Two Steps Forward, One Step Back by Miles A. Copeland II;

Author:Miles A. Copeland II;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)
Published: 2021-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

HALF FULL

It would be easy to divide humanity into two types: those who instinctively or through experience see the glass as half full, and those who are predisposed to see the glass as half empty. In fact, there are grey areas in between, and that’s where the vast majority of humanity resides. These are the people who are not sure about that glass, so they need someone to tell them one way or another. As a manager of artists, my job was often dealing with artists who needed telling. But the ones I was most successful with were the ones that did not need telling—in other words, the glass-half-full ones.

One artist who did not need telling, and who like me was clearly a glass-half-full person, was Jools Holland—or Julian Miles Holland, to give him his full name. I first worked with Jools, of course, when he was a member of Squeeze. During that period, his sense of humor and willingness to try things became evident, while his prowess as a keyboard player encouraged me to throw other things his way. Solo records such as ‘Boogie Woogie ’78’; sessions with other artists I was working with, like The Police at Madison Square Garden; Jools was always open to new ideas and experiences.

Even so, I never encouraged him to leave Squeeze. To me, as manager of the band, that would have been disloyal and destructive. But when he did eventually leave Squeeze in October 1980, I became his manager. This was the guy who had stood by me at that Squeeze band meeting in a way that I will never forget. Now, I embarked on an effort to find a way to repay that confidence, by hook or by crook.

Tour manager John Lay came with us as Jools’s day-to-day manager. Jools’s first move was to create a band to play the kind of music he was into, which he called The Millionaires. I will admit that this was not the easiest thing to promote, but that was his musical love, so we made records and did tours of America and Europe. I put him on support slots with The Police and whoever else I could, including the Police Christmas show at Tooting Bec Common in 1980.

The following year was largely devoted to launching Jools’s new band and promoting the records. His pitch to attract musicians was typical of Jools’s sense of humor: ‘Do you want to be a Millionaire?’ Then he added two female backing singers and called them the Wealthy Tarts. We did tours of the USA and England, filmed him for Urgh! A Music War, then issued his first album on A&M in the UK: Jools Holland & His Millionaires, produced by Glyn Johns and featuring lyrics by Chris Difford. When the A&M opted not to release the album in the USA, I put it out on my IRS Records.

The biggest opportunity came when the BBC agreed to do a documentary on The Police’s recording of Ghost In The Machine on the Caribbean island of Monserrat, to be broadcast over Christmas 1981.

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