Wayne Bickerton (born Arthur Ronald Bickerton; 11 July 1941 – 29 November 2015) was a British record producer, songwriter and music business executive. He became well known, with
Tony Waddington
Anthony Waddington (9 November 1924 – 21 January 1994) was an English football manager at both Crewe Alexandra and Stoke City.
Waddington had a seven-year playing career with Crewe Alexandra before becoming a coach at Stoke City. He progress ...
, as writer and producer of a series of UK chart hits in the 1970s for
The Rubettes
The Rubettes are an English pop/glam rock band put together in 1974 after the release of "Sugar Baby Love", a recording assembled of studio session musicians in 1973 by the songwriting team of Wayne Bickerton, the then head of A&R at Polydor R ...
, and as a leading figure in
SESAC
SESAC is a for-profit performance-rights organization in the United States. Founded in 1930 as the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, it is the second-oldest performance-rights organization in the United States. – one of the three major American performing rights organisations.
Life and career
Born in
Rhyl
Rhyl (; cy, Y Rhyl, ) is a seaside town and community (Wales), community in Denbighshire, Wales. The town lies within the Historic counties of Wales, historic boundaries of Flintshire (historic), Flintshire, on the north-east coast of Wales at ...
,
Denbighshire
Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...
, Wales,
and named after his father, Bickerton grew up in
Kirkdale, Liverpool. He first came to prominence in 1963 when, after spells with the Bobby Bell Rockers (featuring Det Pete), Steve & the Syndicate,
Lee Curtis and the All-Stars
Lee Curtis and the All-Stars were a beat group from Liverpool. They were contemporaries and briefly local rivals of the Beatles in the early 1960s. Led by Peter Flannery (born 31 October 1939, Norris Green, Liverpool), who used the stage name ...
and
the Remo Four
The Remo Four were a 1950s–1960s rock band from Liverpool, England. They were contemporaries of The Beatles, and later had the same manager, Brian Epstein. Its members were Colin Manley (born Colin William Manley, 16 April 1942, in Old Swan, ...
, he became bassist and singer with the
Pete Best Four (later the Pete Best Combo), at the same time as childhood friend Tony Waddington became the group's guitarist.
[ Biography by Bruce Eder at AllMusic Retrieved 11 November 2009] As well as sharing most of the singing, Bickerton and Waddington became songwriters for the group, which toured mainly in Germany and the US, before they left in 1966.
Bickerton then became a record producer at
Deram Records
Deram Records was a subsidiary record label of Decca Records established in the United Kingdom in 1966. At the time, U.K. Decca was a different company from the Decca label in the United States, which was owned by MCA Inc. Deram recordings w ...
, responsible for albums by
Giles, Giles & Fripp (the forerunner to
King Crimson
King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...
) and
World of Oz
The World of Oz was an English psychedelic pop band from the 1960s. The band released a self-titled LP record, LP in 1968 and two charting singles, "The Muffin Man" and "King Croesus", before fading into relative obscurity. The album gained wid ...
; he also worked with
Petula Clark
Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer. She has one of the longest serving careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades.
Clark's professional career began during the ...
and
Tom Jones. He later joined
Polydor Records
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
, becoming
A&R chief and producing the band
Mongrel
A mongrel, mutt or mixed-breed dog is a dog that does not belong to one officially recognized Dog breed, breed and including those that are the result of intentional Dog breeding, breeding. Although the term ''mixed-breed dog'' is sometime ...
.
[ At the same time, he and Waddington continued writing songs together. One of the most successful was " Nothing But A Heartache", recorded by American girl singing group The Flirtations, which reached No. 34 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1969, No. 31 on the Canadian ]RPM Magazine
''RPM'' ( and later ) was a Canadian music-industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. ''R ...
charts, and is now regarded as a northern soul classic. It was later recorded by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes are an American musical group from the Jersey Shore led by Southside Johnny. They have been recording albums since 1976 and are closely associated with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. They have recor ...
.
During this period, he and Waddington also came up with the idea for a rock 'n' roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...
musical.[ They co-wrote and produced a demonstration recording of a song, "]Sugar Baby Love
"Sugar Baby Love", recorded in autumn 1973 and released in January 1974, is a bubblegum pop song, and the debut single of The Rubettes. Written by Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington and produced by Bickerton, engineered by John Mackswith at L ...
", originally intending to submit it for the Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...
but instead offering it to Showaddywaddy
Showaddywaddy are a rock and roll group from Leicester, England. They specialise in revivals of hit songs from the 1950s and early 1960s, while also issuing original material. Showaddywaddy spent 209 weeks on the UK Singles Chart, and had 10 T ...
, who turned it down.[ Bickerton and Waddington then offered it to the demo musicians, provided that they would become an actual group. The musicians agreed, became ]The Rubettes
The Rubettes are an English pop/glam rock band put together in 1974 after the release of "Sugar Baby Love", a recording assembled of studio session musicians in 1973 by the songwriting team of Wayne Bickerton, the then head of A&R at Polydor R ...
, and "Sugar Baby Love" became a UK #1 hit in 1974, also reaching No. 37 in the US charts and No. 25 in Canada. They wrote and produced all of the Rubettes' subsequent UK hits – nine Top 50 hits in all between 1974 and 1977 – winning an Ivor Novello Award
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They have been presented annually in London by the Ivors Academy (formerly the BASCA) since 1956, and over 1,000 statuettes have been a ...
as Songwriters of the Year, and also reached the UK Top 10 with "Sugar Candy Kisses" by Mac and Katie Kissoon
Mac and Katie Kissoon are a pop soul duo, consisting of brother and sister Mac Kissoon (born Gerald Farthing, November 11, 1943, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) and Katie Kissoon (born Katherine Farthing, March 11, 1951, Port of Spain).
E ...
.[ They set up their own record label, ]State Records
State Records is a British independent record label, established by Wayne Bickerton, Tony Waddington and John Fruin in 1975. The label released hits by many successful artists including The Rubettes, Mac & Katie Kissoon and Delegation.
In ...
, which diversified in 1979 into owning Odyssey Studios
Odyssey Studios was a recording studio based near Marble Arch in London and opened in 1979. It was set up by Wayne Bickerton as an extension of State Records, the label he had set up with Tony Waddington (songwriter), Tony Waddington and John Frui ...
and a new office building at Marble Arch
The Marble Arch is a 19th-century white marble-faced triumphal arch in London, England. The structure was designed by John Nash (architect), John Nash in 1827 to be the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near th ...
in central London, later sold to the radio station Jazz FM.
Bickerton moved into the upper reaches of the wider music industry, initially as an executive of the Performing Right Society
PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertakes ...
in England, where he worked from the late 1970s, eventually as chairman and acting Chief executive.[ SESAC Magazine, Fall 2007, "Ten years of international growth"]
Retrieved 11 November 2009 He also became Deputy Chairman of The University of Liverpool
, mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning
, established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...
Institute of Popular Music.[ In 1997, he became an executive at ]SESAC
SESAC is a for-profit performance-rights organization in the United States. Founded in 1930 as the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, it is the second-oldest performance-rights organization in the United States. , as Chairman of SESAC International,[ and was also awarded an ]honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
(LL.D.) by the University of Liverpool.
Death
He died on 28 November 2015 aged 74 at his home in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
, England. "SESAC International Chairman Dr. Wayne Bickerton Dies", ''SESAC.com'', Retrieved 1 December 2015
/ref>
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bickerton, Wayne
1941 births
2015 deaths
People from Rhyl
Musicians from Liverpool
British music industry executives
English record producers
English songwriters
English bass guitarists
English male guitarists
Male bass guitarists
Ivor Novello Award winners
Beat musicians