ARTIST MANAGER RELATIONSHIP

FROM A NEW BOOK I'M WRITING ABOUT MANAGEMENT AND MANAGERS, THOUGH PERHAPS IN THE END I WON'T WRITE IT. I HAVEN'T QUITE DECIDED.

Reading through the vast number of tributes to Tina Turner last week, I was reminded again of her miserable upbringing. Her father beat her mother; her mother went to live with another man and left her behind; her father sent her to live with her grandmother. In her autobiography Tina said her parents had never wanted her nor loved her.

No wonder she fell for Ike, the first man who helped her achieve anything. But he himself was a child of a broken home. First, he watched his father being beaten and left for dead by a gang of white thugs, then he was whipped with barbed wire by his mother’s new husband, an alcoholic. While this can’t be an excuse for the way he abused Tina, it’s certainly an obvious reason. As was his being sexually abused by an adult woman from the age of six.

For both Ike and Tina, to perform onstage was a release from emotional insecurity. Audience approval was an urgently needed pain-killer. The head of the record company who bought Tina’s first recording said “she sounded like screaming dirt.”

Sad, isn’t it, that broken homes, beatings, death, divorce, alcohol, poverty and family upheaval are the perfect breeding-ground for young talent. In recent years a flood of biopics and biographies have underlined this time and again: Whitney Houston, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Mick Hucknall, George Michael, Prince, Madonna, Sinead O’Connor.

Tina Turner’s onstage brilliance was yet another reminder that almost every great rock, soul and pop singer has sought the love of an audience for the same reason. Not necessarily for having been beaten - a child can just as easily be hurt mentally and the pain isn’t always inflicted by parents or relatives - it may simply be the result of circumstance. But the end result is the same. A lack of love from the people it’s most needed from at the moment when it’s most needed can make young people want to change themselves. To create something. To achieve something. To become a different person.

For the last thirty years of her life, Tina Turner was managed by Roger Davis. He was perfect for her. Superb, in fact. He rescued her from the hotel lounges she’d sunk to and pushed her to the top of the international rock circuit. Fulfilled and respected, she made millions. She still screamed dirt but she screamed it with a golden halo.

People often ask me what’s needed in order to be a good manager. Among the qualities required are a thorough knowledge of the industry, a good list of contacts, an eye for opportunity and a feeling for good imagery. But equally important is an understanding of the driving force behind your artist’s need to succeed. You’re offering yourself up as another character in the long chain of characters that have already passed through their life, often to end up untrusted and dismissed. Like it or not you’ll become enmeshed in their psyche.

Roger Davis’s current roster of management clients includes Cher, Pink and Sade. Three more female singers of supreme class but all from homes where the parents divorced while the children were under ten. For Roger to have had success with such a similar succession of clients suggests some sort of psychological link.

My guess is, it’s the same for most managers, me too. Dealing with creative people is probably a type of therapy. I often told friends my artists were driving me mad. But perhaps they were keeping me sane.

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