3 October 2007 
THE 34th ANNUAL GOLD BADGE AWARDS
PRESENTED BY THE BRITISH ACADEMY OF COMPOSERS & SONGWRITERS
Wednesday 24th October 2007. The Savoy, Strand, London
Each year, Britain’s songwriters pay tribute to the vast machinery of talent behind the scenes of the music business at the Academy’s Gold Badge Awards Luncheon sponsored by MCPS.
Over the past 33 years the Academy has honoured broadcasters, recording artists, publishers, arrangers, producers, record company executives, and a host of other unsung heroes on whom the industry depends. Covering a wide range of disciplines, ages and musical styles, the Gold Badge Awards are the British composers’ salute to an outstanding group of people who have made a special and lasting contribution to Britain’s entertainment industry.
This year the Academy will be awarding the Gold Badge of Merit to:
Danny Betesh
Tim Blackmore M.B.E
Jamie Cullum
Michael Eavis C.B.E
Dame Evelyn Glennie
Carrie and David Grant
Andy Heath
Gavin Henderson C.B.E
Mike Moran
Maurice Murphy
Steve Price
Debbie Wiseman M.B.E
Previous recipients include: Ronnie Scott, Richard Baker, Tommy Steele, Acker Bilk, Albert Lee, Matt Monro, Trevor Horn, Rob Dickins, Steve Winwood, Shirley Bassey, Sir Cliff Richard, Elaine Paige, Jools Holland, Bruce Welch, Kiki Dee, Rick Wakeman, Cilla Black, Errol Brown, Laurie Johnson, Ray Cooper, Sam Brown, Michael Parkinson, Roger Daltrey, Barbara Windsor, Ian Dury, Glyn Johns, Engelbert Humperdinck, Midge Ure, Mica Paris, Tony Hadley, Isobel Griffiths, Paul Walters.
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Press contact: Catherine George, MCPS-PRS Alliance, tel: 020 7306 4777 or 0785 249 8878
Photos available from LFI: www.lfi.co.uk ,tel: 020 7723 4204
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
The British Academy of Composers & Songwriters is the single voice for all music writers. With over 2,000 members, it is the recognised independent trade association for UK music creators.
Each year the Academy celebrates those who have served the creative community with distinction through the Gold Badge Awards. Now in their 4th decade they command equal respect alongside the Academy’s Ivor Novello and British Composer Awards.
Academy Fellows: John Adams, David Arnold, Sir Malcolm Arnold, John Barry, Pierre Boulez, Sir John Dankworth, George Fenton, Sir Elton John, Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb, Robin Gibb, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. http://www.britishacademy.com
MCPS, the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, ensures its 17,000 composer, songwriter and music publisher members are paid royalties when the music they have created is recorded; CDs, DVDs, downloads, computer games and everything in between. MCPS are the sponsors of the Gold Badge Awards and have been for 22 years. MCPS works in an operational alliance with PRS – the Performing Right Society (the MCPS-PRS Alliance) - creating a future for music. http://www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk
GOLD BADGE AWARDS 24th OCTOBER 2007 – RECEPIENT DETAILS
Once again and for the 34th year in succession, the Gold Badge Awards on 24 October 2007 at the Savoy Hotel are recognising and saluting a broad cross-section of people whose career contributions help to make the UK music industry the special and outstanding creative treasure trove it is. Presented by the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters and sponsored by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), this unique occasion places a well-deserved spotlight on some talented individuals whose vital role is otherwise sometimes lost and overlooked. Here are a few facts about them, listed in no particular order.
Danny Betesh is a prime example of what the Gold Badge Awards are all about. An artist agent and manager who has been running Kennedy Street Artistes and Enterprises with Harvey Lisberg in Manchester for the best part of 45 years, he personifies the backroom boy, the man behind the scenes, who seldom gets a name check or any other form of publicity but who has been vitally influential in advancing the careers of many household names of the past and present. The Kennedy Street organisation built up its potency with local Manchester and North of England acts such as Herman’s Hermits, Freddy and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders and Dave Berry and the Cruisers. Danny and his colleagues took and take care of all the details like travelling arrangements, accommodation, visas if it’s a foreign act and the hundred and one other things that need taking care of to present successful entertainment. They are the unsung heroes who earn their corn the hard way.
Tim Blackmore M.B.E is one of the most prominent and highly respected names in British radio. He was one of four young people hired to start BBC Radio 1 in 1967 in the wake of the disbanded offshore pirate radio stations. He launched Noel Edmonds’ career and wrote ‘The Story of Pop’, the first major documentary about the history of popular music since rock ’n’ roll. Tim moved to Capital Radio in 1977 to become head of music and then head of programmes, leaving in 1982 to manage the careers of Alan “Fluff” Freeman and Richard Allinson and operate as a freelance radio producer. In 1984 he helped to create the Radio Academy, serving as its director from 1986 until 1988. Meeting Simon Cole (then with Piccadilly Radio) in 1986 resulted in the foundation of Unique Broadcasting which pioneered the concept of independent production for UK commercial radio and now also supplies programmes to the BBC. In 1987 Tim began writing, producing and narrating the Ivor Novello Awards for the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters, a task he fulfilled admirably until 2005. Today he is Consultant Group Editorial Director of UBC Media Group, Chairman of Smooth Operations Ltd, the Unique Broadcasting Company Ltd and chairman of the radio industry’s Sony Radio Academy Awards Committee.
Jamie Cullum was born in Essex but grew up in Wiltshire. He eagerly absorbed all kinds of pop music from an early age but leant towards jazz in his teenage years, particularly Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, although his bass-playing brother Ben introduced him to Steely Dan’s ground-breaking albums. While studying English at college, Jamie began gigging as a singer-pianist at every conceivable opportunity, mostly pubs but occasionally wedding receptions and later cruise ships. It was all useful, act-building experience and he was ready, willing and able when Universal Classics & Jazz signed him in 2003 and he recorded ‘Twentysomething’. His fame and appeal are now international, one of the brightest, gifted and most exciting UK artists to emerge in the early 21st century.
Michael Eavis C.B.E is certainly the most famous dairy farmer in pop music. Inspired by a visit to the Bath Blues Festival in 1969, he organised a free festival the following year at his Worthy Farm, Glastonbury, a modest beginning which has developed over the years into one of the most successful and best known events in the world, attracting top name stars and increasing numbers of fans and enthusiasts despite the hazards of the English weather and the frequent incidence of mud. Michael was educated at Wells Cathedral School and the Thames Nautical Training College before joining the Merchant Navy. He inherited Worthy Farm in 1958 from his father, a local Methodist preacher, and it is still very much a working farm when the Glastonbury Festival is not taking place there.
Dame Evelyn Glennie is the first person to create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. She gives over 100 performances every year (featuring also the distinctive instrument of her native Scotland, the bagpipes), working with famous conductors, orchestras and other artists, and has commissioned 143 new works for solo percussion from many of the world’s most eminent composers as well as composing herself and recording for film and TV. She has won three Grammy’s for her recorded works. Dame Evelyn also designs a range of jewellery and has recently begun teaching. Not least impressive among her many achievements is her triumph over the challenge of profound deafness.
Carrie and David Grant are two of the best known pop vocal coaches in the country. Their client list includes Will Young, Melanie C and Lemar and they have been coaches and judges on ‘Fame Academy 2’ and ‘Comic Relief Does Fame Academy’ and vocal coaches on ‘Pop Idol’. In the early 1980s David was very successful as one half of the Brit-funk duo Linx with four Top 20 singles and went on to have three Top 30 singles as a solo artist after Linx split in 1983. Carrie started as a TV dancer before becoming a presenter on children’s TV and then moving on to session singing where she met David. They worked together on their highly acclaimed gospel album ‘’Watching and Waiting’ which won a Mobo award as Best Gospel Album in 1997. They take part in senior business management training courses, using the medium of music to train clients including the Foreign Office, Barings Bank, the Body Shop and Express Newspapers in strategy, leadership and team building. David and Carrie are currently filming a BBC TV programme called ‘Facing The Music’ in which they teach people to sing for special events in their lives and which will be screened towards the end of this year.
Andy Heath is a music publisher, following in the footsteps of his late father Jack. He has specialised in the alternative music field for most of his career and is noted for his long term approach to talent development and amenability to new business initiatives and techniques. He ran Momentum Music from 1985 to 2001 which he owned in partnership with Martin Mills, chief of the Beggars Banquet group of which he has been a director since 1991. After the sale of Momentum to Universal Music, Andy remained primarily an independent music publisher with new ventures including 4AD Music and Playlouder, the integrated music media company which operates both online and offline. Andy has also been prominent in music industry matters as council member and president (1993-1997) of the Music Publishers Association, co-founder of British Music Rights, the lobbying organisation, and was instrumental in establishing the operational merger between the Performing Right Society and the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society.
Gavin Henderson C.B.E is one of those members of the creative artistic world who is active and effective in many useful spheres. Born in Brighton where he still lives, Gavin attended Brighton College and Brighton College of Art, now part of the University of Brighton of which he was Governor from 1988 to 1995. Among his other strong local connections are being Chairman of the Regency Society of Brighton and Hove and of the Brighton Youth Orchestra Trust, trustee of the West Pier and president of the Brighton Orpheus Choir and Springboard – the Competitive Music Festival. On a broader canvas, he is Chairman of the National Foundation for Youth Music (now simply known as Youth Music), Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School and in 2003 was elected President of the Brussels-based European Festivals Association. From 1994 until 1999 Gavin was a member of the Arts Council of England and was Chair of its Music Panel until 2003. In 1994 he was appointed Principal at the Trinity College of Music and arranged its relocation to the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich. He will shortly become the Principal and Chief Executive of Trinity Laban, formed by the merger of Trinity College and Laban during the 2004/2005 academic year, and which will be the UK’s first conservatoire for music and dance. Gavin was appointed CBE for services to music and to the arts and his Gold Badge is equally well merited.
Mike Moran has excelled in a multi-faceted career in music since graduating from the Royal College of Music. It encompasses keyboard player with leading bands including Blue Mink, Stone The Crows and Gillan, much session work, record producing, songwriting (his collaboration with Lynsey de Paul, Rock Bottom, was the UK Eurovision entry in 1977 performed by its writers), conducting leading British and international symphony orchestras for concerts and recordings, composing soundtrack music for many film and TV productions, musical director for a wide array of stars in different genres, and working with the late Freddie Mercury on his duet album with opera star Montserrat Caballé. Mike’s most recent project is the score for ‘Blessed’, a film starring James Nesbitt due for release this year.
Maurice Murphy began his musical career in the brass band world and was All Britain Junior Champion cornet soloist in 1947. That was followed when he was 14 by second place in the ’Opportunity Knocks’ radio talent contest and an offer to join the show’s resident orchestra directed by Cyril Stapleton. He became principal cornet player with the world-famous Black Dyke Mills Band and then in 1961 principal trumpet with the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra. Fifteen years later Maurice was finally enticed to London as principal trumpet with the London Symphony Orchestra from which he recently retired after 30 distinguished years.
Steve Price became aware of the world of recording studios at the age of seven when he started going to sessions with his piano playing father Ronnie, much in demand for albums and film soundtracks. Steve was attracted to the technical side of things and got a job as a tape operator at CTS when he was 18 and worked on the soundtracks for films such as ‘The Mission’, ‘Batman’ and ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’. Three years later he was a fully fledged sound engineer in his own right and has been at the controls for over 100 film soundtrack recordings featuring music by composers such as George Fenton, Debbie Wiseman, Anne Dudley, Hans Zimmer, John Altman and Mark Watters. Steve has recorded many TV soundtracks and done pop work with Ronan Keating, Snow Patrol, Pet Shop Boys, Tony Christie and Annie Lennox among many others. He is currently a highly valued staff member at Angel Studios.
Debbie Wiseman M.B.E has over 200 film and TV scores to her credit and has also built a parallel career in the concert halls of the UK conducting her own music. She is a regular guest at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s annual ‘Filmharmonic’ concert at the Royal Albert Hall and guests as a commentator in the intervals during the BBC transmissions of the Proms. Her large and small screen scoring achievements include ‘Judge John Deed’, ‘Othello’, ‘Wilde’ ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’ and ‘Catherine The Great’. This year Debbie premiered her new work ‘Different Voices’ at London’s Cadogan Hall, a project specifically designed to introduce young people to the orchestra with lyrics by Don Black. The narration was done by Stephen Fry and Hayley Westenra contributed the vocals.