December 7th – You slog over the lyrics, fine-tune
the music, make the very best recording you can, release the album to great
acclaim, do a six month promotional tour, get to the end of it and find you’ve
made nada; zilch; diddley; sweet FA.
How is this possible? I you hear yourself say. A million albums sold, a six-month sell-out
tour…how is this possible?
Noel Edmonds is a black-and-white-no-shades-of-grey sort of
fella for most people. His stint on the Multi-Coloured
Swap Shop (M-CSS) with
whatshisname…that bloke who did the nude jungle romp, Naked Jungle was it…?...Chegwin! That’s it Keith Chegwin! Cheggers
wasn’t it? What a way to earn a living, displaying your reduced manhood on
national TV; Johnny Weissmuller he wasn’t. I think he said it was the worst
career move of his life…no shit, Sherlock. Mr. Edmonds has also had a chequered
career what with M-CSS, a show aimed
at children that purported to witty and edgy but was really just a sales
vehicle for the vulnerable, and his, for me anyway, highly embarrassing session
of Noel Edmonds House Party and his
irrepressible man-you-would-most-like-to-drown partner, Mister Fuckin’ Blobby.
OK, I added the middle name; it made me feel easier about committing it to ink
and paper, even if this is electronic paper and ink. But it has to be said that
if it weren’t for Mr. Edmonds then the career of Harry Chapin would have been
pretty lean in the UK
When he first started performing with his two brothers they
suffered the actors recurring nightmare of more people on stage than in the
audience; not a great kick start to a career but things did improve not only
for him but for hundreds of thousands of others, even millions. He was a pretty
canny operator when it came to negotiating his recording contract, hence the
opening of today’s guff.
The reason why the cupboard is so bare at the end of your
most successful musical venture ever is that one often forgets the in-built
codicil to every contract; the band pays
for everything. When someone becomes famous the leeches, grip-tights and
chancers slither into the money-pit and immediately begin to siphon off as much
as they can before the gravy-train derails and the whole venture goes tits.
That cottage you rented to write the songs in?
You paid for it.
The twelve weeks of recording studio time you used up in
order to produce the best work possible for your record company?
You paid for it.
The best record producer on the scene to produce and re-work
your smash-hit album?
You paid for it.
The photo session and consequent printing of the sleeve,
sleeve notes and the record and CD pressings?
You paid for it.
The trucks to lug around your gear, the drivers and the crew
to set it up, break it down and generally look after it?
You paid for it.
The tour bus?
You paid for it.
The merch?
You paid for it.
The hotels?
You paid for it.
The twelve bags of weed and three wheelbarrows of coke you
used up to keep on top of the ridiculous schedule your promoters put together?
You paid for it.
The catering and portable office that travelled with you so
you could have your favourite brand of beer everyday and E-mail ahead to reach
venue on the tour for venison stew to be awaiting your arrival at the next gig?
You paid for it.
*.*?
You paid for it.
Not Harry Chapin. When he signed with Electra he negotiated a
nine-album deal that gave him free studio time…clever; saved him hundreds of
thousands of dollars, studio time he used to record what is classed as the
second most depressing song of all time, The
Shortest Story but also some very delicate and introspective work that
still stands up today…but all that’s secondary to why he’s a bit of a role
model to those who would claim to be right-on philanthropists in the music biz;
you know, those folk who do lots of charidee
performances (always making sure they have maximum publicity for doing it) and
amass private fortunes whilst all the time bemoaning the plight of the less
well off. Before he died (more later) at the tender age of 39, Mr. Chapin was
of the opinion that hunger and poverty was an insult to the human race and he
co-founded an organisation, World Hunger
Year that melded into the Harry
Chapin Foundation; heard of either? Nope? Nor have most folk yet here was a
guy who was donating all his merch. sales to the foundation, sitting on and attending
his various committees and working parties formed to tackle poverty and hunger
worldwide (and he went to every meeting) donating the proceeds from over a
third of his paid concerts and guesting on as many fundraising concerts as his
tour schedule would allow, raising more than $3m in the last six years of his
life…just him. Heard of him? No? Bet there’s others you have…
Mr. Chapin is worth quoting on the meaning of the dollar:
Money is for people, so
I give it to them.
He was killed in, or rather by, a road traffic accident. It
is believed (but not proven) that he had some sort of medical emergency, whilst
driving to a fundraiser, at mid-day. His vehicle swerved several times before
coming to rest across the highway where a truck and trailer, unable to either
stop in time or avoid Mr. Chapin’s car, smashed into it and caused the fuel in
the tank to ignite. The truck driver and a passer-by managed to get Mr. Chapin
out of the car just before it burst into flames and he was rushed to hospital
but was pronounced DOA. It was discovered he’d had a heart attack but whether
that occurred pre or post accident was hard to determine. As is the way with
the crazy world of US litigation and insurance, the family sued the truck
company who employed the man who had dragged Mr. Chapin out the car and won a
payoff of $7.2m; I’d like to think it went to one of his foundations just as
the millions do from concerts by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and
Judy Collins to celebrate Mr. Chapin’s life and philanthropy, concerts which
continue to be hosted and make money for victims of hunger and poverty; there’s
many a pop sleb could learn a little more humility from Harry Chapin’s example, a little less of the look at me, look at what I’m doing so prevalent in recent recordings for instance,
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