Baby You're a Star (5 page)

Logan immediately set off on another tour of European cities, appearing on TV shows, being interviewed by the newspapers, and enjoying the plaudits wherever he went. He even appeared on the Royal Variety Performance, exhorting the Queen to hold him now. The single went to No. 2 in the UK charts, and No. 1 in the Irish charts, and sold six million copies in total, twice as many as
What’s Another Year
had sold. Logan was back, Louis was in charge, but then disaster struck.

Bewilderingly, Logan’s career crashed and burned for the second time in seven years. There was no fracas between sparring managers. There was only one record company involved. The ingredients for lasting success were there, but the momentum wasn’t. His career simply fizzled out. He was good-looking, he could sing, and he had a certain song-writing talent. What on earth went wrong?

Eurovision expert Geoff Harrison believes there were two main reasons for Logan’s second fall from grace. “In 1987, when Johnny Logan won the Eurovision Song Contest, it wasn’t as popular as it is now,” he says. “It was quite popular in the late sixties and the early seventies, and then it sort of faded round about 1975 or 1976 and really didn’t make it back into popularity until some time in the mid-nineties, until all those Irish wins. That really boosted its popularity. I think he hit it at a time when it wasn’t really that big a thing to be the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest.”

Bad timing wasn’t the only problem, according to Harrison: “I think he also had a style that didn’t really fit in at the time. The style, while it was a winning style for the Song Contest, was not necessarily a winning style with the public. I think there’s a market that likes this sort of stuff but won’t buy it. It’s the Radio 2 market in Britain. You listen to it and you never buy it.”

Another major problem was the divergent views held by Logan and Louis on what direction the singer’s career should take. Louis wanted Logan to target the middle of the road market. Logan, however, sought musical credibility and saw himself as more of a rock star.

“I would have liked him to be middle of the road,” says Louis. “All these young guys, they want to be hip and trendy. They don’t want to be safe. They don’t want to be middle of the road. If you’re middle of the road, you’ll never get knocked down. I just thought he was famous, he did well, but he could have been global. But who was to know? He didn’t know. I didn’t know. Nobody knew around that time.

“We can all look back and say, ‘If only we had done this’. He has still done very well. I just think he could have been great, because I do think he had the talent and the looks, and he worked very hard. I think he had too many chiefs and not enough Indians. That’s being really honest.

“If I was managing him now, I’d get him American producers. I wouldn’t go with the producers we were using at the time.”

The rock journalist George Byrne, who knew all parties involved, says Logan should have listened more to Louis.

“Logan’s idea of a rock star wouldn’t be anyone else’s idea of a rock star. Louis saw what was going on. He was right. He tried to pitch him as a Cliff Richard type with longevity, doing middle of the road stuff and working forever. Logan wanted to be more like Sting or Robert Palmer. It was an essential clash and it was never going to happen.”

While Logan must shoulder some of the blame for his career falling apart, so must Louis. The two parted on good terms and remain friends. But if Louis been a truly effective and professional manager in 1987, he could possibly have tried harder to persuade Logan away from his rock leanings for a while. After all, in later years he talked his acts into doing whatever was necessary to keep the hits rolling in.

While Logan never cracked the UK market, he has enjoyed success in Scandinavia, and like the BayWatch actor, David Hasselhoff, he made it big in Germany. He is signed to Sony in Denmark and his last album even went gold there. Sales like these mean that Logan can tour, earning himself a comfortable living. Had Louis been as powerful or experienced in 1987 as he is now, there is little doubt that Johnny Logan would still be signed to Sony in London, rather than Sony in Copenhagen.

The collapse of Logan’s career in Ireland hit Louis hard. It had been his one chance to escape the grind of life as just another agent back in Dublin. That chance vanished overnight and Louis’ confidence was badly dented.

Although Logan’s career floundered, both he and Louis had the consolation of knowing that he was one of the Eurovision greats. “If anyone starts to think of Eurovision stars,” explains Geoff Harrison, “they think generally of ABBA, and then Johnny Logan. And then, if they get desperate, they remember that Celine Dion won it once, and if somebody asks me, I’ll say Julio Eglesias was in it once, but he tries to forget it. But Johnny Logan really is up there. Nobody did what Johnny Logan did. He’s Mr. Eurovision. There’s a few that have entered more than once but nobody’s ever won more than one. That’s what makes him special. He’s a classic.”

5

WHY ME?

In December 1989, Carol Hanna decided to leave Hayden’s company. It was not an acrimonious split. Hanna just wanted to have her own business. She set up Carol and Associates at 90 Lower Baggot Street and became an agent for various acts with whom she already worked closely. Although she broke from Tommy Hayden Enterprises on friendly terms, setting up on her own was daunting. She had worked alongside Louis and Hayden for 20 years.

“I had been with Tommy for twenty-odd years at that stage,” says Hanna. “I had been with him a long time and the break was very, very difficult.”

Initially, Louis decided to remain with Hayden’s firm but when Hanna left, it was just a matter of time before he followed. Four months later, he went to work at 90 Lower Baggot Street. Hayden, who had been like a father to him, wished him all the best. “It was a good little partnership. It worked out well. And we made a few bob in the meantime, and we always paid our bills.”

“Tommy Hayden was very honest,” says Louis. “He didn’t shaft anyone at all. He was a nice man and he wasn’t ruthless. If he were more ruthless, he probably would have been more successful. I learned a lot. And he was also good at hyping records, trying to get airplay. He was very good at all that. I did learn a lot from him in that respect.”

“Myself and Carol wanted to stay in the live music thing, because we didn’t know anything else. We worked there for ages just selling bands, selling anything we could, be it a DJ, be it a band. I used to bring in acts from England like Sinitta, Sonia, Bronski Beat, Hazel O’Connor. I would buy them for eggs, and sell them for wine, and try and make money around the country.”

Although the two were effectively sole traders operating from the same office, many people in the music industry came to believe one was in charge of the other.

“People always thought I worked for him all the way through,” says Hanna. “We worked together. We managed Linda Martin together and Who’s Eddie and we had our own individual businesses then. He had his own thing with bands but we always worked together, and I always looked after everything for him. I always did everything, office work and things like that. I was doing it for myself so I would do it for him as well.”

The business was harder than expected. Their respective fledgling businesses found it hard to make ends meet. The two found it difficult to keep the office in Baggot Street. The cost of renting was prohibitive, prompting Hanna to begin working at home.

“I made an office in one of the rooms in my house and set it up there, so Louis said to me ‘Well, what’ll I do?’ So I said, ‘Come with me’ and he did.”

Although Louis was his own boss by this stage, the years after leaving Tommy Hayden were some of the worst of his career. The local music industry was as ruthless as it ever was and Louis still had to deal with the sharks of the business.

“The worst thing was not getting paid. Promoters just did not care,” he recalls. “It was a Catch 22 situation. We needed them and we couldn’t pull out because we needed them for someone else the following week. You just wouldn’t get paid. They were in control and they didn’t care. They were the most awful people. That’s why today, I’ve got agents, really top agents, and I do not begrudge them for making the money at all.”

Rock music continued to dominate the scene in Ireland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although Louis didn’t personally like the music, or the lifestyle that went with it, his job was to secure concerts and arrange tours for emerging Irish rock talent. He describes this period as “soul destroying”.

“I didn’t like their music and I didn’t like their attitude. They had all these tour managers, roadies and gofers running around the country,” he says.

The emerging talent he worked with included Aslan, Light A Big Fire, No Sweat, Paul Cleary and the Partisans, Fountainhead, Power of Dreams and In Tua Nua.

“Some of the more talented ones were great but some of the others had dreadful wanker managers,” he says. “I would book out tours and I would be on 10 percent. And they wouldn’t pay me at the end of the tour. That happened me with this horrible manager who managed [names band]. He was really, really awful. There were other managers who were really difficult.”

Of all the rock bands that sought his services, he believes Cry Before Dawn had the most potential.

“I liked them a lot. They were one of the best bands. And I thought they could have gone a lot more. I thought Brendan Wade was a real talent. There was so much talent around the country, but they didn’t get any record deals. It was all about getting record deals and that was the most important thing. You were at the mercy of A&R people in London, who just came over here and signed everything that moved because it was Irish; they were looking for the next U2,” he adds.

Louis found working with rock bands tedious, tiresome and frustrating. At times he wondered if he would have better off to take a steady nine to five job. As it was, he ran into financial difficulties on a monthly basis.

“He went through dodgy periods, where as far as I know his rent was in jeopardy,” recalls Tommy Hayden.

Carol Hanna, who was by far Louis’ closest ally both professionally and personally, helped him any way she could.

“When Louis was financially very, very low, he was my friend, and I looked after everything for him, and that was it,” she says.

He persevered with the business, organising concerts in small venues like the Rock Garden in Dublin’s Temple Bar and the Baggot Inn on Dublin’s southside.

“I had bands playing in every toilet in the country, I worked all the college circuit as well. It was very hard to make money. By the time you paid for your office and overheads, you had nothing left.”

He acknowledges that life on the gig circuit was also difficult for the artists he booked out. “Especially the girls, because there were no dressing rooms,” he says. “I used to hate going to the gigs with them because they were treated so badly. You really were treated as if you were a second-class citizen.

“You would never, ever know with some promoters in Ireland because they would always have back doors. They were never honest. They never paid what they were supposed to pay and that’s why they made all the money.”

The media gave him equally short shrift. He couldn’t develop any reliable newspaper or television connect-ions. No one would take his calls; messages went unanswered and the national broadcaster, in par-ticular, would ignore him.

“The media was totally sown up by people in RTE. You know, you’d never get on RTE. The
Late Late Show
wouldn’t even take your phone calls. The media gener-ally think ‘Oh, Irish bands, they’re only Irish bands, they don’t matter’.”

Louis’ confidence was at an all-time low during this time. He considered giving up on more than one occasion, disillusioned by the reality of a career in Irish showbusiness. With the exception of a few close friends, he had a keen distrust of everyone else in the business. He saw his adversaries constantly putting him down and treating him poorly. In time, he learned to ignore them and trust his own instincts.

“It was hard but a valuable learning experience. You have to believe in yourself and you just have to keep going. You can’t listen to other people like Irish promoters. If I had listened to them, I would still be booking bands out in pubs and they would think they were doing me the favour, giving me the gig for £600.

“I used to book out Brush Shiels and acts like that. That was soul-destroying, going into Bad Bobs and then see all these drunk people dancing to the Fields of Athenry and Thin Lizzy again, the same old stuff,” he says, quickly adding that “Brush was great.”

“But I used to hate the Irish culture, getting drunk, singing diddly-aye songs and then going home and fighting. I wasn’t into it. There was no entertainment in it for me at all. It was just a job.

“I didn’t know anything else and I didn’t want to work in a nine-to-five job. I would hate a normal routine. I don’t like any kind of normality. People in boxes, doing routine nine-to-five and going to Mass on Sundays and going to Croke Park. I hate all that thing with Irish people. I do not like the routine they have. I have to be myself and do what I like. I always have been like that. I’ve always done what I wanted to do.”

When Louis stopped managing Johnny Logan, the two had agreed to regroup if the opportunity arose. No one thought Logan would ever consider participating again in the Eurovision, which had caused him so much grief in the past. Though he was scorched by the Eurovision experience, he still had a deep desire to succeed. The attraction of fame and popular acclaim proved a strong incentive. In 1992, when Louis approached Logan once more and urged him to write a song for Linda Martin, he agreed.

“To win the Eurovision Song Contest was a big thing. You were literally catapulted into superstardom all over Europe,” explains Linda Martin.

“I’m not a singer/songwriter, so we reckoned we would clinch a very lucrative career if we could win the Eurovision. So Louis went off and did what he usually does, looking for songs and writers and all sorts of things. Johnny Logan had been a pal of ours for many years. Johnny had came up the song in 1984 and we came second that year. So we thought, ‘that was close, let’s go again’.”

Logan wrote a song called
Why Me?
for Martin to perform. If nothing else, he had extensive experience of the Eurovision and he was satisfied that
Why Me?
was a possible contender for the National Song Contest.

It was Martin’s ninth time entering the Contest. Since 1984, she had entered on another two occasions, in 1989; when she came sixth and in 1990; when she came second. Her luck had to change eventually. In 1992, Martin won the Irish Contest.

“It’s called perseverance,” says Louis of the effort. “It’s called trying, trying, trying. I thought Chips were perfect for the Eurovision. The boys and the girls, like Brotherhood of Man or Bucks Fizz. I thought they were great, but the Irish public always voted for the wrong song. She wanted it so badly. But
Why Me?
was the perfect ballad. We were out to win, totally, totally.“

The 1992 Contest was held in the Swedish city of Malmo. Competition was quite stiff that year, par-ticularly as the UK had sent musical heavyweight Michael Ball, who was at the peak of his fame as a singer. Ball had fame on his side, but Martin gave a better performance on the night. She won the Euro-vision with 155 points to Ball’s 137. It wasn’t just a Eurovision win, it was vindication for her, for Logan, and for Louis; that they had been right to persevere with the Eurovision.

The night was even more special for Louis, as he had always stood by Martin and she was one of the few close friends he had in the music business. The 1992 contest also marked a landmark for Johnny Logan. With his ambition of a third win fulfilled, he finally stepped away from the Eurovision. “I will never take part in the Eurovision again. This is the last time you will see me here,” he vowed to reporters. True to his word, he never did enter another song into the Contest.

Martin arrived home in Ireland to acclaim but not to adulation. Her Eurovision win was overshadowed by far bigger news. On the same weekend, Bishop Eamonn Casey, one of the better known and most outspoken members of the Irish clergy, had admitted that he had a lengthy relationship with a woman named Annie Murphy, fathered her son, and “borrowed” £70,000 from diocesan funds to make maintenance payments. Ireland was gripped by the story, the first of many scandals to rock the Irish Catholic Church. Page after page of the newspapers and hour after hour of air-time was devoted to the subject, leaving little media space for Louis to exploit.

“At that stage the Eurovision had sort of plummeted and, although certainly career-wise it was a wonderful thing that happened and I still live off it to a certain extent, it just wasn’t the monumental thing that it was in years gone by,” says Martin.

“We kind of knew that the Eurovision wasn’t as big as it was but it was still guaranteed to work and guaranteed to raise your profile,” adds Louis. “You got a record deal and you could work with some people. She got some TV out of it. She got her own show. RTE gave her some work. I know her very well and I like her. She likes what she does and that’s the good thing about her. She is passionate about it.“

Neither she nor Louis were under any illusions that she would be performing on
Top of the Pops
. Louis had finally realised that the Eurovision was not the best way to create an international pop star. When Logan won the Contest a second time but still failed to make it, Louis realised that the Eurovision did not give an artist or an artist’s manager a guaranteed career in the UK and Ireland.

Eurovision winners are, however, always sure to secure lucrative work in Europe, where the markets are more receptive to their style of singing. Eurovision expert Geoff Harrison explains: “The record market in Germany is at least as big as the British one and it’s a real market. We tend to think of these songs only in terms of our own market. Britain still likes to think of itself in terms of leading the world in popular music, which I think it doesn’t any more. It certainly has a hand in it, but American pop music is certainly bigger, and there’s a lot of European stuff around. I think it comes with a rather curious attitude of ‘Those Euro-peans, they’re nothing to do with us’. It’s part of the British anti-European attitude, that Europe is some-where else.”

While Louis’ involvement over the years in Euro-vision has meant a lot to him as a huge fan of the Contest, it was also important in another way. For a few weeks here and there, it lifted him out of the drudgery of booking gigs for ungrateful bands at home, and showed him that there was more to manag-ing artists.

Niall Stokes, editor of
Hot Press
, elaborates: “He got involved with people who had higher aspirations, in a way, certainly in terms of wanting to be internationally successful, when he worked with various Eurovision outfits. He got a flavour of what it was like dealing in the international arena when he was working with those people. He’d have been at least peripherally involved in negotiations with international record companies or management companies and probably more directly with the guys who were putting tours together for the likes of Johnny Logan and Linda Martin internationally. I suppose at that stage he figured it was something he could do as well as any of the other guys who were out there doing it – and what has happened subsequently certainly bears that assumption out.”