Larry Parnes

Larry Parnes was the first major British rock manager, and was easily the most successful in the early rock era. He was the trailblazer, with his string of successful artists, his stylish clothes and exotic tastes in food and wine.

He was a born impresario, organizing his first show in Cliftonville, Kent, at the precocious age of eight. In 1956 Parnes, by that time a modest London shopkeeper, became co-manager, with John Kennedy, of Kennedy's discovery, Tommy Hicks.  Parnes knew nothing about rock ‘n’roll but, persuaded by Kennedy to attend his young protégé’s performance at the Stork Room, was impressed by what he saw: ‘I watched him…It was a very hard club.  They weren’t teenagers and this was a night club with a tough audience, but they loved him.  He brought the place to life.  He had charisma and a great personality’.

Establishing a pattern that he was to follow consistently, Parnes renamed the singer Tommy Steele, and he became Britain's first home grown rock 'n' roll star. Parnes saw this as the beginning of Steele’s career but never saw rock ‘n’ roll as an end in itself; the artiste would eventually move on to more success in other areas of show business, preferably theatre or films. 

Although Parnes was more of a show business tycoon than a lover of pure rock ‘n’ roll, he began to spend his time scouring coffee bars and dance halls in search of another  singing star.   It was Lionel Bart, co-writer of several Tommy Steele hits, who first informed Parnes about Reg Smith, the latest singing sensation of the Condor Club.  The young singer was taken away and neatly groomed into a potential teenage star who was  given the name Marty Wilde.

Ronald Wycherley forced himself on to Parnes' attention at the Essoldo Cinema, Birkenhead, when he arrived at Marty Wilde’s dressing room and asked to play a few songs.  Parnes was so impressed that the included the youngster at that evening’s performance.  He became the next and greatest of Parnes’ creations: Billy Fury. After a slow start a string of hit singles followed which even lasted through the early years of Beatlemania. 

Parnes later boasted: ‘As far as pre-sixties British rock ‘n’ roll is concerned, Billy should be credited as the most important figure this country ever produced.  Even David Bowie once told me he modelled himself on Billy. He said his brother used to take him to the shows and he thought Billy was wonderful.  I think that’s a great compliment.’ 

Other recruits to the Larnes stable followed included Georgie Fame, Lance Fortune, Duffy Power, Johnny Gentle, Vince Eager and Dickie Pride. The only member of the stable to resist Parnes' renaming process was the Lincolnshire-born Cockney Joe Brown - Larry wanted him to become Elmer Twitch.

Parnes became a star in his own right and attracted a great deal of media attention. By 1960, he had acquired a nickname from the press that stuck – Mr Parnes, Shillings and Pence.  The documentary programme Panorama included a special feature on the ‘beat svengali’ and the national press soon followed their lead.  During interviews of the period, Larry revealed his starmaker role: ‘They go through a very extensive grooming.  It is sometimes five months before they appear on a stage or three months before I let them do any recording.  To start with, they have physical grooming.  I have their hair cut – that is very important.  Sometimes, they may have bad skin which has to be attended to  Then I get them suitable clothes and provide them with comfort.  I kike them to have a touch of luxury from the start so that if they make the big time they don’t lose their heads.  I like them to live in a good home, get three good meals a day, get to bed early and have plenty of fresh air’.

Parnes perfected the concept of the package tour, in which his stable of stars toured the country in a bus, playing one-night stands at theatres wherever an audience could be packed in. These tours became a major event in the early sixties British rock ‘n’ roll calendar.  The strain on his artists was extraordinary, and Billy's mother complained at least once to Parnes about the effect on her son's health.

Parnes attended the show throughout the 13-week tour.  He famously hired The Beatles to back Johnny Gentle on a short Scottish tour in 1960, but rejected them as a backing group for Billy Fury. Parnes did see something in this young group and on his notepad wrote next to their name ‘Very good – keep not for future work’. Remarkably, he was offered another chance to sign the future superstars when in late 1962 Brian Epstein approached Parnes whose Sunday shows at the Brittania Pier Pavilion would have provided a welcome boosted the fortunes of the young Liverpudlians.  They could not agree over an appropriate fee and Epstein, who was looking for a reputable co-promoter for his protégés, struggled on without Parnes.  Marty Wilde  later recalled that ‘Parnes always said, and I know it’s a fact, that if he’d been handling the Beatles they’d be earning four times as much as they did.  He said that at the time.  What they needed was a brain to make money and Larry had all that experience’.

Parnes' power in the business eroded with the rise of the Beatles due to his steadfast refusal to sign groups and even the Rolling Stones failed an audition at one stage.  Instead he found success in the wider world of show business, especially in musicals such as Charlie Girl and Chicago.