The Tastemaker: My Life with the Legends and Geniuses of Rock Music

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King would spend inordinate amounts of time with Lennon and for a while became his regular drinking buddy.

The Tastemaker by Tony King, review: A man with tales to tell The Tastemaker by Tony King, review: A man with tales to tell

Then, after a couple of years of this, in 1970, King was off again, this time to Apple, The Beatles’ company, having been offered a job as their chief A&R man by Ringo Starr. He started travelling to the US and while in New York happened upon the Continental Baths, “which was an eye-opener”. The following year he was flown to the US to launch the Ringo album, swanning around New York in his Tommy Nutter suits, causing havoc at every turn, cruising around in a rented Thunderbird. After three weeks he was just about to fly home when he got a call from John Lennon’s girlfriend, May Pang, asking him if he’d stay to help promote his new album, Mind Games. Tony King (standing, third left) with the Ronettes, Phil Spector (seated) and George Harrison in 1964. Photograph: From the author’s collection However, the very best parts of The Tastemaker detail his adventures in New York as an out gay man employed by RCA Records to proselytise disco as it boomed. It was a hedonistic hoot, but there was a price to pay and, when King grieves over friends lost as Aids took hold and articulates the fears every gay man had, he is genuinely affecting, even before he tells of laying on a bed, holding the dying Freddie Mercury’s hand. “He was stone cold”. When the disco boom started to fade, King became RCA’s creative director, but by this time he was so burned out that on Good Friday in 1981 he joined AA. “I got sober and I’ve been sober ever since, but it wasn’t easy,” says King. “Six weeks into my sobriety Elton came to town doing copious amounts of coke. And then a few weeks later, bloody Freddie Mercury arrives. ‘Darling, I’m here.’

By the last 1970s he is in New York. A gay man living in Greenwich Village, he is at ground zero for the AIDS crisis. The telling of living through that is the best and most touching section of the book. King thought he was grounded, but in reality he was anything but. “I would get on the Concorde and come to London and go down to see my mum and she would say, ‘What do you pay for butter in America?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, Mum,’ but I made sure to learn before I came home again.” I had high hopes for this memoir, given that Tony King had one of the best seats in the house for much of the 60s and 70s. On John Lennon "But John was special, too. I always say that, of the Beatles, he was the Jose Mourinho-the special one."

The Tastemaker: My Life with the Legends and Geniuses of Rock The Tastemaker: My Life with the Legends and Geniuses of Rock

This is a brilliant book by a brilliant man. A magician with perfect taste. Thank God I met him. He is gold dust!' I suppose I was always very straightforward, a straight speaker,” King says. “I wasn’t an artist but I understood the artists, I was in their camp. I think I had an innate understanding of what artists needed, and I didn’t put up with bullshit.” He spent more than sixty years in the music industry working as promotion man, creative director, label chief and personal manager to some of the biggest stars out of the UK.As Lennon was going into semi-retirement, and as Apple was winding down, King started looking around for his next perch. King worked for Hall for three years before being poached by Andrew Loog Oldham, who at the time was managing The Rolling Stones and was even younger than King. This was when Swinging London started to move through the gears and when suddenly teenagers were in positions of genuine power. Tony [Hall] joined me at Ivor Court to launch Immediate Records and promote the Stones,” says King. “He speaks well of and to, dresses well, shops well, keeps well and laughs well. Tony would only put up with the very best of you and had the ability to help you find it.” Living in an era of seismic social, technological and cultural transformation, King experienced these defining moments as an influential figure in London and New York's gay scenes. Despite his heady life in showbusiness, however, he would soon learn that a glittering career couldn't shield him from heartbreak – witness to the AIDS crisis and the devastating consequences, his personal life was intermittently marked by tumult and turmoil.

Rock’s best kept secret: Tony King on life with John Lennon

Living in an era of seismic social, technological and cultural transformation, King experienced these defining moments as an influential figure in London and New York's gay scenes. Despite his heady life in showbusiness, however, he would soon learn that a glittering career couldn't shield him from heartbreak - witness to the AIDS crisis and the devastating consequences, his personal life was intermittently marked by tumult and turmoil. This included spending time with with his friend Freddie Mercury in the Queen frontman's final days. i remember descriptions of tony from elton john's autobiography, and it was immediatelly clear how immersed he was in the scene. tony was a guest on probably the best beatles podcast there is (something about the beatles), where he promoted the book and i knew it is a must-read for me.Tony has the most impeccable eye,” says David Furnish. “It takes years of experience to develop and train your eye to recognise and champion aesthetic brilliance. Throughout his career, Tony has worked with the biggest and best artists in the business. That level of taste and sophistication he’s developed makes him second to none. He’s our tastemaker extraordinaire. That’s why his business card title says ‘Éminence Grise’.

The Tastemaker: My Life with the Legends and Geniuses o…

I thought he was the most stylish person I had ever seen,” says Elton John. “He had elegance from the word go.” By the time King discovered he had contracted HIV himself, drugs were available that meant the disease was no longer a death sentence. Nevertheless, he ended up in rehab after a breakdown that seems to have been brought about by seeing so many friends die: “I’d just suffered so much grief. Survivor’s guilt.” I became enamoured with people who knew what they were doing. Jagger certainly knew what he was doing’ A lot of the autobiographies/biographies books I have this year have been either been sports related or music related, and I am absolutely fine with that.We live in an age of extraordinary change, an era in which entire industries have been born, while others have been scuttled aside, victims of our rapidly shifting technologies. New jobs exist that we never could have imagined, with countless other employment opportunities on the horizon. Readers will especially enjoy King's tales about promoting the industry's superstars, including the likes of John Lennon, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Queen, among others. Beatles fans will relish the opportunity to experience King's insider's view of Lennon's Thanksgiving 1974 performance with John at Madison Square Garden. Save for an April 1975 TV special in honor of Sir Lew Grade, it would mark the last time the Beatle played a live show. Leaving school at the age of sixteen to start his career in the music industry at Decca Records, Tony King would soon find himself becoming a close friend and confidante to some of the world's biggest artists – a far cry from his childhood days in Eastbourne. He has worked with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Ronettes, Elton John and many more, and his personal friendships included Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. I asked Freddie outright if he was gay and he said, ‘Well, yeah.’ So I said, ‘Does Mary know? And he said, ‘Well, I haven’t said anything.’ So I told him he had to live an honest life and if you don’t live an honest life then you’re not going to be very happy. Within 24 hours he called me up and he goes, ‘Well, darling, I’ve done it.’ I said, ‘What do you mean ‘done it’?’ He said, ‘I told Mary and she was OK.’