Articles from the PRS News and Basca News

Barry and i had become very active in the music industry attending all events we could, PRS open days, BASCA meetings, we regularly made the industry mags and papers. One incredibly memorable event was going to the Ivor Novella awards at the Park Lane Dorchester Hotel, i was sat with the head of the BBC and his wife along with lots of famous musicians, Annie Lennox who was in an amazing red sequined dress she looked a million dollars, she got an award. Freddie Mercury and the queen band, the most memorable part was queen getting the lifetime achievement award, Freddie gave a speech where he said at the end, could Annie Lennox please return my dress at the end of the evening, everyone burst out laughing.

Vera Lynn sung We will meet again, which was incredible, i spoke with the Ivor Novella family, it was a great evening, we went out after and got legless on tequila, we ended up in the middle of the night on the train station in London trying to get a train back home we missed the last train but found out that a mail train was going to Manchester so we stowed away on it, only to be removed by the transport police, they held us for a hour, but Barry complained none stop over and over and in the end they kicked us out onto the platform, Barry stood outside and complained all night till the first train in the morning.


My Performing Rights Society and British Academy of Songwriters Composers & Authors Certificate

Had some great times with Barry, but sadly while he was playing with a group called Trans Europa Express on the Helsinki to Stockholm cruise ship which he did some times, he used a sun bed a lot to try and keep his tan, unfortunately he got skin cancer and went downhill very fast and died very suddenly that put an end to the song writing team, i was very upset for a long time, it turned out that when he died he was 53 but was saying h was 45, i thought this was funny once i got over the shock, it was so he could pull girls!

I decided to try and join an existing band, and tracked down a band i had seen year earlier, they supported UFO at the Free Trade Hall in 1978, Marseille, they were based in Liverpool, i had always liked there album, i called the lads up and asked if they were planning on doing anything and as it happened there guitarist had left and signed a contract with the BBC to do childrens television.

I went over to Liverpool and met them at their home and discussed the possibility of touring and doing a new album. They were up for it, but after i had left i just did not have the heart to do it again after Barry dying.

Rick Dixon:
It was about this time that i started working with Rick Dixon from Kennedy Street Enterprises, he had just sold St Annes Music to Kennedy Street and retired, it included all 10cc hits and albums amongst other catalogues, it made him a very rich man. Rick had been our manager at Kennedy Street and i thought i could work with him on a project i was working on, it was as a result of going round the music royalty organisations and the realisation that they had hundreds of millions of pounds in slush funds for unclaimed royalties.

I had set up a company called D-Tec Investigations that specialised in tracking down people owned royalties for band members. Most people have heard of the PRS, but there is MCPS, PPL, VPL and others in the UK alone and each country had its own versions. I asked Rick if he would go to PPL with me and convince them to give us a list of who was owed money. Rick agreed and i had the heavy hitter i needed to get them to move on it, he had had similar fights with bands to get royalties they were owed.

PPL agreed to let it move forward and we set up an Escrow bank account system with the Nat West, the business was all ready to go. It would mean we were handling hundreds of millions per year.

At the same time i put another idea to Rick, its something i wanted to do, i was mad on War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne, and i wanted to take it to huge venues as a show on tour, places like Wembley Stadium, i knew Kennedy Street could promote it and i was sure it would work with the right cast. After a long discussion about what i wanted to do with Rick that covered cast, and huge machines that would move on their own over the crowd, Rick was convinced that it would be huge and he called Jeff Wayne and we started to talk through how this could happen, Jeff agreed it would be good, and that project was also to be given the go ahead, this would be a huge money making venture again in the hundreds of millions with the merchandising.