal Air Force. He continued with the RAF for a further three years.
In 1952, Richards became part of London’s Tin Pan Alley, based in Denmark Street, London, working as a song plugger for the music publishers Chappell, and later Cavendish. Being a good organiser, he also undertook management duties, and Michael Holliday was a client. In 1954, he married an SRN, Ellen Fraser, who became an osteopath, and they started a family.
In 1958, Richards joined EMI’s Parlophone label as a promotions man, but the label’s manager, George Martin, quickly noticed his potential for production. Richards discovered the young songwriter Jerry Lordan and produced his hits, “I’ll Stay Single” and “Who Could Be Bluer” (both 1960) as well as his album, All My Own Work (1961). At the time, it was unusual for a British songwriter to be marketed thus and although the album was not financially successful, he asked Lordan to write for other artists including Shane Fenton and the Fentones, who scored with “I’m A Moody Guy” (1961). Unusually, the track features Lordan’s electric ukulele.
“I didn’t really have much choice in the songs I recorded as Shane Fenton,” said Alvin Stardust, who took over lead-singer duties in the band when Fenton himself died. “But Ron was very good at finding songs and telling me to learn them. I did that with ‘Cindy’s Birthday’, which was a hit for me.” Around the same time Richards produced Paul Raven (later Gary Glitter), the guitarist Judd Proctor and the Clyde Valley Stompers with their trad interpretation of “Peter and the Wolf”.
At first Martin was not particularly involved with Parlophone’s new signing, the Beatles, and he assigned Richards to produce their first session (with drummer Pete Best) in June 1962. Richards was impressed with the front line, but considered Best unsuitable for recording work. Martin, invited to hear them, thought the same, and he and Richards discussed who should be the band’s leader, the dominant Lennon or the good-looking McCartney.
Richards persuaded Martin that Mitch Murray’s song, “How Do You Do It” would be suitable for the Beatles, and the group recorded a lacklustre version with their new drummer, Ringo Starr, in September, along with their own “Love Me Do”. Still unsatisfied with the results, Richards hired a drummer called Andy White for another session a week later. Between them, Martin and Richards produced the Beatles’ first Parlophone single, “Love Me Do”, which was backed with “P.S. I Love You”.
Martin then took control of the Beatles, while Richards worked with another Liverpool band, Gerry and the Pacemakers. They became the first act to go to No. 1 with each of their first three singles, “How Do You Do It?”, the similar sounding “I Like It”, and using Martin’s string arrangement, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.
Visiting Manchester, Richards was impressed by the Hollies, and produced nearly all of their singles and albums from 1963 to 1975, as well as managing them for a time. He encouraged them to develop a unique harmony sound and, with the engineer Peter Bown, they recorded extremely catchy pop records including a No. 1, “I’m Alive” (1965). When they worked with Peter Sellers on the theme song for the 1966 film After the Fox, Richards found that the arranger and songwriter, Burt Bacharach, had a different approach to recording. When Richards felt a recording was in the can, he moved to the next song, but Bacharach always wanted to keep going. Ron drew a close to the session by remarking that it was 10pm and the pubs closed at half-past.
Richards made early records with the Graham Bond Organisation and the Paramounts, who later developed into Procol Harum. “He always rated Gary Brooker and he was sorry that he didn’t make big hits with him,” said his son, Andrew. “He was working so hard. At one time, he and George Martin had 23 artists between them. He might be making a Noddy record one day and Ella Fitzgerald the next. He regarded working with Ella as the high point of his career. When she recorded ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘People’, everyone in the studio gave her a standing ovation.”
Richards also produced the mercurial American P.J. Proby, who was living in England. Even without his mannerisms, Proby had a remarkable voice, as strong and supple as Tom Jones’s, but Richards encouraged him to be mannered and to “lay it on thick”. Helped by brandy, Proby parodied the vocal stylings of Billy Eckstine and Dinah Washington to make the hit singles “Somewhere” and “Maria”, both from West Side Story, and Richards also produced his albums, P J Proby (1964) and In Town (1965).
When Richards went to California in 1965 to make a live album with Gerry and the Pacemakers, he talked to his American counterparts and discovered that they received royalties from their hit records. He convinced Martin and John Burgess of EMI and Peter Sullivan of Decca (the godfather of one of his sons) that they should establish an independent production company, AIR. It was a gamble, as Decca and EMI might have allocated their artists to in-house producers, but what company would want to disturb the creative flow between Martin and the Beatles? However, the first big money that came into AIR was from Peter Sullivan’s work with Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck.
Richards was keen to push AIR into the lucrative jingles and advertising market as well as music publishing – their company, Maribus, was derived from their surnames. Richards was an astute businessman and with the solicitor Ian Gow (later a Tory minister assassinated by the IRA), AIR became very successful. Richards undertook much of the administrative work for the Beatles’ sessions and for the soundtrack of the Yellow Submarine cartoon film.
Whereas Martin was a conduit for the Beatles, Richards had a more schoolmasterly approach with the Hollies. He did not think that they matched the Beatles’ inventiveness and he tried to dissuade them from moving into psychedelia with “King Midas in Reverse” (1967). He produced “Time Seller”, a chart entry for the Spencer Davis Group in 1967, worked with Del Shannon and the prog-rock band Circus, and he made “The Air That I Breathe” an international hit for the Hollies in 1974.
Richards was calm and controlled in the studio, always smartly dressed in Savile Row suits. The only time he flew into a rage was in 1970 when he and the Hollies were sharing a studio with Phil Spector, who was making George Harrison’s album, All Things Must Pass. He returned to the studio to find that Bobby Elliott’s drum kit had been damaged. “I wouldn’t have been so angry if I’d known Spector carried a gun,” he wryly observed.
AIR became highly successful and there were bids for the company from the Dick James Organisation and MAM, but it was in 1974 that the founding partners found themselves divided. Martin, the chairman, favoured an offer from Chrysalis, while Richards, the managing director, was opposed. The stress of all these negotiations affected Richards’s health and he left the company once the merger had taken place.
After that, Richards’s career became something of an anti-climax. He did some independent production work, notably with Tom Paxton and Prelude, but he lost interest in the big picture. His final album was 5317704 with the Hollies in 1979. By then he felt that record production had become a young man’s game. He enjoyed watching his family grow and pursued other interests, like photography and gardening.
Spencer Leigh
Ron Richard with The Hollies
Ronald Richard Pratley (Ron Richards), record producer: born London 22 January 1929; married 1954 Ellen Fraser (died 2004; two sons, one daughter); died Watford 30 April 2009.
THE INTERVIEW
There are a few backstage record company heroes whose name are instantly known and for whom it’s easy to find photographs and stories. There are more, like Ron Richards, for whom photographs and press mentions are like hen’s teeth. That in itself, justifies previewing this interview with Spencer Leigh’s obituary. It starts with him joining Chappell music publishers so..
How did you get into publishing?
When I left school at fifteen-and-ahalf my teacher got me a job in an accountancy firm, and I hated it. I was learning piano at the time and my piano teacher suggested maybe I should get a job in music publishing. So I just went up to Denmark Street, walked into the front door and “I want a job.” Campbell Connelly took me in – my first job was just counting copies of sheet music. I actually started on my 16th birthday – January 22, 1945
Were you counting and mailing?
That’s right, and pushing (plugging) loads of sheet music – that was what made the money in those days, not records. One shilling a copy, some were one-and-sixpence (7.5p). The thing about it was that all the artists used to come and see what the new songs were. You’d get the bandleader Ted Heath and I remember The Beverley Sisters – they came in when they first started.
How did that work?
They artist would come in and a chap would play the song on the piano. We always had two or three grand pianos in the offices – very glamorous to me at the time
Were the songs English or American?
Both – we had a lot from America. Denmark Street was the hub of the music business. A lot of the young lads like me went on to become quite big men in the music business.
A tremendous training ground, and to be able to walk in and get a job
You never actually thought of that in those days – you never considered that you couldn’t get a job. If they didn’t take me I’d go somewhere else. The chap I worked for, Stan Dale – the trade manager – said to me ‘I know you think it’s glamorous but the glamour is all upstairs. It’s not glamorous down here!’
Did you have a love of music?
I started playing piano when I was six. We lived in Windsor in the forties and I had lessons until I was 18. I was called up and went into the RAF Central Band. I was working at 16 and served my National Service in the band, playing saxophone. Whenever I came home on leave I went to see them in Denmark Street. Norman Newell worked at worked at Cinephonic (?) and he used to keep me in touch. When I came out I got a job as a plugger at Chappells. I went in and asked Teddy Holmes and he said ‘why should I give you a job?” and I convinced him. Jimmy Henney was there as chief plugger. Teddy Holmes was a real character – he used to scream and shout. He was on the first floor and Jimmy was in the office right above him on the second floor. I was standing by Teddy Holmes’ office one day and he picked up the phone to Jimmy Henney, and he’s calling Jimmy everything. “Why haven’t you got this song on this programme” and he’s ranting on. I looked round and there’s Jimmy standing at the door of Teddy’s office. He’s left the phone and come down to his office! The funny thing was that Teddy just put the phone down and carried on ranting at him!
As both Norman Newell and Jimmy Henney are mentioned, obviously this fine shot from my archive has to make a further appearance!
He (Teddy) seems to have been respected
Very much so. He used to come round to my office and say ‘what have you got fixed ‘ and you’d tell him. He’d go back to his office and as soon as he was back there he’s be on the phone -“what have you done?”
What did the job actually entail?
I worked for a subsidiary of Chappells called Maddox Music. Roy Berry was my boss at the time. When Chappells got all these songs from the States, because they had Irving Berlin and all the big catalogues, Maddox Music got the arse end. Teddy would dish out songs to different subsidiaries and it was our job to get them played by orchestras and sung by singers, so that they’d start selling. I went round to all the Empires when the bands were broadcasting, to try to get them to sing a particular song on the air.
Most radio was live music
Yes, there were very few record programmes. Jack Jackson . If you had a new record and it was played on Jackson, he never played it just once – he played it several times on following weeks, and that would be enough to send it away, that one programme. Bunny Lewis was his manager. They had it well sown up. That was how David Whitfield got away.
Going back to Campbell Connelly, on Fridays us lads would have all these registered envelopes that we’d have to take down to the post offie and get receipts for. That was all the plug money being sent out. You’d get a fiver if -say, for instance Lou Preager’s band had a half hour programme and he played a song, he’d get a fiver for that. If it was one of the big variety programmes on a Friday or Saturday night you’d get up to fifty quid. You think how much money that was in 1945!
It was a thank-you gift?
They had a tariff. It was illegal but it was after they’d played the song. It was payola really. They knew they were going to get it or they wouldn’t have done the song, so what’s the difference? I think it was almost a cartel; everybody knew what everybody else was doing so they all paid the same. There was a big scandal with the BBC producers receiving plug money. Big court case I think.
When I was at Chappells I was very interested in the record side. I always felt sure they were the thing of the future. I became the first plugger whose whole job was to concentrate on records.
Records had been made since the turn of the century but sales really didn’t start to happen until the late 1950’s?
They were selling quite well in the Thirties – Henry Hall, Flanagan and Allen, Ambrose, but not to the extent they did later. Teddy Holmes used to say to me “I’m not bloody interested in records; it’s sheet music where we make our money”. There was a lot more money to be made in sheet music. They’d probably make ninepence out of a shilling sheet music copy. I cultivated the guy who used to run the BBC record library – Teddy Warrick – who became a senior producer. Teddy and I became great friends. Whenever he got new records into the BBC, all the DJ’s used to go down to Teddy’;s office and say “what’s new?”, so sometimes he used to play them my songs.
How long did that go on at Chappells?
There was a guy called Maurice Taylor who worked at Chappells and he got a job as manager of popular music at Boosey & Hawkes, and he asked me if I’d join him there as a plugger – the other one there was Peter Sullivan . Maurice used to go on trips to America to find tunes – he was a real character. He always wanted to live in luxury . He went on The Queen Elizabeth to America, met a millionaire’s daughter, married her, lived in Canada, became very wealthy and now he’s back here and owns a hotel in Bath. Peter Sullivan left Boosey’s first and went to join HMV working as a plugger for Wally Ridley. Then I got a job at EMI as a plugger to George Martin.
Did George hire you?
No, Len Wood hired me. We worked in Castle Street. George wasn’t making any hits and I was getting very frustrated because no one would play them. This was 1957. Then a guy came into my little office, a songwriter called Jerry Lordan. He played me a demo and I rather liked the way he sounded so I went to George and said ‘look, I’ve got this guy and I quite like him. Would you let me make a record with him?” And he said “yes, why not.” I did and it was a hit (“I’ll stay single”) It only made Top 30 but the second one “Who could be bluer?”, made the Top Ten” (this was in 1960) But that made his fortune because he went on tour with Cliff Richard and The Shadows. He had song called Apache that he’d written. I’d tried various guitarists I could think of because I loved that tune, but I couldn’t get anyone interested.
It was marvellous of George to let me make the record. He didn’t have an assistant then. Wally had his own plugger and then every producer wanted his own plugger which was how I got the job with George. That led to Peter saying to Wally “How about me having a go?” Then I was plugging and recording for some time, till they made me Assistant Producer and eventually a Producer. I had Shane Fenton and the Fentones, and that’s when the The Beatles came along.
George asked me to listen to this tape that Sid Coleman had brought along. Norrie (Paramor) had already turned it down. The thing was that Wally, Norrie and Norman all had successful acts at the time so they weren’t in a hurry to sign any unknown kids. George didn’t (have successful acts). So that’s how George came to take them up. I think he was the last one to hear them.
It’s interesting that you were doing pop/rock for the boss while he was doing comedy records
Like Charlie Drake, yes. He did the Peter Sellers records – they were great. So he came along and asked me to listen to this tape of The Beatles. I must admit I wasn’t terribly impressed at the time. He (George) saw more in them than I did. If Norrie, Wally or Norman had been in the same position as George, The Beatles would probably have been with Norrie.
I hear the tape wasn’t very good
No, it wasn’t very good. If it had come to me I would have turned them down because I had Shane Fenton and the Fentones. But George did a good job with them. Because he wasn’t so au fait with rock and roll he allowed The Beatles to more or less do their own thing. If they had been with Norrie, or particularly with Wally, he would have said ‘you do it this way, you do it that way’ and they may not have taken off like they did, but George virtually let them get on with it.
I heard about HMV and Side Coleman
I’m not quite sure of the order of things. Sid made a record with The Beatles with a song I’d given him called How do you do it. They hated the song and made a terrible job of it. So then George asked me to produce them with Love me do and I did. I went into the studio. (George had gone out with his girlfriend of the time, now his wife, Judy.) He came into the studio about ten-o-clock at night when we’d finished, and there was that famous story when he said to The Beatles ‘is there anything you don’t like’ and George Harrison said ‘I don’t like your tie’.
I was the one who got rid of Pete Best. I was the first one in the studio with The Beatles for rehearsal. George (Martin) asked me to take them into Studio 3 one afternoon and rehearse Please please me and one or two others. I had a thing about drummers in those days and I wanted him to do a double beat on his bass drum, and he couldn’t do it. I thought ‘well, he’s useless.’ I said to George ‘Look, that drummer’s useless and you’ll have to get another.’ That was the last I heard of it. The next thing I hear, they’ve got this guy, Ringo. Ringo came into the studio when I was recording Love me do and I didn’t trust him. I’d never heard him play so I didn’t know if he was good, bad or indifferent, so I booked a session drummer, Andy White, to be safe. He did the session and I told Ringo to go down and playa the maracas which he did. The record was issued. Then The Beatles asked George if they could redo the record with Ringo playing drums, which they did and it was reissued.
It didn’t give you any concern that you handed it all over to George?
No, I didn’t think about it. I didn’t know at the time they were going to be that big! If there were (producer’s) royalties at the time, I might have had a different opinion.
The second and final part will take us through Gerry and the Pacemakers, and The Hollies, AIR London and P.J, Proby
text © David Hughes 2020. Illustrations filched from Google searches purely to break up the text and keep you interested!
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