Back on the Gravy Train

Gilbert O’Sullivan has so many chips on his shoulders he should be paying yearly dues to the carpenter’s union. Back in Dublin to play a gig at the National Concert Hall on November 6th, no doubt the hits, like ‘Clair’, ‘Get Down’ and ‘Nothing Rhymed’ will keep the fans happy but greet him in his hotel room and the first thing you notice is that he looks as though he’s afraid a smile would crack his facial features.

Perhaps that’s just his response to journalists, particularly those who ask him about cash. And yet, having been told by Neil Sedaka that he is guaranteed a six sum figure for the rest of his life from radio royalties, I had to start out by asking Gilbert O’ Sullivan if he could similarly quantify the worth of his song ‘Alone Again, Naturally’ which, until 1990 was the track played most often on radio, receiving more than 4 million performances. It was the wrong question to open with, but then maybe any question would have been.

“I’m not an accountant,” he says, as if I’d jabbed a needle into his bleeding gum. “If Neil Sedaka is prepared to discuss what he earns, or potentially will earn, that shows where he’s coming from. I would refute that question, it’s irrelevant. Though I admit it’s an area people want to talk to me about, probably as a result of my court case over earnings and the ownership of my songs. But I don’t have to talk about it and if Neil does then he’s obviously a businessman first and a musician second. Any musician would say ‘if you want to talk about music, fine. But if you want to talk about money speak to an accountant.”

Nonetheless, wouldn’t Gilbert agree that his historic court case against MAM, in 1982, was the kind of experience from which younger musicians could learn a trick or three, particularly in light of the fact that, apart from the undisclosed financial settlement, he also won back the copyright and master tapes of all his songs. And surely the fortune he’s earned from a handful of those songs proves he himself is now a successful businessman? Isn’t that also part of being in the music business?

“I am a successful businessman, there’s no question about that,” he concedes, somewhat reluctantly, yet proudly. “But that’s not why I’m prepared to come to Dublin, or tour – just to talk about the financial aspects of it all. And while what I’ve been through may benefit younger musicians, the best thing I can say to them is, if you came into the music business purely to make money then get out. People should come into this business to make records and if you make records that sell and make you money, fine. But never let the money-making aspect be your goal. In the beginning I came into the business to have a hit record, to be seen as a success in my home town. That was my goal.”

Gilbert was born Raymond O’ Sullivan in Waterford in 1946. However, he left Ireland when he was six and now claims that his dilemma is that in Ireland he’s regarded as an English writer, while in England he’s seen as an Irish writer. So how would he describe his lineage, musically speaking, and was the Irish base an influential factor at all?

“No, it wasn’t,” he says, effectively killing his chances of ever being regarded as one of Ireland’s first successful singer/songwriters.

“My history in music is pure English, pure pop from 1958-1962. And though rock critics write off those years just before the Beatles I still insist that if you want to hear classically constructed pop songs, with simple lyrics and simple melodies, those were the years that produced the best.

“Why were the Beatles great writers? Because their base was Tin Pan Alley, irrespective of what they later became. McCartney was singing ‘Besame Mucho’, for Christ’s sake. He did ‘Till There Was You’. And even John Lennon was writing pure pop songs in the beginning. They were the greatest pop band in the world because they had that pedigree in Tin Pan Alley which freed them to evolve into other forms of songwriting.

“The problem with songwriters today is that they just want to tune into what groups like the Beatles later became and therefore they don’t learn the basic craft of writing songs. I loved the Brill Building writers, who were the Tin Pan alley people of my time: Mann/Well; Goffin and King and Neil Sedaka and Greenfield. Those were my models. And even Dylan, in terms of the rhyme patterns he used was pure Tin Pan alley.”

When Gilbert O’ Sullivan broke through in 1970 with ‘Nothing Rhymed’, he was part of the new breed of singer/songwriters which included the likes of Carole King, and Sedaka in his solo mode. Within one year he began to rival the popularity of Elton John, particularly after ‘Alone Again’ hit number one in America. However, many rock fans found it hard to forgive him for his original ‘Bisto Kid’ image, a Norman Wisdom for the 70’s complete with short baggy trousers, ill-fitting jacket and peaked cap.

“Back in 1967 when denim became regulation wear for rock bands I reacted against that and always wanted to look different,” he recalls.

“I was doing the John Peel radio show in 1967 and dressed up in what was my Charlie Chaplin, not Norman Wisdom outfit, but that didn’t get in the way of Peel loving my music. Yet the rock press, in particular, dismissed me because they felt that “image” was a dirty word, or concept. They didn’t realise that the denim suits everyone else was wearing were just as much of a calculated image as anything I wore.”

Gilbert’s ire rises even further when it is suggested that the popular belief would be that his image was largely shaped by manager Gordon Mills who, it’s claimed, perceived him as the alternative to his other protégés, “studs”, Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck. It has also been suggested that Mills later tried to present O’ Sullivan in a similarly “macho” mode, posing with his shirt open to the waist and flashing what clearly seemed like a chest toupee. And, yes, wearing a medallion that must have made the Bee Gees sick with envy.

“Well, you have every right to believe the tabloid version of my story if you want” he says. “They always say that the image was created by my management. It wasn’t. I didn’t meet Gordon Mills until 1969, I had this image in 1966. And it was Chaplin, because he was an original hero of mine. And I stuck with that even after CBS originally showed interest in my songs and said “grow your hair, put on the denim and maybe we can sell this stuff.” I said “sod off, I like the idea of being visually different.” Everybody said “drop the image” but I wrote to Mills, who managed the two biggest solo stars in the world and, as it turned out, he hated the way I looked but respected my sticking by my belief in an alternative image. More than that he liked the songs so he went along with whatever I wanted to do. And I was the one who was responsible for the ‘G’ sweater shots and the ones with my shirt undone. By trying to say Gordon Mills was behind all this you’re insulting my intelligence and forgetting that I’m an ex-art student, I play around with images. You’re missing the whole point.”

But surely the point, at the time, was to develop ever-changing images to accommodate an ever-changing pop market. In music papers, rather than just the tabloids weren’t there demands for Gilbert to “grow up” and drop what had, in the end become a redundant, and ridiculous image? Pop-rockers like ‘Get Down’ would hardly have seemed as effective sung by the Bisto Kid, would they?

“So, would you have said to Charlie Chaplin, after he made brilliant silent films, ‘grow up, Charlie?’,” he says, in a mode of self-defence which is fast becoming tiresome. “You’re degrading an artist by telling him that, because the character he created now looks stupid or out-of-date, he should drop it. That doesn’t make sense at all.

“The great thing about ‘Nothing Rhymed’ was that people heard it and expected me to be in denims and wearing long hair and I then confused them, like I’m confusing you. I loved doing that. So anyone who would tell me, at that time, to ‘grow up’ would have been stupid and hypocritical when my songs obviously were improving and maturing all the time. So was I. But, yes, people got confused by the image and, great, that’s exactly what I wanted. And by the time ‘Clair’ came out, and the album Back To Front I wanted to confuse people with another image that was the opposite of the Bisto Kid, so I changed my look and that’s the whole story, plain and simple.”

Gilbert is so touchy on this subject one wonders if, after a year or two as a “stablemate” of self-declared rides like Tom Jones and “Enge” he also may have changed his little-boy image because they, apparently, were beginning to wonder if he was gay? Was Gilbert trying to confuse people sexually at the time?

“No. Because I wouldn’t have been conscious at the time of being accused of being gay” he retaliates.”I was aware that certain journalists were saying ‘if he stays home on his own he mustn’t like girls’ but, I had girlfriends. It’s just that they weren’t in the public eye. And I didn’t go out much. I had my bungalow – which Gordon Mills owned – and preferred to stay at home with whatever girlfriend I had at the time. I didn’t go in for any of the rock ‘n’ roll excesses at all, like a half dozen girls in your bedroom, or whatever.”

Nevertheless Gilbert did later buy an £85,000 house. Wasn’t that evidence of at least one teeny weenie rock ‘n’ roll indulgence?

“When I was very successful the most important thing for me was to have a nice, big home. What’s wrong with that?” he says. “I needed lots of rooms where I could put my pianos and my other belongings. I bought a big house, so what?”

So nothing. But is there any truth to the suggestion that when he went to buy the house Gilbert O’ Sullivan realised he had a lot less money than he’d expected to have?

“None at all,” he says. “MAM looked after management, publishing, live appearances, the lot. So when Gordon took me on I had an accountant, a lawyer, everything I needed. Therefore, it wasn’t an area I worried about. I trusted Gordon, partly because I thought “well, he has made all the money he could possibly want, from Tom and Englebert, he wouldn’t con me.” So I never worried about accounts, books, I just got on with writing music. And he was conscious that I wasn’t interested in the business side of things so he kept all that away from me.”

But wasn’t Gilbert being more than a little naive in this respect, leaving himself wide open to exploitation and to being ripped off big time? And although he now speaks warmly of Gordon Mills, what is his response to tales of how he’d often reduce Englebert Humperdinck to tears with a public bollicking, and to the discrepancies between the money that went to him, MAM and to Gilbert himself from his own hit songs?

“Gordon was no saint, I didn’t say he was, did I?” asks Gilbert. “And, in the beginning his relationship with me, as my manager, was great. Particularly, when we’d go into the studio to work. He produced all my records. But later he got tangled up in other things, outside of music and lost interest in what I was doing, musically. Like, he was living in Los Angeles at that time so he’d say “let’s cut the album tracks in two days, so I can go off for the rest of the week and have fun.” I wasn’t happy with that at all, and, by the mid 70s we weren’t having hits so I said “you stay my manager but let me be produced by someone like Tom Dowd.” But his ego was so massive he wouldn’t allow that and this led to the beginning of the break-up. With regards to Humperdinck and Jones, Humperdinck was jealous of Jones and Jones was jealous of the time Gordon might spend with Humperdinck. But I wasn’t part of any of that.”

Yet is it true that during his first year of fame Gilbert O’ Sullivan was on a weekly allowance of a tenner a week, which, a year later rose to no more than £150 a month?

“In 1969 I was earning a tenner a week in the job I had” Gilbert explains. “So when Gordon offered to take me on, at that point, he said “how much do you want” and I said “if you give me ten pounds a week and let me spend all day writing songs, that’ll be fine.” Obviously, that came up in the court case and it was used to illustrate exploitation. Yet, in the beginning it wasn’t exploitation, even if, by the end, it was.”

Attempting to get him to be more specific about the difference between the sums of money grossed by hits like ‘Clair’ and the money he received merely prompts Gilbert to cut across the statistics, saying “You don’t need to tell me the figures. Don’t you think I know them?”

“Nobody is denying that I was exploited. By the mid 70s, when I was earning a great deal of money I assumed it was being looked after and it wasn’t,” he says. “Gordon allowed others to cream off their cut because he got sidelined, as I said. He was surrounded by yes-men who told him that everything he touched turned to gold. They fed him bullshit and he believed it.

“But then I also remember that in 1970, when I was starting out, I said to him “I’d like, eventually to own my own songs” and he said “one day you will have your own publishing company” and later, when we did break up because I couldn’t continue to do things his way, I said “what about my interest in my songs?” and he said “you’ll get that.” But I had to go through the court case to get that controlling interest in my own songs, eventually. And that took more than five years.”

During this time Gilbert O’ Sullivan also discovered that he was disbarred from performing and from signing to another label. However, he didn’t stop writing, or producing songs. Does he feel bitter about the loss of those five years, a disjuncture which seems to have irreparably damaged his career?

“No. I felt sorry for Gordon and for his wife, who couldn’t understand why I was doing what I was doing” he recalls. “It broke her heart. And I felt sorry for Gordon, in court, because the case showed him up to be the opposite of what everyone thought he was, turned him into the emperor without his clothes.”

Did O Sullivan make his peace with Gordon Mills before Mills died?

“No”, he says emphatically. “His resentment of me was there until his death. Yet his problem was that if he could have only accepted that I could produce myself or others could produce me we wouldn’t have had that break-up, musically. But, to illustrate the extent of his egotism, I remember that he once tried to block the release of an album I did produce for myself, Southpaw and would only allow a single from the album to be released in America. He’d do tiny things like that to assert his power. If he could have overcome that and come back to the music we might have survived. But he was a classic example of what you and I started talking about today, a man who got so lost in the business of making money from music that he lost sight of the music.”

After more than a quarter century in the music business does O’ Sullivan really need to tour, and sell records, in order to survive or was the settlement from his court case so high that he could live comfortably? What about royalties from songs like ‘Clair’.

“The case has no relevance on my needing to continue to make music,” he says, sharply. “It was a lot of money but I didn’t do interviews after I won the case to say “look at how much they gave me” and I won’t do that now. But I am very proud, today, to be able to own all my masters because that puts me in the unique position of being, virtually, my own record company. So on a business level I’m able to do deals around the world, not only in terms of the masters but in terms of publishing. I own those aspects of my work which are the root of the business.

“Owning masters and owning songs is what our industry is about. And, after all these years I run this cottage industry. I own and sell Gilbert O’ Sullivan.

And I am a very good sales executive, because I get out there and say “buy this guy, because he’s good.” And I enjoy that. I also have the kind of healthy arrogance that enables me to say that what I do is good and there is a market for it.”

But does Gilbert ever despair that few people seem to be buying that line in relation to his latest recordings and that he could, conceivably, be condemned to selling only his back catalogue for the rest of his life, his ‘Greatest Hits’ from the 1970s?

“I could never allow myself to believe that” he says. “I release new albums of my latest material and I know that if I don’t break back through today, it will happen tomorrow. And I object to the implication in your question, which is that all I’m doing is coasting along on my back catalogue. My new album hasnothing to do with my back catalogue.”

But come on, apart from the CD reissues, surely your current concert performance is, essentially, a re-selling of your past, an exercise in nostalgia?

“It is not. I do a mixture of old and new songs. And, for years I’ve refused to go on television, if all they want me to do is the old hits. I’m not interested in just recycling the past. What really excites me these days are the new songs we do. Yet it’s obviously your ignorance of my new material, and my show, which leads you to make that comment. However, I will admit that my dilemma is that, although I’m writing songs as good as anyone else is writing today, I lack this credibility factor which probably just goes back to the way I looked, in the beginning. And, on reflection the only regret I have is how that image has hung onto me.

“I’m proud of having created the image but it disturbs me that people still are not prepared to separate the writer I was, and am, from the image I created at the beginning of my career. And it’s grossly unfair to suggest that because of how I looked then it follows that I must have been a useless writer. Or that all I want to do is recycle my old hits. I do not. And one of these days one of my new songs will break through and, hopefully, finally undo that image.”

Before I reluctantly take leave of such a pleasant interviewee, may I finally ask why on earth our Gilbert is so obviously antagonistic towards journalists.

“Because you guys have torn me apart for years, especially Hot Press, which once did a really damning piece on me,” he replies.

“I’m not given any respect as a writer. Michael Watson once did a four page analysis of my songs for ‘Melody Maker’ and was warned that they couldn’t be seen to be paying attention to me, because of the way I looked, what I seem to represent. Other music papers come from a similar point of view. I toured here in 1978 and much of the Irish media, including your magazine, took my show apart. But then, as far as the music press in Ireland, and England is concerned, I don’t exist. Yet, the best thing is that you guys can’t stop me working. All you’ve done is to stop my work being taken seriously because of your silly prejudices.”

Now, now, Gilbert. You shouldn’t assume that everyone you meet from Hot Press, or the music papers in general, is “the enemy,” I certainly wasn’t. At least not until I met you.

“Well, I didn’t anticipate that you, personally, would be “the enemy” but I’d a pretty good idea all along, of how your magazine will treat this interview,” he says. “I’ll be surprised if you even bother to run the piece. If you did it might damage your “credibility,” mightn’t it?”