Deke Arlon
Encyclopedia
Deke Arlon is a British music publisher and music manager whose clients included Kenny Young
, Sheena Easton
, Ron Grainer
, Elaine Paige
, Dennis Waterman
, Helen Watson, and Marti Pellow
.
. This resulted in one single, "I'm Just A Boy/Can't Make Up Mind" released on Columbia. He went on to record another single for HMV
in 1964, and three more singles for Columbia during 1965 and 1966, all solo recordings. Arlon eventually went on to do theatre and television shows, such as Dad You're a Square, Thank Your Lucky Stars
and Crossroads where he met his future wife, Jill. It was the prospect of securing a mortgage, with its demand of a ‘proper’ job with proof of a regular income that forced Arlon into what was to have been a temporary career move from performing to music publishing.
Within a year at Chappell Music
he worked with artists to help produce songs such as "What a Wonderful World
" by Louis Armstrong
and "Ode to Billy Jo" by Bobbie Gentry
. He worked on newly discovered trunk songs by Gershwin and the scores to theatrical successes like Fiddler on the Roof
, Sweet Charity, Cabaret, and Canterbury Tales.
Arlon was sought out by CBS
and at age 23 was made managing director and senior vice president of the newly formed April/Blackwood Music. It was 1968 and in the following heady years he discovered and worked with young writers who would become music business legends. These included Gilbert O'Sullivan
, James Taylor
, Nicky Chinn
(of ChinnyChap), Chip Taylor, Al Gorgoni, Billy Vera, and bands Blood Sweat and Tears, and Chicago (band)
. He acquired major copyrights of "Everybody’s Talking" (Midnight Cowboy), "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix
, and "Think" by Aretha Franklin
. Film score credits included Scrooge and the award winning Z written by the imprisoned Greek composer Theodorakis.
who, eager to set up their own record and publishing companies, offered him the additional position of managing director of three of its major subsidiaries. Two years later he set up his own independent company, not just as a publisher but as an artist manager too.
Many of his artists over the next thirty years was diverse but all were hugely successful. Kenny Young
, a client from his early April Music days, sold millions of albums on both sides of the Atlantic with songs such as "Under the Board Walk" and "Captain of Your Ship." Additionally, there was Ron Grainer
responsible for the themes to Dr Who, To Sir with Love, Tales of the Unexpected and the music for Robert and Elizabeth
. With clients Ned Sherrin
and Caryl Brahms
, the Arlons entered the arena of theatre production. Their first venture together was the acclaimed musical Nickleby and Me, followed by I Gotta Shoe, Only in America, Okay, The Mitford Girls, and Side By Side By Sondheim
. It was Sherrin’s performance in the hit Broadway version of the latter that led to his own television series We Interrupt this week. Devised by Sherrin and produced by him and Arlon this ran for 26 weeks on WNET
, America. Back in Britain, the success of Side by Side spawned a long running TV series Song by Song by… again produced by the Arlons.
The late 1970s and 1980s was an era of achievement after record producer Christopher Neil
joined up with Arlon. With Neil producing and Arlon managing, the career of a young Sheena Easton
was launched selling millions of records around the world. Songwriter singer Gerard Kenny was another success whose songs were recorded by the likes of Barry Manilow
("Made It Through The Rain"). The alliance of Neil and Arlon led to the sales of more millions of albums with artists including Dollar, Gerry Rafferty
, Mike + The Mechanics, a-ha
, Morton Harket, Cher
, Rod Stewart
, Lulu
, the French super-star Julien Clerc
and Celine Dion
.
Television sales soared when Arlon took over the management of actor Dennis Waterman
broadening the scope of his career with the production of several albums. Following on the success of The Sweeney
, he starred in the highly rated Minder
series which was based on an idea conceived especially for Dennis by Jill Arlon. Both Arlon and Waterman won Ivor Novello Awards
for the title song to this series. It was with Waterman that Deke and Jill Arlon entered the film world with their first production, A Captain’s Tale - The First World Cup, followed by three two hour television films, Circles of Deceit written for him by Jill Arlon.
The steady rise of Elaine Paige’s career has been guided by Arlon for over twenty years. Her recording, albums, and tour were all produced and directed by Arlon including appearing at The Great Hall in Beijing, and created legendary roles in musicals including Evita, Chess, Anything Goes, Piaff, Sunset Boulevard, both here and on Broadway, The King and I and Sweeney Todd with the New York Opera Company. More recently Arlon took on Ray Davies
and the Kinks
.
. Arlon received the gold Novello Award
for his outstanding contribution to the music industry.
In 2001, Arlon was invited to join a major public music company as Chairman of the Entertainment Division and Chairman of Music Publishing. Along with those duties his other brief was to use his knowledge to acquire companies for the group; his most outstanding acquisition was Sir Elton John’s Management Company, Twenty First Artists which included the rights to Billy Elliot
and the new international star James Blunt
.
Arlon was called upon by the British music industry to promote and further the protection of music and theatrical copyrights around the world. He met with various official bodies in the Far East, Taiwan and Thailand. At the end of the 1980s, when Russia first opened its borders to the West, the music industry dispatched Arlon and his wife in their capacity as music business entrepreneurs and ambassadors to research and write a report on the infrastructure of the industry in Russia and to explore the possibilities of sharing our expertise and cultures. More recently, over the last four years, the Arlons were dispatched to visit various regions in China where they held many meetings with different senior government officials and discussions with sports and media experts in order to encourage the protection, collection and payment of copyright royalties for Eastern and Western artists, writers and performers in China and to liaise exchanges of ideas on programming, and artists not only in the field of arts but also sports.
Kenny Young
Kenny Young is an American songwriter who has been an active writer, artist, and producer from 1963 to the present. His most famous song was "Under the Boardwalk," co-written with Arthur Resnick and recorded by The Drifters in 1964 and by The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, and many other artists;...
, Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...
, Ron Grainer
Ron Grainer
Ronald Erle “Ron” Grainer was an Australian-born composer who worked for most of his professional career in the United Kingdom. He is mostly remembered for his film and television music.- Biography :...
, Elaine Paige
Elaine Paige
Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...
, Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman is a British actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks.-Early life:...
, Helen Watson, and Marti Pellow
Marti Pellow
Marti Pellow has been the lead singer of the Scottish pop group Wet Wet Wet since their formation in 1982. He has also recorded solo material.-Early life:...
.
Early career
Arlon began his own band Deke Arlon and the Tremors in 1959 where the band established itself in the south coast England rock scene. In 1964, Deke Arlon and his then group The Offbeats recorded a session with 1960s pop producer Joe MeekJoe Meek
Robert George "Joe" Meek was a pioneering English record producer and songwriter....
. This resulted in one single, "I'm Just A Boy/Can't Make Up Mind" released on Columbia. He went on to record another single for HMV
HMV Group
HMV is a British global entertainment retail chain and is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company also operates in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index...
in 1964, and three more singles for Columbia during 1965 and 1966, all solo recordings. Arlon eventually went on to do theatre and television shows, such as Dad You're a Square, Thank Your Lucky Stars
Thank Your Lucky Stars (TV series)
Thank Your Lucky Stars was a British television pop music show made by ABC Television, and broadcast on ITV from 1961 to 1966. Many of the top bands performed on it, and for millions of British teenagers it was essential viewing...
and Crossroads where he met his future wife, Jill. It was the prospect of securing a mortgage, with its demand of a ‘proper’ job with proof of a regular income that forced Arlon into what was to have been a temporary career move from performing to music publishing.
Within a year at Chappell Music
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
he worked with artists to help produce songs such as "What a Wonderful World
What a Wonderful World
"What a Wonderful World" is a song written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss. It was first recorded by Louis Armstrong and released as a single in 1968. Thiele and Weiss were both prominent in the music world . Armstrong's recording was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999...
" by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
and "Ode to Billy Jo" by Bobbie Gentry
Bobbie Gentry
Roberta Lee Streeter , professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, is a former American singer-songwriter notable as one of the first female country artists to compose and produce her own material...
. He worked on newly discovered trunk songs by Gershwin and the scores to theatrical successes like Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...
, Sweet Charity, Cabaret, and Canterbury Tales.
Arlon was sought out by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
and at age 23 was made managing director and senior vice president of the newly formed April/Blackwood Music. It was 1968 and in the following heady years he discovered and worked with young writers who would become music business legends. These included Gilbert O'Sullivan
Gilbert O'Sullivan
Gilbert O'Sullivan is an Irish-English singer-songwriter, best known for his early 1970s hits "Alone Again ", "Clair" and "Get Down". The music magazine, Record Mirror, voted him the No...
, James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, Nicky Chinn
Nicky Chinn
Nicky Chinn born Nicholas Barry Chinn, 16 May 1945, London, UK) is a British songwriter and record producer. Together with Mike Chapman he had a long string of hit singles in the UK and US in the 1970s and early 1980s, including several number-one records...
(of ChinnyChap), Chip Taylor, Al Gorgoni, Billy Vera, and bands Blood Sweat and Tears, and Chicago (band)
Chicago (band)
Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had...
. He acquired major copyrights of "Everybody’s Talking" (Midnight Cowboy), "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, and "Think" by Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
. Film score credits included Scrooge and the award winning Z written by the imprisoned Greek composer Theodorakis.
1970 – 1989
The mid–1970s saw him lured away from April Music by Yorkshire TelevisionYorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
who, eager to set up their own record and publishing companies, offered him the additional position of managing director of three of its major subsidiaries. Two years later he set up his own independent company, not just as a publisher but as an artist manager too.
Many of his artists over the next thirty years was diverse but all were hugely successful. Kenny Young
Kenny Young
Kenny Young is an American songwriter who has been an active writer, artist, and producer from 1963 to the present. His most famous song was "Under the Boardwalk," co-written with Arthur Resnick and recorded by The Drifters in 1964 and by The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, and many other artists;...
, a client from his early April Music days, sold millions of albums on both sides of the Atlantic with songs such as "Under the Board Walk" and "Captain of Your Ship." Additionally, there was Ron Grainer
Ron Grainer
Ronald Erle “Ron” Grainer was an Australian-born composer who worked for most of his professional career in the United Kingdom. He is mostly remembered for his film and television music.- Biography :...
responsible for the themes to Dr Who, To Sir with Love, Tales of the Unexpected and the music for Robert and Elizabeth
Robert and Elizabeth
Robert and Elizabeth is a musical with music by Ron Grainer and book and lyrics by Ronald Millar. The story is based on an unproduced musical titled The Third Kiss by Judge Fred G. Moritt, which in turn was adapted from the play The Barretts of Wimpole Street by Rudolph Besier...
. With clients Ned Sherrin
Ned Sherrin
Edward George "Ned" Sherrin CBE was an English broadcaster, author and stage director. He qualified as a barrister and then worked in independent television before joining the BBC...
and Caryl Brahms
Caryl Brahms
Caryl Brahms, born Doris Caroline Abrahams was an English critic, novelist, and journalist specialising in the theatre and ballet. She also wrote film, radio and television scripts....
, the Arlons entered the arena of theatre production. Their first venture together was the acclaimed musical Nickleby and Me, followed by I Gotta Shoe, Only in America, Okay, The Mitford Girls, and Side By Side By Sondheim
Side By Side By Sondheim
Side by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.-History:...
. It was Sherrin’s performance in the hit Broadway version of the latter that led to his own television series We Interrupt this week. Devised by Sherrin and produced by him and Arlon this ran for 26 weeks on WNET
WNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
, America. Back in Britain, the success of Side by Side spawned a long running TV series Song by Song by… again produced by the Arlons.
The late 1970s and 1980s was an era of achievement after record producer Christopher Neil
Christopher Neil
Christopher Neil is a British record producer, songwriter, singer and actor.He has worked with Celine Dion, a-ha, Dollar, Paul Nicholas, Kim Criswell, Morten Harket, Mike + The Mechanics, Johnny Logan, Marillion, The Moody Blues, The Other Ones, Paul Carrack, Rod Stewart, Gerry Rafferty, Cher,...
joined up with Arlon. With Neil producing and Arlon managing, the career of a young Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...
was launched selling millions of records around the world. Songwriter singer Gerard Kenny was another success whose songs were recorded by the likes of Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
("Made It Through The Rain"). The alliance of Neil and Arlon led to the sales of more millions of albums with artists including Dollar, Gerry Rafferty
Gerry Rafferty
Gerald "Gerry" Rafferty was a Scottish singer songwriter best known for his solo hits "Baker Street", "Right Down the Line", "Days Gone Down", "Night Owl", "Get It Right Next Time", and with the band Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the Middle with You". Rafferty was born into a working-class family in...
, Mike + The Mechanics, a-ha
A-ha
A-ha were a Norwegian pop band formed in Oslo in 1982. The band was founded by Morten Harket , Magne Furuholmen , and Pål Waaktaar...
, Morton Harket, Cher
Cher
Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
, Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
, Lulu
Lulu (singer)
Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...
, the French super-star Julien Clerc
Julien Clerc
Julien Clerc, , born as Paul Alain Leclerc on 4 October 1947 in Paris, Clerc's parents divorced when he was still young. He grew up listening to classical music in his father's home, while his mother introduced him to the music of such singers as Georges Brassens and Edith Piaf...
and Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
.
Television sales soared when Arlon took over the management of actor Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman is a British actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks.-Early life:...
broadening the scope of his career with the production of several albums. Following on the success of The Sweeney
The Sweeney
The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...
, he starred in the highly rated Minder
Minder (TV series)
Minder is a British comedy-drama about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV...
series which was based on an idea conceived especially for Dennis by Jill Arlon. Both Arlon and Waterman won Ivor Novello Awards
Ivor Novello Awards
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Cardiff born entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They are presented annually in London by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and were first introduced in 1955.Nicknamed The Ivors, the awards take place...
for the title song to this series. It was with Waterman that Deke and Jill Arlon entered the film world with their first production, A Captain’s Tale - The First World Cup, followed by three two hour television films, Circles of Deceit written for him by Jill Arlon.
The steady rise of Elaine Paige’s career has been guided by Arlon for over twenty years. Her recording, albums, and tour were all produced and directed by Arlon including appearing at The Great Hall in Beijing, and created legendary roles in musicals including Evita, Chess, Anything Goes, Piaff, Sunset Boulevard, both here and on Broadway, The King and I and Sweeney Todd with the New York Opera Company. More recently Arlon took on Ray Davies
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...
and the Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
.
1990 – present
In the mid 1990s in recognition of Arlon’s wide range of experience in so many fields, the music industry invited him to be executive producer for the debut of their first major award show. Now known as The BRIT Awards, it was Arlon who produced and directed the show for the first two years so creating a prestigious profile for British pop music. It was he who first brought it to television and who then went on to sell the TV rights world–wide on behalf of the British Phonographic IndustryBritish Phonographic Industry
The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...
. Arlon received the gold Novello Award
Ivor Novello Awards
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Cardiff born entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They are presented annually in London by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and were first introduced in 1955.Nicknamed The Ivors, the awards take place...
for his outstanding contribution to the music industry.
In 2001, Arlon was invited to join a major public music company as Chairman of the Entertainment Division and Chairman of Music Publishing. Along with those duties his other brief was to use his knowledge to acquire companies for the group; his most outstanding acquisition was Sir Elton John’s Management Company, Twenty First Artists which included the rights to Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot is a 2000 British drama film written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry. Set in the fictional town of "Everington" in the real County Durham, UK, it stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, an aspiring dancer, Gary Lewis as his coal miner father, Jamie Draven as Billy's older...
and the new international star James Blunt
James Blunt
James Hillier Blount , better known by his stage name James Blunt, is an English singer-songwriter and musician, and former army officer, whose debut album, Back to Bedlam and single releases, including "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover", brought him to fame in 2005...
.
Arlon was called upon by the British music industry to promote and further the protection of music and theatrical copyrights around the world. He met with various official bodies in the Far East, Taiwan and Thailand. At the end of the 1980s, when Russia first opened its borders to the West, the music industry dispatched Arlon and his wife in their capacity as music business entrepreneurs and ambassadors to research and write a report on the infrastructure of the industry in Russia and to explore the possibilities of sharing our expertise and cultures. More recently, over the last four years, the Arlons were dispatched to visit various regions in China where they held many meetings with different senior government officials and discussions with sports and media experts in order to encourage the protection, collection and payment of copyright royalties for Eastern and Western artists, writers and performers in China and to liaise exchanges of ideas on programming, and artists not only in the field of arts but also sports.