1958-02-01 — Page 14

THE MAN WHO LEARNED ABOUT RECORDS IN

HIS FATHER'S EAST END SHOP IS NOW MAKING

MILLION-COPY SUCCESSES

Mr. Levy shows

there's room at

the top for

the

little man

by RAMSDEN GREIG

TE

As years

TWENTY-FIVE Decca Levy personally supervises

record-maker Morris the production of å gromophone along the assembly line from the raw material to the glossy sleeves of the long- players.

record company got a new record all Dose-a 30-year-old City stockbroker called Edward Roberts Lewis. Until then ho hnd never heard of Bing Crosby. But Ted Lewis brought his

new company up off its kneea.

In 1956 it had a turnover of £13 million. Its trading profits

£1,780,000. were Bustness booms, too, in the other recording companies.

And there is still room in the business for the small

man.

CHOPIN SOLO

Levy

He said: "I dictate the policy from the beginning to the end. If I find myself with a flop on my hands I have only myself to blame. I pick the numbers and I pick the artists."

record cost you?"

I asked: "What does

a flop

of

money for a start. And, natur-- ally, it is an irritating waste of time and effort. But, of course, the person who suffers most. from a flop in the pe.Jermer. It's a tremendous blow to his pride. when he sees thousands of his unsold records lying lo the factory."

He said: "A great deal

to

I asked: "What happens these unsold records? Do your

THE CHINA MAIL,

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1958.

MORRIS LEVY-only myself to blame.

THE BOOM in LONDON'S

Tin Pan Alley

factory hands have a sideline in making a wakey-wakey record fancy vases or ashtrays?”

.

for his holiday camp.

What can a record company

no

one

THE BOY WHO KNEW THE SEATING PLAN IN HEAVEN

HE chapel was bigger than the town, in the boyish

Tyes of Peter Fletcher.

THE LONG SUNDAY. By Pater Flotcher. Faber, 13s. 6d. evocation. It is a shado too carnival masks, etc. At last he

188.pages.

cool, clinical and thin-blooded. went too fer-ho denounced the

Yet, this backward glance le crimes of Pope Alexander. faintly Unged with regret. The Lately the brushes of the Long Sunday is something he whitewashers tiave been busy cocaped from. It is also acme with the Borgia family, Lucrezia thing he has lost.

Borgin was, it seema, very nearly a saint. Cesaro was a One soldier, if a shade impulsive in his methods, As for Alexan- of scandal-mongers.

The town lay somewhere on the east coast, with a population of about 50,000. At a guess, it was a dreary place. But the chapel was the ante-room of Heaven, the citadel of the Elect, the Sanctuary of the Saved, who had strenuously and exultantly reached it through the turnstile of Conversion.

For young Peter Fletcher It was the pulsing heart of his emotional life and, thanks to John Wesley, the centre of the world.

Doubt begins

142

by GEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON

EVSHING STANDARD

BOOK CRITIC.

Historic struggle THE MEDDLESOME FRIAR. By Michael da fa Badoyere, Collins. 18. 256 pages.

the

Savonarola had obtained

an

dor, he was, in part the victim

the

Vital moment Between UE conflict ro-told in this

Savonarola

and -book is one of

Alexander the balance, whether great of morals of power, was un- dramas of pro- Reformation evenly held. Alexander waited Christendom the struggle be- until tween the Florenting

monk's popularity friar begin to wane and then Savonarola and the Borgia Pope him burned at the stake.

had Fletcher is now 0 Street consultant in paychology, could not officiate.

Harley days when the regular performer Alexander Vi.

Wos It tho end? Ninotcen with all that this implies

Years laler Martin

Luther knowledge or hatt-knowledge of At regular intervals, the extraordinary power over the uttered his challenge to the oad quirks of the human mind, chapel seethod with drama. In people of Florence

cerruptions of the Church, and by Aery the Reformation was under way. From this eminence, he looks

organised campaign of sennons denouncing the vices of back on his childhood in the evangelism, it set out to "gave" society and Church,

But k his. dramatic. and pro- days before the 1814-18 war, the town. "Spit in their eyes, phesying punishments to come. readable secount Dedovere does with ecmo regret but no excess, Oh Lord, spit in their eyes and He made bonfires of "Vanities" not look so for ahead as that, of sympathy.

make the Eo-and-so's peel-playing-cards, indecent books, shouted on old Wesleyan war- horso the preliminary prayer meeting. The petition, carelessly phrased on it might be, was dis cussed for months after the ex- citements of the campaign were over and forgotten, :

Subtle appeal

predi

(London Express Service)..

FICTION SHELF

BY PHILIP OAKES

These chapters of auto- biography describe one of the expect to make on a million varieties of religious experience sales? Sald Morris Levy: "A

-the ending of a boy's loyalty clear profit of £5,000 wouldn't | to the fandt he was reared in. be far off the mark."

"A good boy is Russ," said told you without any hesitation At one time, Peter could have Levy with feeling.

the scaling When the music for Salad

arrangements in Days was hocked around the big were the Wesleyan Methodists. Houve Bang in the front row rocording companies

it had not "saved" the town: By Leonard Mosley. wanted to buy. The King and 1.

Congregationalists were in

It had, however, W

caused Peter | Lia, cd. Sad they said, would so as a long less favoured position: they did Fletcher some mental confusion.variation player, but not the music from

not worry enough about their "Ong of the subtlest temptations can't go home again. an English musical.

Bouls. To more eccentric and is the desire for that freedom happens to Christopher Lane, dearing. childish

groups like Primitive roma responsibility which is Beshy Lordon theatre director. Methodists, Baptists and Salva- to be had by submerging one's when he returns to his birth- will place Lancashire slum-and discovers # son he did not know existed. handled, with a fine narrative Melodrama, boldly air.

BELIEF ESSENTIALista, his attitude was one of identity in the corporate

Morris Levy, however, put another of his elegant silk shirts on that one. It sold 60,000 coples El 393. 101⁄2d: a time.

"When I believe in anything I'll gamble all I've got on it," Morris Levy said. It's the only way to make a go of the record- Ing business these day."

quiet superiorly and amused toleration. Nu doubt Joha Wesley would overlook their

te peculiarities and

Count hem among the blessed. No excuse

of the crowd.”

Another shock to faith came when his family's meagre capital was stolen by a fraudulent American lodger, a bogus fessor of ophthalmology hud captivated his mother. Al even more shattering experimice was at hand.

pro- who

● THE SEDUCTIVE MIRROR. der Zee (now drained off by Barker. canals), and the crop-headed contemporary cabin boys called "sca-mlee"→→→→ the theme of you who came of age in the reuppers, What Original, imaginative and en-

• FIVE MEN AND A SWAN. Unwin. By Naom! Mitchison. Allen and 120. 04. Thirteen stories drawn from a thousand years of Brottish lic, with themes ranging from clan war fare. to a Hebridean skipper THREE WINDOWS ON saved from debt a TV quiz SUMMER. By Peter Bourlah, Best of all, the title story about Macmillan, 15. First novel by a shorman, whose,enchanted spring 24-year-old writer

bride turns from a swan to a about long. hot summer in which woman only once a month, by three people-a young cousin, the light of a full moon. and his friend-learn the bitter- aweet facts of life; A most moving account of the end ni innocence told

in sensuous prosc

One day in the carly of 1914, the boy, watching the turmoil of a stormy sunset, was visited by a prophetic vision. The world was moving towards war, it was as if a voice had

A

The Church of England, I called at an old and

catering for "nomitial Chris- tians did not elegant block of flats just

50 come off off Baker Street to discover

I recall that Edward Roberts the very fringe of outer dark- well, Roman Catholles were on "They're melted down and go how 'Morris

Sald Morris Levy: "As soon Lewis unce sald was into the manufacture of

Bomething tress were they Christian at other as I heard him I decided to put similar. "Never be attold." making out. Morris Levy records," said Levy.

my shirt on him.

all? I put him Lewis said, "of committing bosses Oriole Records. Levy,

under contract and got him to yourself Like most people

Worst of all was the plight of to do something you the Anglo-Catholica. The Roman uttered the words in his car. the

show record Wo Will Make Love. who has those business, Morris Levy ITREATI

I believe in. Once you pre com- would put the factory on

overtime mitted, you have got to get on

Catholics might be excused on frantic skifters Nancy prefer to ulk about his suc pressing the record

the grounds by the with it."

few of ignorance but

months later, his Whiskey and Chas

He will talk at great hundred thousand. Me cesses.

Anglo-Catholics ought to know prophecy came true. The Long Devitt under contract, was paid off to the sweet tune of a

length about the gamble thot "Instead of losing als hood-

Uelter.

Sunday was over. In the army mode silk shirt, Levy was kept

he was embroiled in a world playing Chopin in

Secure in, the Wesleyan fold, vastly more complex than any- the millon record 54las. The busy adding up the profits on Georgian green drawing- gymble

young Pelo Fictcher lived with Russ the sale of a milion copies of The

his parents his warm-hearted, thing the chapel and its valites Hamilton. room. A coloured maid was

We Will Make Love. Many of

that

difficult" credulous mother and

had prepared him for. the million records' were sold la Berving tea.

hals depressed, dyspeptle father, Hamilton, a Butlin's redcoal, America. So there were dollars

This honest account of his was in Levy's recording studio. to add up, too.

dispensing chemist who boyhood, easy to read, at times "obliged" at the organ on Sun- umusing, locks the power of

Levy said: "Before the boom my company was £20,000 in the 'red', Today the business is worth at least a quorter of a

nililion poutes. When our profis for this year are worked out 1 will have great plessure showing them to people who called me a fool to go luo the record-making business. The profits should be

quite Starting."

Morris Levy opened his re- cord factory just 12 years ago,

He said: "1 couldn't have pleked

ปี

worse time to start making

gramophone records. The war had just ended and there was

no new equipment to be had anywhere. We literally bulli the place secondhand nul by secondhand boit,"

A comparatively new boy in the business of making records, 30-year-old Morris Levy hus however, spent his whole, work- ing life among gramophone

records.

That started when he left school at 14 to work for his father who sold recorda from a small shop in the East End.

"Father was something of a record-maker, too," Morris Lovy Bald. "As far back as 1903 he was putting music on cylinder Lecords."

MIXED BAG

By 1931 young Lovy had saved enough, to open his own recording studios. He said: "T first man I ever recorded was Harry Roy. As I recall it, i was rathor a risque mumber. Docca made the actual records for us in Those days-at tenpenes a time. I decided that that was no' 'way' to make vast profits and was thinking about starting my own factory when the war broke out."

Morris Levy atopped record- ing risque numbers

and was contracted by the BBC to record many of its war-time radio. programmes.

Not Harry Roy, but Gir Winston Churchill and Quentin Reynolds stood in front of Levy's, microphones during the war.

;

"Now these were recordings to cherish," wild Morris Levy,"

From the plush sofa ho picked up two of his latest Oriole release 20th Century Mass (a recording of the controversial modern: Mans penfirmed last [FERT (HÌ St-Georgou," - Camber-

well) and The Intoxicating M Whiskey and, said: “But then it taken all worts” of reccede “-10-| make, a work), Ma

Was

called

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

THE MISSUS WANTS TO READ HER FAVORITE PAPER

AT BREAKFAST TOO —

SAVE YOUR NERVES→→ PROVIDE TWO COPIES.

Next Wook formula for the song million

α

means

records.

-(London Express Service),

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO STRING SAVERS.?

TAKE CARE OF THE PENNIES. AND THE DOLLARS WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES – BUT DONT GET THE IDEA THAT YOU CAN, TAKE CARE OF THE BANK.

The Thrift Habit

strong, SUN IN THE

HUNTER'S EYES. By Mark Derby. Delitus. 12. Gd. Tough and satisfying suspense novel with a young writer whose play flops, chasing THE LOST SEA. By Jan De off to Malaya In search or a Harlor. Hamish Hamilton. 10. missing her. Attempted murder Gd. A shp11 perfect book about by drugging, drowning and alt-watc childhood in

burning. Well

climax staged drowned lord. A wide-eyed re-

with jungle Commuilta joking miniscence of the great fishing in the chase. flects that once sailed the Zuy-

Le

~(London Express Service).

By Harry Weinert

MORE WASTE ! THE FATS AND SCRAPS YOU THROW AWAY IN A WEEK

WOULD KEEP AN ESKIMO FAMILY FOR A YEAR!

IT DOESN'T HELP TO SIT AND LISTEN TO THE WATER METER. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FIGURE OUT A PLAN OF FAMILY CONSERVATION

ON

LAUNDRY

AND

'SHOWER

BATHS.

WASTE AOT, WANT NOT"-- ABOUT TO BE

BARRED FROM THE

IGLOO.

COEL IME BY GINDRAL PLATURI CONY, THE WOEL RIGHTS RESLAVID.

"SIX SNOW SHOVELS.

WHY SIX ?*

"THEY WERE

REDUCED-

A REAL! STEAL!

THRIFT BINGE.

BUT OFFICER-

I DIDN'T HAVE

ANÝ CHANGE?

SAVE IT FOR THE JUDGE.

OUT! WHO'S RUNNING

THIS

KITCHEN

ANYWAY ?

"ALL I KNOW. ABOUT MONEY: "MATTERS İS

THAT IT DOES