Les Conn; very late obit on Pop manager and promoter who handled the early careers of David Bowie and Marc Bolan
Hyfler/Rosner
careers of David Bowie and Marc Bolan
Monday, 16 March 2009
Leslie Conn was a man of many parts in the British music
scene. It is difficult to define his most important role -
perhaps as a first manager for David Bowie and Marc Bolan -
but although his career was a mixture of successes and
failures, he made a positive mark on all he touched. It was
said of him that confusion seemed to beset his life. In his
own words, he was: "The only guy in the music business that
started at the top and worked his way to the bottom."
Conn was born in 1929 into a Jewish family in London's
Stamford Hill. Evacuated to Cambridgeshire at the outset of
the Second World War, he was housed with a Christian family
who sent him to Sunday school and enrolled him in Ely
cathedral choir. Thus began his introduction to music.
He led a far less saintly working life as a comedian, and
during national service in East Africa he organised concert
parties. Then came his introduction to Tin Pan Alley; he
became a song plugger for Chappell's Music and met Dick
James, who later employed him as a record plugger - one who
cajoles producers and disc jockeys to play their wares. He
was considered successful by means of sheer persistence; Max
Bygraves once said that Conn was "the only man who could set
fire to a bucket of sand".
He moved on to artists' management, a succession of young
wannabes passing through his doors. Most of them he failed
to turn into stars for, although he had an uncanny ability
to spot talent, it was generally too soon and the act so
undeveloped that no one believed him - forcing him to admit
he had become "the most successful failure in show business".
But in those early days there were some successes, and a
17-year-old David Bowie was nearly one of them.
The post-war Stamford Hill set included Vidal Sassoon,
Harold Pinter, Arnold Wesker, Lionel Blair and the
washing-machine magnate John Bloom. Conn knew them all and
happened to be the only person in the music business that
Bloom knew.
Bloom had received a letter from a young chap named David
Robert Jones, asking for help with publicity. Describing
Jones as "a cheeky sod", Bloom persuaded Conn to give Davie
Jones, with his group The King Bees, an audition. Conn liked
what he heard and got the group a date at Soho's Jack of
Clubs but by the end of their second number the guests had
their hands over their ears and that was the end of that.
Conn, however, convinced it was merely the wrong audience
for the group, was quite undeterred. He elected to become
their manager.
In 1964 he secured a recording contract with Decca's
Vocalion label and the group cut a song written by Conn,
"Liza Jane", and Paul Revere and Mark Lindsay's "Louie,
Louie, go Home", which, in spite of getting good radio
coverage, sold poorly and convinced Decca to bow out of the
deal. Despite a few dates at such venues as the Marquee and
the Roundhouse (earning £20 per session), work was slow and
during such slack times Conn employed Jones and another
discovery, Marc Bolan, as decorators, to paint his small
office in Tin Pan Alley.
He tried in vain to get the music publisher Dick James
interested in his two protégés but Dick's champions were The
Beatles and he was not impressed by what he described as
Conn's "long-haired gits". Conn, however, had total faith in
Davie Jones' talent, although he found him to be amazingly
arrogant. "I'm the greatest and I don't care who knows it,"
Jones often declared, believing with a passion that he was
going to be a big star. Conn also believed it, and he
visited Jones' parents to obtain their approval for a
five-year management contract with an option for a further
five. Later came Davie Jones with the Manish Boys but,
however hard he tried, Conn failed to promote the true
potential of his "star". He honourably took no commission
during their association. The problem was that Conn lacked
the resources to back his judgement.
Davie Jones was too ambitious for him to hold on to under
existing conditions, so they parted on good terms, Jones
telling Conn at the time that he was quitting the pop
business to study mime at Sadler's Wells. He subsequently
changed his name to David Bowie. The rest is history.
The Shadows became another project for Conn. He heard them
at Stoke Newington, co-starring with Benny Hill, and
immediately booked a recording session, personally paying
the £40 fee. Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch were not pleased
with the result but Conn was delighted with their two
numbers and EMI issued "Teenage Love" and "Jean Dorothy" on
the Columbia label, the record being The Shadows' first
release and securing them an appearance on television's
Six-Five Special.
As a composer Conn wrote some 40 songs - one of them, "The
Viper", was recorded by Freddie and the Dreamers; handled
record exploitation for music publishers Peter Maurice and
Robbins; represented the American Carlton label; handled all
Doris Day's music; promoted the careers of Petula Clark and
Frankie Vaughan; became manager of Manfred Mann; and saw
early star quality in Adam Faith and Georgie Fame.
Despite some apparent failures he had become known as a
creator and by the age of 29 he had been appointed to the
Decca record label as Artists & Repertoire Manager.
Finally becoming disenchanted with Tin Pan Alley, he took
himself off to Majorca for an extended holiday. The story
goes that, on his first night there, his entire funds ,of
£1,000, were stolen.
Broke and disconsolate, Conn wandered down to the beach,
where he spotted a tourist boat devoid of its necessary
passengers. He suggested to the unhappy captain that he
should install a tape machine and a couple of speakers and
play pop music and his boat would be full every day. It did
the trick and the passengers came flooding in. For the
following three years Conn ran "18-30"-style beach parties
and discos, before returning to London with a new-found
fortune.
Working at the Valbonne Club as its genial host inspired him
to open his own club and in the early 1980s he established
The Bristol Suite in Mayfair, adorning it with decorations,
such as a glass case enclosing the dress that Marilyn Monroe
had worn in the film Bus Stop. He gave the club the slogan
"Come as a stranger, leave as a friend" and staffed it with
gorgeous, long-legged girls as hostesses and waitresses, all
wearing stilettos and fishnet tights.
Financially, he had many ups and downs - fortunes came and
went with great ease - but his life ended comfortably,
although in rather poor health.
Brian Willey
Leslie Conn, pop music entrepreneur, born Stamford Hill,
London 14 December 1929; married 1953 Monica Mendoza
(marriage dissolved 1965, one daughter); died Marble Arch,
London 13 December 2008.