Tony Secunda was the kind of manager/press agent who was notorious for going just a bit too far back in the 1960s. He often managed to bring publicity to his clients, for better or worse. No worries! All publicity is, as we know, good publicity – right? At least until someone sues.
But let’s start at the beginning.
It is July 1967. We’re in the middle of the summer of love. The Move have just recorded their third single. It is a wonderful song called Flowers In the Rain, produced by Tony Visconti (later known for his lengthy involvement with David Bowie). Everybody loves it the new song, and everybody expects it to be a hit. Anticipation and excitement is very high. With a good PR plan, all will be well.
Tony Secunda came up with what he felt was a fantastic idea. He had an artist draw a caricature of Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, sitting nude in a bath tub and linking him to his secretary Marcia Williams. This drawing was printed on a post card and sent out to every newspaper in Britain.
The thought behind it was simple: this will give the band and the song plenty of attention, lots of write-ups, create a splash ahead of the single release, and make people curious about the music.
The plan certainly worked. The write-ups came, and plenty of people were having a laugh at the caricature. The postcard image was printed in all the papers. It was an edgy image, and the press ran with it all the way.
The single was released on 25 August 1967, reaching #2 on the UK singles chart (with a lot of Top 10 placements around the globe, including #1 in New Zealand, #4 in Ireland, and #6 in Australia), giving even more attention to the campaign in the process.
Perhaps there was a bit too much attention. It was inevitable that someone would bring the image to the Prime Minister’s attention. When Harold Wilson saw the caricature he was not amused. He did not at all want his likeness represented in this manner – that is, nude in a bathtub, with the secretary at hand. He was also objecting to being associated with the long-haired group of “notorious musicians who are known for wrecking TV sets on stage” (!).
Wilson took the matter to court, and he won. The High Court ordered that all royalties from the song should be donated to a charity of Wilson’s choice. This means that neither The Move as a band, or composer Roy Wood, has ever made a dime on the song Flowers In the Rain.
Incredibly, this legal arrangement remains in force to this day.
What is especially harsh about this, is that the group had nothing to do with the actual campaign, which was put together by a man they had hired to come in and work for them with PR and press activities. As you can imagine, this was the final thing Tony Secunda ever did for The Move. He was promptly fired, but the damage was done.
As the song was a major hit, and has remained in classic rock station programming ever since then, it is estimated that the ruling has cost the group millions of pounds in royalties over the years. The fact that they keep being punished for this has remained upsetting to them, especially the song’s writer Roy Wood.
In recent years, Wood has taken the matter to court again. Back in 1967, pop music was still considered a flighty and temporary thing. Nobody expected the song to still be relevant and a money-earner over 50 years later, and so no time limit for the sentence was considered. This means that what seemed like a nice and creative ruling at the time may have hit the band a lot harder than what anyone could imagine in 1967. More concrete rulings for far worse crimes are a walk in the park in comparison. It will be interesting to see if sense can prevail at long last.
At the time, the band were concerned that they would never be able to reach that level of success again, but fortunately for them the song Blackberry Way (1968) would make it all the way to #1. This time, they were very much involved in every aspect of their PR activities.
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