To that end, he turned the Beatles down when they asked him to work at the newly formed Apple Records: “I thought it was being run by a load of cowboys – nice cowboys, but they weren’t record company people. I think I had an innate understanding of what artists needed, and I didn’t put up with bullshit.” “I wasn’t an artist but I understood the artists, I was in their camp. “I suppose I was always very straightforward, a straight speaker,” King says. This after Watts’ initial assessment that he had “never seen anyone as gay as that new guy in the office”. After switching jobs to work with Oldham – who lured King by playing him the Stones’ next single, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – he struck up a lifelong friendship with Charlie Watts. He became friends with the Beatles after supplying them with singles by the American R&B artists they loved. The other striking thing about his story is how much pop stars seem to have liked and trusted him. Tony King (standing, third left) with the Ronettes, Phil Spector (seated) and George Harrison in 1964. “I always loved showbiz, so it seemed natural to me – it was a world I’d always been rather fond of.” “You fly by the seat of your pants, don’t you?” he says. It all seems to happen very quickly: one minute King is working in a record shop in Worthing, the next he’s chaperoning the Ronettes around London and leaping out of a taxi at the behest of Roy Orbison to flag down a passing car the singer has decided he wants to buy. The resulting book, The Tastemaker, is fantastic: a funny, moving, incredibly charming saga that sees him graduate from an Elvis-obsessed teenager in Sussex to a job at record label Decca and thence into the eye of the swinging 60s storm. It took decades of cajoling by friends for King to write a memoir, a task he finally began during lockdown. So I’ve always favoured that role, to stay slightly low-key and hopefully have a bit of integrity about what I do.” “To be honest with you, I think it’s quite chic to be in the background, it’s a nice place to position yourself. “I’ve always been slightly under the radar,” he says. By anyone’s standards, his has been a packed life – as you might expect, King has stories for miles – yet his name seldom appears in the pop culture history books. In the 1980s and 90s, he toured the world with the Rolling Stones, and worked as Elton John’s artistic director. In the late 1970s, he was on the dancefloors of New York’s legendary clubs – the Paradise Garage, 12 West, Studio 54 – working in what he calls “homo promo”: in the disco era, record labels sought out men who understood the music’s queer roots to promote new releases to DJs. “I wanted to be that stylish and exotic and outrageous.” Meanwhile, King’s unabashed flamboyance had a profound effect on Elton John, who, when they first met, was a struggling singer-songwriter given to dressing down: “Tony would have attracted attention in the middle of a Martian invasion,” John subsequently recalled. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The GuardianĪn out gay man before the 1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalised homosexuality – “I knew no other way, to be honest” – it was King who encouraged his friend Freddie Mercury to tell his partner, Mary Austin, that he was gay. Despite this, Billy McFarland, mastermind of the catastrophe, hinted at plans for another festival last year while also revealing an interest in publishing his memoirs.King at his London flat. King was among the most memorable characters in the eye-opening and unforgiving Netflix documentary, 'Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened'.Īfter previously being responsible for high profile, A-list soirees in New York City, King was drafted by organisers of the doomed Caribbean festival, which has now been committed to the pantheons of major music disasters after attendees were left stranded and out of pocket, with local staff, contractors and suppliers going unpaid. The ten shows, billed as 'A Fyre Side Chat', will see him share anecdotes and memories from the disastrous event for around 60-minutes per date, followed by a 30-minute Q&A. The man who famously prepared himself to 'do whatever it takes' so the ill-fated and controversial luxury party could import enough water will appear in cities including Newcastle, Glasgow, London, Sheffield, Edinburgh and Birmingham. Fyre Festival producer Andy King is going on a speaking tour around the UK.
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