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I.
Charisma Records was a small independent label founded in 1969 by the ebullient figure Tony Stratton Smith and is mostly remembered today as the home of a few old hippies and prog rockers [1] and for releasing various novelty records, which, depending on how one views these things, may or may not include Malcolm McLaren's Duck Rock (1983).
For me, however, Charisma is a place I remember fondly not so much for the artists and acts associated with the label, but the equally talented and, in some ways, equally eccentric cast of characters who were running the company during its final years after it was bitten (and eventually swallowed) by the Virgin shark [2].
II.
These characters, for example, include Steve Weltman, who had left RCA to take up the role of Managing Director at Charisma in 1981, where he had previously worked in the early '70s and so understood the ethos and history of the label.
I didn't have a personally close or even particularly fond working relationship with Weltman [3] and, as far as I remember, he only twice called me into his office for a serious chat.
On the first occasion, it was to warn me against visiting McLaren's office on 25 Denmark Street, as, due to ongoing legal wranglings between Charisma and McLaren, any and all future contact would be construed, he said, as a breach of trust (I was essentially accused of being a spy and of passing on confidential information) [4].
Needless to say, I didn't heed this warning. For one thing, I wasn't technically an employee of Charisma, so didn't feel under any legal obligation to do so and, obviously, my loyalties were very much to Malcolm, who had placed me in the Charisma press office in the first place.
On the second occasion, it was to advise that I could, if I wanted, have a very bright future working in the music industry and that I should seriously consider my options and seize any opportunities that came my way.
Again, needless to say, I didn't pay any attention to this careers advice and, in October 1985, with £1000 stuffed in an envelope, and carrying more books than clothes in an old suitcase, I set off on a bus from Victoria coach station to Madrid, with the intention of becoming a novelist and poet [5].
III.
Another Charisma character that I remember well (and with rather more affection) was the young woman heading the A&R department, Shelly Clark ...
Although I was primarily Lee Ellen Newman's right-arm in the Press Office, occasionally I'd be asked to help Shelly deal with the ever-growing backlog of tapes that were sent in by hopefuls and wannabes all aspiring to become successful recording artists.
These tapes, rather sadly, were kept in a number of black bin bags, as if in anticipation of their fate. And to be fair, most were rubbish. It often surprised me to see the lack of care many people took with their submissions; sometimes forgetting even to include a return address or phone number, let alone a brief bio and photo [6].
Shelly was, I think, a generous soul. She did once throw a cup of coffee over me [7], but then, on the other hand, she gave me a big hug and a kiss on my 22nd birthday and we shared a couple of bottles of wine in her office listening to various outtakes from Duck Rock. We even once went to see a band together - The Opposition - at Camden Palace (25 June, 1985), on the orders of Steve Weltman.
Unfortunately, I think she was a little ground down (or bored) by the job. And I'm not sure Shelly really knew or cared very much about music. I liked her though and think this photo taken of the two of us by Holly Fogg, the Charisma Secretary, shows that we enjoyed an affectionate and playful relationship:
Notes
[1] Historians of the British music industry tend to view Charisma in three distinct phases: the first phase between late 1969 and July 1975; the middle phase, from August 1975 to August 1983; and the final phase from September 1983 until Charisma's full assimilation into Virgin in 1986-87.
Whilst it is the first phase that is traditionally of most interest to historians and record collectors - this being seen as the golden period during which Charisma released records from artists such as The Nice, Genesis, Lindisfarne, Van Der Graaf Generator, et al, it's the final phase that interests me here and which I was a part of.
[2] Stratton Smith sold Charisma to Richard Branson's Virgin Records in stages. A special relationship, which included a distribution deal, was agreed in September 1983 and this was (inevitably) followed by a full sale of shares in 1985. By the end of the following year, Charisma had been fully assimilated and ceased operating as an independent label; the last new release with the Mad Hatter logo appeared in October 1986.
Sadly, Stratton Smith died shortly afterwards, of pancreatic cancer, aged 54, in March 1987. On the few occasions he and I ever spoke, he invariably misremembered my name - calling me James rather than Jazz - though he did once say he admired my 'lateral thinking'.
[3] Having said that, Weltman did invite me to his birthday party on Saturday 1 June 1985, at his house in Esher, Surrey (one of the most affluent towns in the UK, popular with bankers, lawyers, corporate executives, celebrities, and so on).
[4] Ironically, but also to his great credit, it had been Weltman who - undeterred by Mclaren's troublemaking reputation - had insisted that Charisma sign the latter and pay him an advance of £45,000 in order to make the album fusing "contemporary urban black sounds with world music" known as Duck Rock.
See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), pp. 494-95.
[5] See the autobiographical fragment on my move to sunny Spain in October 1985 (18 Aug 2020): click here.
[6] Just as surprising was the level of naivety displayed by those who sent in tapes containing a full album's worth of songs; did they really think anyone would continue listening beyond the first 30 seconds of the first couple of tracks?
More irritating, however, was the defensive arrogance that occasionally accompanied a submission: If you can't hear the musical brilliance of these highly original songs then please return them without delay.
[7] As recorded in a diary entry dated Tuesday 5 February, 1985. The coffee was thrown playfully, rather than in anger or with malice.
