Jonathan King
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Born | 6 December 1944 |
|---|---|
| Occupation | music producer |
| Website | www.kingofhits.com |
Jonathan King (born 6 December 1944) is the stage name of Kenneth George King, a British pop music producer and personality. He had a global hit in 1965 which he wrote and sang, "Everyone's Gone to the Moon". He eventually became one of Britain's top producers, record label executives and TV personalities. He claims to have sold over 40 million records under various pseudonyms. In 2001, he received a seven-year prison sentence for four indecent assaults and two more serious sexual offences going back to the 1980s involving teenagers aged 14 and 15. :He continues to protest his innocence of these convictions, insisting anything that did go on was consensual with persons over the age of 16 years. The convictions are currently being reviewed by the official Government body, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
[edit] Musical career
The child of an American father and an English mother, King was educated at Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He made his first recordings with Joe Meek, but those weren't released. As an teenage undergraduate, he wrote and sang his first hit, Everyone's Gone to the Moon in 1965, eventually selling a reported 4.5 million records worldwide. Before graduating, he wrote and produced further hits such as It's Good News Week by "Hedgehoppers Anonymous", also discovering, producing and naming Genesis, whose founding members were also at Charterhouse.
Soon after King graduated, his Saturday evening ITV series Good Evening; I'm Jonathan King, was seen nationally for six months.
He ran Decca Records twice in the late 60's and late 70's, and in 1971, 1972 and 1973 was named Producer of the Year. He performed and produced many big hits under different names, often two or three at the same time. Among his hits were Let It All Hang Out, It Only Takes A Minute, Loop di Love and others. He produced The Bay City Rollers and sang most of their first hit, Keep on Dancing. He backed The Rocky Horror Show and produced the original cast album. His own label, UK Records had hits with 10cc whom he named, Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs (Seaside Shuffle), Roy C (Shotgun Wedding), Lobo (I'd Love You To Want Me) and many others. King usually performed under pseudonyms, such as 'Shag', 'St Cecilia', 'Bubblerock', '100 Ton and a Feather', although in 1975, a rendition under his own name of "Una Paloma Blanca" was named Record of the Year. He scored another Top 40 hit in 1978 under his own name with a song titled 'One for Me, One for You', which spawned a memorable appearance on Top of the Pops with him wearing a multi-coloured wig and two girls behind him in similar headgear - one of whom, Viola Wills, went on to have success as a solo singer. His first hit in 1965, under his own name, was entitled "Everyone's Gone to the Moon". The satirical journal Private Eye parodied this title around the time of his arrest in 2001 with a caption showing King singing "Everyone's Gone to the Police". The Mail on Sunday also quoted from the chorus of "Una Paloma Blanca": "No-one can take my freedom away". King responded that it was true and cited Nelson Mandela as another example. It was reported in 1975 that Gary Gilmore requested King's "Una Paloma Blanca" as the last record to be played at his execution in the USA.
In 1978, King scored a minor hit single under the pseudonym Father Abraphart and the Smurps entitled "Lick a Smurp for Christmas (All Fall Down)", a parody of Father Abraham and the Smurfs. The title of the song referred to the fact that some Smurf toys had been decorated with lead paint, given away free with purchase of petrol, and that young children had been falling ill from placing them in their mouths. He released this on Petrol Records as a flexidisc costing 10p on all counters of record shops. After it charted and caused hysteria amongst the compilers, he let Magnet Records, then owned by Michael Levy (later Lord Levy), pick it up and sell it on vinyl.
King presented his own daily radio show on New York's WMCA throughout 1980 (15 years earlier he had been No1 on their "Good Guys Survey" when they were a top 40 station with Everyone's Gone To The Moon) and started doing regular reports from the US on Top of the Pops. These developed into Entertainment USA, a BBC2 series that reached over nine million viewers. He also created and produced No Limits which topped the channel ratings chart at over five million.
During the 1980s, he wrote a column in The Sun for eight years; Bizarre USA. He has written regular features in many other newspapers and magazines, and has two published novels.
King wrote and hosted the Brit Awards for the BBC in 1987 and, after the fiasco of the 1989 event, he wrote and produced them in 1990, 1991 and 1992. In 1995, he took over A Song For Europe, the BBC quest for a Eurovision Song Contest winner. The 1996 entry, Just A Little Bit by Gina G, was a global smash and the 1997 entrant Katrina and the Waves' "Love Shine a Light" won the contest. Over nine million ITV viewers saw his Record of the Year shows at Christmas 1998-9 and 2000, and the annual show still continues on Saturday evenings in early December.
In 1993, he formed The Tip Sheet, a music weekly publication which continues online with thousands of music viewers and posters, promoting artists like The Corrs and Eva Cassidy, whilst they were unsigned or unknown, and such future hits as Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping", The Cuban Boys "Cognoscenti Vs. Intelligentsia" and "Who Let the Dogs Out". King recorded the original finished version of the latter under the pseudonym Fat Jakk And His Pack Of Pets.
From September 1995, he presented a programme on Talk Radio UK from 10-12 every weekday morning which lasted six months.
In October 1997, the British Music Industry Trust honoured King with a lifetime achievement award; The Man Of The Year. In a letter read out at the ceremony, Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged King's "important contribution to one of this country's great success stories". Over £400,000 was raised for the industry Trusts charity.
In 2001, King received a seven-year prison sentence for four indecent assaults and two more serious sexual offences on teenagers.
On his release he returned to the music and entertainment industries, discovering the US band Orson on MySpace and promoting them in the Tip Sheet'. This ultimately lead to their No1 singles and albums in the UK after 8 sterile years being ignored in their native Los Angeles. He was associated with Madonna's hit "Hung Up" which sampled ABBA (one of his associate companies publishes them), and helped Nizlopi get a UK Xmas No1 with The JCB Song.
