Perilous Prizes: Do Awards Impede Progress?

Faye Dunaway by Terry O’Neill

'I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.’
Jack Benny

I won my first prize at St Mary’s Primary School. 

Our teacher Mrs Hughes was an elderly Irish lady enamoured of times tables and using every inch of the exercise book. A strict disciplinarian, she was not afraid to issue reprimands with a wooden ruler to the rear. But I respected her for her fierce enthusiasms and academic ambition. She once had us 9-year-olds estimating the height of the church tower by measuring its shadow - a re-enactment of the experiment carried out on the pyramid at Giza by Thales of Miletus in the 6thcentury BC. 

One day Mrs Hughes invited us to participate in a speech competition. We would have to compose a short address about any subject that took our interest, and then deliver it to our assembled classmates.

The first challenge was to find a suitable topic. Football and telly were bound to be popular, and so I determined to expound on a more esoteric theme. I had always been interested in medieval history and had recently been given a colourful book about heraldry. It was a magical world of arms and armour; of argent, azure, mottoes and mantling. My book outlined the key terms and traditions, and explained that having a distinctive coat of arms emblazoned on your tunic or shield made tidying up after a battle much more efficient.

So I decided to share my new enthusiasm for heraldry. And to amuse my classmates I would draft my own coat of arms. True to the spirit of the ancient craft I needed to design something that summarised the things that most mattered to me. This took a certain amount of unaccustomed self-reflection. Eventually within a shield device I drew some crossed ping pong bats and a lump of bread pudding. Since most coats of arms also had some animal participation, I introduced Granddad’s bull terrier Chips supporting my shield on one side, and the Carroll family guinea pig Bubbles on the other. 

On the allotted day I delivered my oration with the confidence of youth, and Mrs Hughes awarded me first prize - as much I suspect for the abstruse subject matter as anything else. I confess I was rather pleased with myself.

My classmates, however, were less impressed, and mocked me unsparingly for weeks to come. Winning the competition had certainly not made me more popular. Nobody likes a smartarse.

I had learned for the first time that prizes have pitfalls. 

'Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.’
Billy Wilder

A recent analysis of Nobel Prize winners, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface (The Times, 22 April 2020), suggests that winning this most prestigious award can handicap scientists’ subsequent pioneering efforts. In the two years after receiving the Nobel Prize, winners’ research output, measured in citations, dropped by an average of 11 per cent, and took four years to recover. This phenomenon has been dubbed ‘the curse of the Nobel.’

'The Nobel prize has often been described as the kiss of death… You constantly get invited to all sorts of events, and even if you say no to 99 per cent of them, it can be very distracting.’
Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society, winner of the 2009 Nobel prize in Chemistry

It seems that Nobel winners are befuddled by all the attention they receive. They can become complacent. And sometimes they are emboldened to explore esoteric areas of research that are of particular personal interest, rather than pursuing answers to the most pressing problems in their field.

‘Competitions are for horses, not artists.’
Bela Bartok

We may recognise ‘the curse of the Nobel’ in our own commercial world. We all love to award prizes, to celebrate success, to recognise and reward excellence. We like to think that accolades encourage healthy competition and worthwhile endeavour; that they set standards and educate the young.

But in my experience trophies can also prompt complacency, arrogance and affectation; and some of the awards events are sadly just festivals of conceit. Winners often develop a tendency to believe their own PR, ascribing success to their individual genius rather than to team collaboration. And some subsequently are less attentive to criticism, demanding to work only on the best briefs or their own pet projects. 

I wonder: Are prizes perilous? Would we win more if we awarded less? Would we just be better off without them?

'In the light of his love,
In the light of reflection.
What a world this world
Sometimes oh so it seems.
Eyes to the sky in the silver gift friendship.
Glittering prize
Is the price of lost love.’

Simple Minds, ‘Glittering Prize’ (C Burchill / J Kerr / M MacNeil / D Forbes)

 No. 285

‘His Girl Friday’: The Easy Life or the Difficult Job?

Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. Photograph: Cine Text/Allstar

'You've got an old fashioned idea divorce is something that lasts forever, 'til death do us part.' Why divorce doesn't mean anything nowadays, Hildy, just a few words mumbled over you by a judge.’
Walter Burns, ‘His Girl Friday’

'His Girl Friday' is a magnificent 1940 screwball comedy that takes satirical pops at conventional family life, corrupt city leadership and cynical journalism.

The film co-stars Cary Grant as Walter Burns, the hard-boiled editor of the Morning Post, and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson, Walter's ex-wife and the Post’s star reporter. 

In the play on which the movie was based (‘The Front Page’ by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur) the two lead roles were male. But after hearing his female secretary read the part of Hildy in rehearsal, director Howard Hawks decided that the character should be played by a woman. The switch, with appropriate re-writes, added a compelling extra dimension.

Walter: Sorta wish you hadn't done that, Hildy.
Hildy : Done what?
Walter: Divorced me. Makes a fella lose all faith in himself... Almost gives him a feeling he wasn't wanted.

The film is stylish, funny and quick-paced. Hawks was determined to break the record for the fastest film dialogue: the delivery of the lines has been measured at 240 words a minute, compared with a norm of 140. He encouraged his actors to be spontaneous, to talk over each other, to make ‘in’ jokes and sarcastic asides. Multiple microphones were employed rather than the usual single boom mike, so that every word could be captured, and a sound technician had to switch from mike to mike on cue. Concerned that Grant had been allocated better lines, Russell hired an advertising copywriter to script her ‘ad libs.’

The movie begins with Hildy informing Walter that she is engaged to be re-married. She plans to pack in her career as a journalist and settle down to a quiet life in Albany with a dependable insurance man. 

Hildy: He's kind and he's sweet and he's considerate. He wants a home and children.
Walter: Sounds more like a guy I ought to marry.

Walter will have none of it and is determined to win Hildy back.

Walter: I'd know you anytime...Any place...
Hildy: Anywhere. Aw, you're repeating yourself, Walter. That's the speech you made the night you proposed.
Walter: Yes, I notice you still remember.
Hildy: Of course, I remember it. If I didn't remember it, I wouldn't have divorced you.

Walter is particularly concerned about losing his star reporter. Her departure would, he says, make her 'a traitor to journalism.' Hildy is not convinced.

'A journalist? Now, what does that mean? Peeking through keyholes, chasing after fire engines, waking people up in the middle of the night and asking them if Hitler's gonna start another war, stealing pictures off old ladies? I know all about reporters, Walter. A lot of daffy buttinskies runnin' around without a nickel in their pocket. And for what? So a million hired girls and motorman's wives will know what's going on?’

Walter determines to sabotage Hildy’s plans, tempting her to cover one last story: the execution of Earl Williams, a bashful bookkeeper convicted of murdering a policeman. Hildy initially resists the offer.

'I wouldn't cover the burning of Rome for you if they were just lighting it up.’

Walter employs all manner of deceit and trickery to persuade Hildy to take the brief. Eventually she agrees.

The action shifts to the pressroom of the criminal court, where we meet the veteran journalists: gum chewing, poker playing, cigar smoking, visor wearing. They are to a man cynical and unprincipled.

Hildy bribes the warden of the jail to let her interview Williams in his cell. Having written an eloquent and sympathetic piece in double-quick time, she bids farewell to her former colleagues and competitors.

'And that my friends is my farewell to the newspaper game! I'm going to be a woman; not a news-getting machine. I'm gonna have babies and take care of them and give them cod liver oil and watch their teeth grow and - and, oh dear, if I ever see one of them look at a newspaper again, I'm going to brain ‘em!’

However, at this point Williams escapes, and with everyone out searching the city for him, the convict presents himself to Hildy in the pressroom. Sensing the possibility of a scoop, she hides Williams in a roll-top desk. She is now torn between securing her story and leaving with her fiancé on the train to Albany. Walter, who in pursuit of his objective has had Hildy’s fiancé arrested and her future mother-in-law abducted, arrives to press his case.

'There are 365 days in a year one can get mad. How many times have you got a murderer locked up in a desk? Once in a lifetime! Hildy, you got the whole city by the seat of the pants... This isn't just a story you're covering - it's a revolution. This is the greatest yarn in journalism since Livingstone discovered Stanley.’

In the end Hildy decides to stay on at the Post and to remarry Walter. But this is not a conventional romantic ending. There are no hugs and kisses. There is no emotional embrace. One senses that she is not really choosing Walter. She is choosing the work she excels at and the career she loves; a difficult job over an easy life.

‘His Girl Friday’ portrays journalism as unscrupulous and underhand; as arduous and poorly paid. But ultimately it suggests that it is a worthwhile profession. It is challenging and rewarding, intellectually compelling and socially important. It is a proper job done by real people.

'You can get married all you want, Hildy, but you can't quit the newspaper business...I know you, Hildy. I know what quitting would mean to you!... It would kill ya!’

We all have cause to complain about work: about our pay and conditions; about long hours and short tempers; about cantankerous Clients, eccentric colleagues and egotistical bosses. We may perhaps get offers of more lucrative positions in less arduous sectors. But ‘His Girl Friday’ prompts us to ask ourselves some fundamental questions: Do I like my colleagues and my work culture? Am I good at this? Am I learning and being challenged? Am I realising my potential? Am I doing something worthwhile?  Do I really love my job?

'Look at the pictures taken by the cameras, they cannot lie.
The truth is in what you see, not what you read.
Little men tapping things out, points of view.
Remember their views are not the gospel truth.
Don't believe it all.
Find out for yourself.
Check before you spread
News of the world.’
The Jam, ’News of the World’ (B Foxton)

No. 284

Thinking Bauhaus: 'The Mind is Like an Umbrella. It’s Most Useful When Open’

Poster for the Bauhausaustellung (1923)

The Bauhaus was a radical German art school that was based in three different locations between 1919 and 1933. Formed in the aftermath of World War I, it sought to reorder the world for the modern age, breaking down traditional barriers between disciplines, rewriting the fundamentals of creative theory and practice, celebrating functionalism and the social value of design.

'Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society.’
Walter Gropius

Bauhaus had its own style: sans-serif fonts, bold geometric shapes, primary colours; blue circles, red squares and yellow triangles. Bauhaus was tubular steel furniture, metal tea infusers, graphic wallpaper and industrial lamps. It was practical materials, block-based architectural designs; steel, glass and concrete. It was flat roofs, ribbon windows and cantilevered balconies; light and airy open interiors. Bauhaus was elegant simplicity; no frills or ornamentation, no gimmicks or jokes. 

Portrait of Walter Gropius, photo: E. Bieber, c. 1928

‘An object is defined by its nature. In order, then, to design it to function correctly – a container, a chair, or a house – one must first of all study its nature: for it must serve its purpose perfectly, that is, it must fulfil its function usefully, be durable, economical, and 'beautiful.''
Walter Gropius

Bauhaus became a free-thinking international movement, a powerful force in 20th century modernism. Let us consider some of the factors that made it so influential.

1. Set Out to Create Something Completely New

The school was founded by architect Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919.  

Gropius had been a modernist from the outset. He subscribed to the principle that architecture and design should look forward, not back; that ‘form follows function.’  In 1910 he co-designed the seminal Fagus Werk shoe factory, with its large glass façade that flooded the workspaces with light.

Gropius’ career was interrupted by service in World War I, in which he was awarded two Iron Crosses. He emerged with an absolute conviction that everything in society had to change.

‘I still remember when I came out of the First World War I thought everything would snap back as it has been before. But all of a sudden I became aware that I would have to take part in something completely new which would change the conditions I have been living in before.’
Walter Gropius

2. Break Down the Walls

'One of the outstanding achievements of the new constructional technique has been the abolition of the separating function of the wall.'
Walter Gropius

Inspired by the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ( the total work of art) and intent on demolishing the division between the artisan and the artist, Gropius began his new school by merging Weimar’s Colleges of Fine Art and Applied Art, putting all the creative disciplines under one roof. 

‘This was just the idea of the Bauhaus to mix up these things – to see there was no barrier of any real meaning between a painting or the other things of our environment.’
Walter Gropius

3. Write a Manifesto

In order to attract students and teachers, Gropius published a Manifesto setting out his bold ambition for the project.

'Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward Heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith.’

The Manifesto was a clarion call to radical thinkers all over Germany and beyond. Gropius dispensed with academic entry requirements, so that talented young people could study at the Bauhaus irrespective of their educational background, gender or nationality. Between 150 and 200 students were registered, including 18 year olds and ex-soldiers. Up to half of students were women (radical for the time) and nearly a third were foreign.

4. Build a Team

Gropius could not draw and was dependent on partners throughout his career. Consequently his school encouraged collaboration across disciplines and with each other. He determined that he could make a bigger impact on society by establishing a collective of diverse talents with its own unique culture and values.

‘I was aware after what I had done already as an architect that in order to really penetrate – that couldn’t be done by one person alone. You have to build a whole school which follows certain principals out of which it may develop – and that gave me the idea for organising the Bauhaus.’ 
Walter Gropius

In the first few years of the school Gropius recruited Swiss painters Johannes Itten and Paul Klee, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, German painter, sculptor and designer Oskar Schlemmer, and Hungarian designer László Moholy-Nagy. It was an extraordinary line-up of creative talent.

Bauhaus curriculum

5. Teach Everyone the Fundamentals 

'Specialists are people who always repeat the same mistakes.’
Walter Gropius

From 1919 to 1922 the primary syllabus was shaped by Johannes Itten. Traditionally art students had begun their studies by copying the works of the Old Masters. Itten designed the Vorkurs or ‘preliminary course’ to enable all students to explore the fundamental principles of design, considering the characteristics of basic shapes (the line, the plane, the circle, the spiral); of materials, composition, colour and movement.

‘A line is a dot that went for a walk.’
Paul Klee

This foundation course remains the basis for art education all over the world today.

6. Let Work Become Play

'Before you draw a tiger, you have to roar like a tiger.’
Johannes Itten

Itten was a strict vegetarian who taught meditation and relaxation techniques in order to create self-awareness and to gain access to one’s intuition. His students were encouraged to feel the resonances of different objects, to dance the colour blue, to draw a thistle as if one had just been pricked by it. He was interested in the creative potential of play.

'Play becomes joy - joy becomes work - work becomes play.'
Johannes Itten

7. Teach a Trade

After the six month foundation course, students were allocated to craft-specific workshops: sculpture, joinery, metalwork, ceramics, stained glass, graphic design, stagecraft, weaving. Training in the craft workshops was complemented by lectures in the arts, sciences and professional practice. 

'Art itself cannot be taught, but craftsmanship can. Architects, painters, sculptors are all craftsmen in the original sense of the word.’
Walter Gropius

Director’s office, Weimar

8. Create an Alliance Between Art and Technology

Itten became a dedicated follower of Mazdaznan, a fire cult derived from Zoroastrianism. He shaved his head, printed star shapes on his scalp and wore voluminous smocks. Many of his students followed suit and developed a cultish loyalty to him. Gradually his vision diverged from that of Gropius.

Gropius wanted to align the school with the machine age and with the broader needs of society: creating affordable functional homes; embracing mass production, standardisation and uniformity.

‘We want an architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios and fast cars.'
Walter Gropius

In 1923 Moholy-Nagy took over Itten's preliminary course.  Setting aside the spirituality and mysticism, he made the education more rational and technical.

At the Weimar exhibition that same year, Bauhaus proclaimed: ‘Art and technology. A new unity.’

9. Learn by Doing

Tea Infuser and Strainerca. 1924 Marianne Brandt

Bauhaus students honed their skills working on real projects. They were taught to start from scratch; to learn by doing. As the head of the metal workshop, Moholy-Nagy advocated the development of prototypes and thereby the transition from manual craftsmanship to industrial technologies. 

‘Architecture begins where engineering ends.’
Walter Gropius

The shift towards functionality was also reflected in student fashion: increasingly the men wore close-fitting suits, and the women cut their hair in a bob and wore trousers or knee-length skirts.

10. Promote from Within

Gropius created such a strong, distinctive culture at the Bauhaus that the best way to sustain the institution’s identity was to promote from within.

‘The first generation of young people educated in the Bauhaus were now ready to be head of the workshop, and that’s what I did.’
Walter Gropius

Hungarian architect and furniture designer Marcel Breuer and German artist Josef Albers, two of the first students, were promoted to Master in 1925.

11. Seriously Party 

Despite the Bauhaus’ high ideals and intellectual rigour, it was seriously committed to revelry.

Bauhaus parties were large-scale affairs. Sets were designed by Oskar Schlemmer’s stage workshop and dance teachers were hired to teach the latest moves. Students created their own costumes, vying with each other to be the most inventive. 

Each jamboree had a theme. There was The Kite Festival, The Beard, Nose and Heart Party, and The White Festival - for which guests were required to come ‘2/3 white, 1/3 coloured; stippled, diced and striped.’ The metal-themed event in 1929 was subtitled the ‘bells, jingling, tinkling party.’ Guests wore costumes made from tin foil, frying pans, and spoons, and entered by sliding down a chute into one of several rooms filled with silver balls.

‘Tell me how you party and I’ll tell you who you are.’
Oskar Schlemmer

Gropius appreciated the strategic value of parties: they stimulate creativity and embody interdisciplinary practice; they form memories and build community.

A 1920s Bauhaus costume party, featuring designs by Oskar Schlemmer

12. Don’t Stay Where You Are Not Appreciated

‘Limitation makes the creative mind inventive.’
Walter Gropius

The Bauhaus was inevitably caught up in the maelstrom of German politics between the wars. Weimar, a relatively conservative town, became suspicious of the students’ eccentricities, and ascendant right wing politicians dismissed the school as utopian and Bolshevist. When the nationalists took over the state legislature in 1924, the Bauhaus budget was cut by half.

Rather than moderate the school’s culture, Gropius decided to up sticks and leave. In 1925 he relocated the Bauhaus to Dessau, which had a liberal government and a Junkers engineering factory. There he designed a new school building that opened in 1926. Constructed from reinforced concrete and glass, and with a white-plastered façade, ‘it floated with a sparkling insubstantiality.’

But Gropius had had enough of political meddling, and in 1928 he resigned. Swiss architect Hannes Meyer took over as Director, and the focus shifted still further from aesthetics towards functionality. 

Bauhaus School, built by Walter Gropius (1925-1926) in Dessau, Germany

13. Put People First

'The people's needs instead of the need for luxury!’
Hannes Meyer

Meyer's approach was to research people’s needs and scientifically develop the appropriate design solution. He favoured measurements and calculations, along with the use of off-the-shelf architectural components to reduce costs.

‘These are the only motives when building a house. 1. sex life, 2. sleeping habits, 3. pets, 4. gardening, 5. personal hygiene, 6. weather protection, 7. hygiene in the home, 8. car maintenance, 9. cooking, 10. heating, 11. exposure to the sun, 12. services.’
Hannes Meyer

Meyer brought the Bauhaus its two most significant building commissions: a set of apartment blocks in Dessau and the ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau-by-Berlin. Under his Directorship the school started making a profit. However his committed socialism put him at odds with an increasingly right wing local government, and in 1930 he was fired by the city council. 

14. Leave a Legacy

When German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was appointed the next Director he endeavoured to take a non-political stance. 

'I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.'
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 

Nonetheless in 1931 the Nazi Party gained control of Dessau city council and so the Bauhaus moved on again. In late 1932 Mies rented a derelict factory in Berlin as the new Bauhaus home. However the political storm was closing in here too, and the school shut for good in 1933. 

'If your contribution has been vital there will always be somebody to pick up where you left off, and that will be your claim to immortality.’
Walter Gropius

Fleeing the Nazis, oppression and imminent war, the Bauhaus group emigrated far and wide.

Gropius came to Britain, but he found it ‘a land of fog and emotional nightmares.’ After three years, and having designed just one building - the Isokon apartment complex in Hampstead - he moved on to the USA and took a job as professor for architecture at Harvard.

Moholy-Nagy and Mies settled in Chicago where the former became the founding director of the New Bauhaus Graduate School and the latter took a role as director of the School of Architecture at the Armour Institute. Albers landed at the hugely influential Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Others relocated to Israel, Sweden, Canada and the USSR. 

Although the school lasted only 14 years, through teaching posts and private practice, the former students and Masters sustained the spirit of Bauhaus long into the 20th century. Bauhaus remains an inspiration to anyone who believes in the power of architecture and design to improve lives and shape a better society.

When Gropius died aged 86 in 1969 a spectacular metal-themed costume party was held in his memory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To eerie electronic music a shimmering 30‐foot dragon weaved its way through the guests. They were painted head-to-toe in silver, wearing floor-length metallic gowns, and wrapped in metal boxes, colanders and air conditioning ducts. 

In his will Gropius had called, not for mourning, but for 'a fiesta - a la Bauhaus - drinking, laughing, loving.'

The Bauhaus story is told in the fascinating BBC documentary Bauhaus 100.

'Seventy-five, the same old jive.
Christ, won't you tell me why we're still alive?
Seventy-six, no kicks, you bet.
But no, no way we ain't dead yet.
But now it's here,
Our new year.
Gonna be seventy-eight
Revolutions a minute, seventy-eight
Revolutions a minute, seventy-eight
Revolutions a minute, now.’

Stiff Little Fingers, ’78 RPM’ (J Burns / G Ogilvie)

No. 283

The Good Shepherds: The Planners That Lead from the Back

Gustav Klimt, ‘Beech Forest’

Over the long summer holidays Martin and I had an appetite for adventure.

We played cricket in the back garden, made a den in the shed and caught grasshoppers in jam jars. We clambered across the patient branches of the old lilac tree and leapt over the high wire fence into the council-owned sports fields beyond - to join the Chergwins and Richards for makeshift Olympics: jumping in the sandpit, boxing without gloves, running against a cyclist. Technically we were not allowed to play in the council fields, and when occasionally a light aeroplane flew overhead with its lights blinking, we all dived face down onto the grass so as not to be identified in the photographs. 

Sometimes Granddad Carroll would take us for long walks in Epping Forest with Chips, his faithful bull terrier. Before we set foot into the vast ancient woodland, he told us to make arrows from twigs and place them periodically along the route – that way we could retrace our steps later, back to the safety of the car park and a hot sweet tea from the tartan Thermos. 

And so we set off, scampering past majestic oaks and tall lean silver birch trees, weaving in and out of pathways, diving into ditches, sprinting into clearings. The leaves and moss were soft underfoot, the light dappled from the canopy above. The forest seemed wild and infinite. There were no people, just us.

And every now and then Martin and I carefully placed our twig arrows on the ground to mark the way. We took this responsibility very seriously. The fate of us all depended on it.

Of course, Epping Forest was not quite so immense and treacherous as we imagined. And the twig arrows were surplus to requirement. Granddad knew exactly where we were and how to get back to the car. He just wanted to heighten our sense of adventure.

Granddad was the Good Shepherd, gently guiding us along the right path, steering us through the wild wood to safety – empowering and yet in control, without impressing the fact upon us.

I was reminded of our Epping Forest exploits when I was judging the APG Planning Awards last year.

Many of the case studies broke with convention. They didn’t relate the story of a brilliant analysis or blinding insight. These were not simple linear narratives of before and after. Rather they were tales of Planners quietly, conscientiously coaxing a concept through to fruition; or carefully, cautiously evolving a campaign so that it retained its freshness.

How do you navigate a bold new creative idea through an institution as bureaucratic and conservative as the United Nations? How do you convince a serious-minded enterprise like Greenpeace to adopt a light-hearted communication initiative? How do you maintain consumers’, and indeed Clients’, interest in long-running campaigns like Marmite, IKEA, Change4Life and Audi?

The job of the modern Planner requires that we focus on sustaining and developing an idea as much as having one in the first place. Planners must facilitate and negotiate, illustrate and substantiate. The role has evolved to embrace a wide range of functions: brand design and co-creation, arbitration and diplomacy, codifying and ‘show-running’. 

Nowadays Planners must learn to lead, not just from the front, but from the back. It is perhaps a less celebrated, more subtle duty. And one that requires a sensitive hand and an agile mind.

Like the knack for steering unruly children through the depths of the vast forest to safety.

'I hear her voice
Calling my name.
The sound is deep
In the dark.
I hear her voice
And start to run,
Into the trees,
Into the trees.

Suddenly I stop.
But I know it's too late.
I'm lost in a forest,
All alone.
The girl was never there.
It's always the same.
I'm running towards nothing
Again and again and again and again.

The Cure, ‘A Forest’ (R Smith / L Tolhurst / M Hartley / S Gallup)

No. 282

‘The Bad and the Beautiful’: Leaving It for the Audience to Imagine

‘She doesn’t speak. We move the camera in close on her. She opens her mouth to talk, but she can’t. And what she’s feeling we’ll leave for the audience to imagine. Believe me, Jim, they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’
Jonathan Shields, 'The Bad and the Beautiful' 

'The Bad and the Beautiful' is a 1952 melodrama that tells the tale of a fictional Hollywood film producer.

Kirk Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, the son of a successful but now despised movie mogul, as he sets out to restore his family name. Shields is visionary, charismatic and passionate about film. But he also suffers some of his father’s shortcomings. He is ‘the man who’ll do anything to get what he wants.’

We are given a perspective on Shields from three of his former collaborators: a director, a leading lady and a screenwriter. All recognise his formidable talent and boundless energy, but all have been burnt by his ruthless ambition.

‘He shouldn’t have shot the picture. He should have shot himself.’

The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli and written by George Bradshaw and Charles Schnee, gives an insight into how Hollywood viewed itself back in the Golden Age.

The movie industry is depicted as fundamentally conservative and financially driven.

'I've told you a hundred times. I don't want to win awards. Give me pictures that end with a kiss and black ink on the books.’

It’s an industry that has an ambivalent attitude towards creative people. On the one hand, it seeks out the best writers. On the other, it treats them like an expendable commodity.

‘I’m flattered you want me and bitter you’ve got me. Where do I start?’

Hollywood throws together diverse talent from all walks of life and is comfortable with a certain amount of creative conflict. 

'Don't worry. Some of the best movies are made by people working together who hate each other's guts.’

Above all it celebrates that precious and enigmatic commodity, ‘star quality.’

‘When you're on the screen, no matter who you're with, what you're doing, the audience is looking at you. That's star quality.’

'The Bad and the Beautiful' gives a good many film-making tips along the way. 

‘A picture all climaxes is like a necklace without a string. It falls apart. You must build to your big moments and sometimes you must build slowly.’

I was particularly taken with a sequence covering Shields’ early career when he was commissioned to produce a low budget horror movie, ‘The Doom of the Cat Men’. He and his director make a dispiriting visit to the costume department to review the potential outfits for the cat men.

'Look. Put five men dressed like cats on the screen, what do they look like?'
'Like five men dressed like cats.’

 They arrive at a lateral solution.

'When an audience pays to see a picture like this, what are they paying for?'
'To get the pants scared off of ‘em.'
'And what scares the human race more than any other single thing?'
'The dark!'
'Of course. And why? Because the dark has a life of its own. In the dark, all sorts of things come alive.'
'Suppose... suppose we never do show the cat men. Is that what you're thinking?'
‘Exactly.'
'No cat men!'

They resolve to communicate the terrifying beasts by association and allusion; by being implicit, not explicit; by showing the effects of their actions rather than the actions themselves.

'Two eyes shining in the dark.'
'A dog frightened, growling, showing its fangs.’
'A bird, its neck broken, feathers torn from its throat.'
'A little girl screaming, claw marks down her cheeks.' 

This is an age-old lesson, but it’s one worth repeating. We tend to imagine that the route to more effective messaging is direct and literal. We think that the responsible course of action is to show and tell… and tell again for good measure.

Often the opposite is true. We can create more compelling communication by intimation and implication; by suggesting and prompting. If we put less in, they can take more out.

Because, as Shields observed, if you leave it for the audience to imagine…’they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’

'Each day through my window I watch her as she passes by.
I say to myself you're such a lucky guy,
To have a girl like her is truly a dream come true.
Out of all the fellows in the world she belongs to me.
But it was just my imagination,
Once again runnin' away with me.
It was just my imagination runnin' away with me.'

The Temptations, 'Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)’ (B Strong, N Whitfield)

No. 281

Aubrey Beardsley: A Race Against Time

Aubrey Beardsley The Climax 1893 (published 1907)

‘Last summer I struck for myself an entirely new method of drawing and composition… The subjects were quite mad and a little indecent. Strange hermaphroditic creatures wandering about in Pierrot costumes or modern dress; quite a new world of my own creation.’ 
Aubrey Beardsley, letter to an old school friend, 1893

Like its subject, the recent exhibition of the work of illustrator Aubrey Beardsley at the Tate Britain was cut short. However, you can still buy the splendid accompanying catalogue, and there was a fine documentary on BBC4 (‘Scandal and Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsley’).

Working almost exclusively in pen and ink, Beardsley created a magical world of biblical and mythical figures; of chivalrous knights and damsels in distress; of fauns and satyrs, Pierrots and Harlequins. It was a world inhabited by masked women with cruel smiles and demonic stares; by fat ladies and femmes fatales; by cheeky cherubs and angry foetuses. There were flamboyant dresses, flowing locks and fashionable hats; malevolent serpents, exotic flowers and phallic candles. It was a world of fantasy and nightmare, both sinister and sensual. 

Beardsley helped define his times - an age of romance, style and decadence.

Beardsley was born into an impoverished middle class family in Brighton in 1872. When he was 7 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, or consumption as it was then commonly called. There was no known cure and he was condemned to a short life of coughing, weight loss and periodic haemorrhages.

The Black Cape, 1893, ink on paper. The British Museum

Too frail for sport, Beardsley immersed himself in art and literature, and his first poems and drawings appeared in his school magazine. He left education at 16 and took a job as a clerk at Guardian Life Assurance in London. 

When he was 18 Beardsley met the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, an artist he greatly admired. Beardsley had a portfolio of his sketches with him, and Burne-Jones was impressed.

‘Nature has given you every gift which is necessary to become a great artist. I seldom or never advise anyone to take up art as a profession, but in your case I can do nothing else.’ 

Beardsley’s early work was clearly inspired by Burne-Jones’ Pre-Raphaelite style. But he was also influenced by the Japanese woodblock prints that were popular all over Europe at the time: delicately drawn figures set against abstract backgrounds; fine lines and intricate details contrasted with flat blocks of negative space.

On Burne-Jones' recommendation, Beardsley attended classes at Westminster School of Art. And in 1892 he received his first commission: to illustrate Malory’s ‘Le Morte Darthur.’ This required him to produce some 350 drawings when he got home from work in the evening. It was a massive undertaking. Despite the medieval subject matter, he introduced mermaids, satyrs and Pan figures to his work. He was naturally subversive.

The £250 Beardsley received for ‘Le Morte Darthur’ enabled him to leave his job. Ever aware of the illness hanging over him, he was a man in a hurry. In 1893 he supplied illustrations for the first issue of the new art magazine, The Studio, and he was himself the subject of the leading article.

‘The drawings here printed show decisively the presence among us of an artist, of an artist whose work is quite as remarkable in its execution as in its invention: a very rare combination.' 

Next Beardsley caught the eye of the great dramatist Oscar Wilde. He was commissioned to illustrate the English translation of Wilde’s play ‘Salome’.  Again Beardsley delighted in hiding provocative images in his illustrations. This time he even included teasing satirical caricatures of Wilde himself. His publisher had to be alert to Beardsley’s mischief.

‘One had, so to speak, to place his drawings under a microscope, and look at them upside down.’   

The Yellow Book Vol I, 1894

In 1894 Beardsley was appointed art editor of a new magazine, The Yellow Book. Yellow was a fashionable and somewhat risqué colour since it suggested the yellow covers of erotic French novels. In a radical move, text and image were independent of each other. The first edition of The Yellow Book was an instant and controversial success, and an elated Beardsley wrote to Henry James:

‘Have you heard of the storm that raged over No. 1? Most of the thunderbolts fell on my head. However I enjoyed the excitement immensely.’

Beardsley was now famous and fashionable. And he revelled in his transgressive reputation. 

'Of course, I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.’

Beardsley cut a dash on the London literary scene. He was long limbed and thin boned, with an aquiline nose and a bold centre parting. And he dressed like a dandy, in dove-grey suits, with bow tie, hat, gloves and cane. 

Ever the modern man, Beardsley was alert to new outlets for his work. On a visit to Paris he was impressed at the creative use made of commercial posters, and back in London he became an enthusiastic exponent of the medium. In an essay in The New Review he wrote:

'Advertisement is an absolute necessity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash…The poster first of all justified its existence on the grounds of utility, and should it further aspire to beauty of line and colour, may not our hoardings claim kinship with the galleries?... London will soon be resplendent with advertisements… Beauty has laid siege to the city.'

But everything was about to change.

In 1895, Wilde was prosecuted for ‘gross indecency.’ At his arrest he was seen carrying a yellow book, and the public assumed it was a copy of the infamous magazine.  (In fact it was a French novel.) A mob pelted the windows of Beardsley’s publishing house and his spooked employer sacked the young artist.

Beardsley sold his home and retreated to Dieppe. There he embarked on a new magazine, The Savoy, for Leonard Smithers, an entrepreneur who published ‘what all the others are afraid to touch.’ Beardsley proposed that the cover of the first issue should feature a putto urinating on The Yellow Book. This was too much even for Smithers. Beardsley was now so notorious that some booksellers, including WH Smith, refused to display his work in their windows. After only eight issues, and within a year of its launch, The Savoy folded. 

Portrait of Beardsley by Frederick Evans

Beardsley’s health was failing fast, and yet he pressed on. While recuperating in Epsom in 1896, he created a set of designs for Aristophanes’ ‘Lysistrata’: a comedy about a sex strike by women frustrated with their warring husbands. Inspired by the huge phalluses he had seen on Ancient Greek vases, these were his most provocative images yet.

Later that same year Beardsley suffered a severe haemorrhage of the lung. He moved to the French Riviera in search of healthier air, and it was here that he died, in Menton in 1898. He was 25 years old.

Beardsley’s artistic career barely spanned seven years. Conscious of his illness, he was in a race to make the most of his life - an urgent, precipitous sprint to experience the world, to express himself, to make an impression. It was a race against time.

Beardsley teaches us to treat time as a precious commodity; to make every hour of every day count. He urges us to be ambitious for our talents despite the cards life has dealt us; to be vigorous in our quest for achievement, honest in our self-expression, unafraid of transgression or censure. He courted scandal because it accelerated his progress and because he didn’t have time for courtesies. Sometimes it’s best just not to care what other people think.

Beardsley’s friend the poet Arthur Symons summed him up thus:

‘He had the fatal speed of those who are to die young; that disquieting completeness and extent of knowledge, that absorption of a lifetime in an hour, which we find in those who hasten to have done their work before, knowing that they will not see the evening.’

''Cause we were never being boring.
We had too much time to find for ourselves,
and we were never being boring.
We dressed up and fought, then thought "make amends."
And we were never holding back or worried that
time would come to an end.
We were always hoping that, looking back
you could always rely on a friend.’

The Pet Shop Boys, ‘Being Boring’ (Lowe C, Tennant N)

No. 280

Complaining v Moaning: An Uncomfortable Experience at Downtown Records



Picture by Nikki A. Rae at Record Store Day 2016

On most Saturdays of my youth I would take the bus into Romford Town Centre. I’d look around WH Smith and check out the stationery, books and board games; perhaps inspect the latest fashion at Mr Byrites; pause for a while by the concrete cubist fountain at the centre of the precinct; take in the bustle of the fruit and veg market. And I’d always pop into Downtown Records. 

Downtown provided the only suggestion of counter-culture in Romford’s bland and boring consumerist world. It was a timeless melting pot of punk and soul, rock and prog. It was a magnet for outsiders. It was here that I learned to stand at the racks flicking through the plastic-wrapped sleeves in quick tempo. It was here that I mastered how to decode a record’s content by means of art direction, typography, session players and song titles. It was here that I plotted my own particular path through popular music.

Of course, I never felt entirely comfortable. I was too much of an awkward geek for that. And however essential the album I handed over to the biker-jacketed assistant - ‘Hot Buttered Soul’, ‘After the Goldrush,’ ‘Crocodiles’ - he always remained aloof, impassive, indifferent. 

But still I felt at the centre of the world.

A common concern in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s was warped or scratched LPs. It was like corked wine, and became even more of an issue when they started importing cheaper, thinner vinyl from Portugal. I particularly recall my disappointment when my new copy of the Shalamar ‘Friends’ album fell foul of this problem: the needle could barely stay in the grooves as it rode the topsy-turvy disc. ‘Gonna make this a night to remem…ber!’

The following Saturday I returned to the store with the offending LP still in its red and white Downtown plastic bag – just to reinforce the fact that I’d purchased it from them. (The bag had a graphic of a woman with permed hair, which even then seemed anachronistic.) I marched uneasily to the desk at the back, without pausing to check out the latest releases - heart pumping, nerves jangling. I handed over the disc to the hirsute assistant. 

‘I bought this record from you last week and I’m afraid it’s warped.’

He was singularly unimpressed and stared me straight in the eye.

‘Really?’

He nonchalantly slipped the vinyl out of its sleeve to see if I was telling the truth. I felt small minded, rude, petty and ungrateful; a time waster, an irritating annoyance, an ersatz music fan. I realised the crushing truth: it’s so uncool to complain.

Of course, I left with a new record. But it took me the whole of the bus-ride home to get over the experience, and I waited a couple of weeks before I returned to Downtown.

I have never been comfortable complaining. Complaining is awkward and confrontational. It conflicts with my natural instinct to make the most of things, to look on the bright side, to be optimistic. 

And yet I’m well aware that complaining is an important cog in the wheels of capitalism. It holds businesses to account, it encourages improvement, it serves the interests of other customers. Sometimes complaining is just the right thing to do.

I recently came across this quote from John Lanchester, writing in The New Yorker.

'Visitors to Britain are rarely able to grasp – sometimes after decades of residency – the vital distinction its inhabitants make between complaining and moaning. The two activities seem similar, but there is a profound philosophical and practical difference. To complain about something is to express dissatisfaction to someone whom you hold responsible for an unsatisfactory state of affairs; to moan is to express the same thing to someone other than the person responsible. The British are powerfully embarrassed by complaining, and experience an almost physical recoil from people who do it in public. They do love to moan though.'

It’s true. Despite my deeply felt aversion to complaining, I am partial to a bit of moaning: about people that eat on the tube or rustle in the theatre; about entitled posh folk who push into queues and say ‘guys’; about autotune and cursing; about the music in the restaurant being too loud and the voices on the telly being too quiet; about minted peas and over-strong artisanal ales; about masculine hugs and imprecise stapling practice.

I know I’m not alone in this.

The thing about moaning is that it comes without conflict or embarrassment. No one challenges you or answers you back. And it can be curiously cathartic.

Nonetheless I have come to appreciate that my moaning gets me nowhere. It’s pointless, self-defeating, time consuming and ultimately pretty boring. To tell the truth, my moaning gets me down.

I have resolved to moan a little less and complain a little more. Henceforth my negativity will be channelled towards positive ends.

And yet I read that a number of retailers have recently removed the option to complain by email from their website, or have stopped responding to email complaints altogether (7 March, The Times). And customers who want to register an issue are increasingly encouraged to have a conversation with an automated chatbot.

Perhaps I’ll only properly appreciate the right to complain when they’ve finally taken it away from me. Ain’t that always the way.

'Raindrops keep falling on my head.
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red.
Crying's not for me.
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining.
Because I'm free.
Nothing's worrying me.’

BJ Thomas (B Bacharach / H David)

No. 279

42nd Street: The Galvanising Power of a Motivational Speech

'Remember, my contract makes me boss with a capital B. And what I say goes.’
Julian Marsh, '42nd Street’.

I recently watched the grandmother of all ‘backstage’ musicals, the 1933 film '42nd Street.’

'42nd Street’ features a tough but talented director, an angel investor with eyes for the leading lady, an ingenue who dreams of stardom, and a chorus line of sharp talking, hard working hoofers. It has a romance in peril and a stage production teetering on the edge; beautifully written comedic dialogue and splendidly kaleidoscopic Busby Berkeley choreography. It’s a magnificent movie.

Ruby Keeler plays Peggy Sawyer who arrives in New York from small town Pennsylvania intent on a stage career. At an audition for a production of ‘Pretty Lady’ she encounters fierce competition and caustic humour from her fellow dancers.

'It seems that little Loraine's hit the bottle again.'
'Yah, the peroxide bottle.’

'It must have been hard on your mother, not having any children.’

Sawyer is taken under the wings of two of the more considerate performers.

'Stick with us, girl, and you'll come in on the tide.'

The director of ‘Pretty Lady’ is Julian Marsh (played by Warner Baxter). 

'Julian Marsh, the greatest musical comedy director in America today.'
'What do you mean, today?'
'All right, tomorrow too.’

Marsh has recently lost his investments in the Wall Street Crash and his doctor tells him that his health is failing. He really must make ‘Pretty Lady’ a success. Once auditions are over, the cast and chorus are assembled for the first time. Marsh gives them a rousing address.

'All right, now, everybody... Quiet, and listen to me. Tomorrow morning, we're gonna start a show. We're gonna rehearse for five weeks, and we're gonna open on scheduled time, and I mean scheduled time. You're gonna work and sweat, and work some more. You're gonna work days, and you're gonna work nights, and you're gonna work between time when I think you need it. You're gonna dance until your feet fall off, till you're not able to stand up any longer, but five weeks from now, we're going to have a show. Now, some of you people have been with me before. You know it's gonna be a tough grind. It's gonna be the toughest five weeks that you ever lived through! Do you all get that? Now, anybody who doesn't think he's gonna like it had better quit right now. What do I hear? Nobody? Good... Then that's settled. We start tomorrow morning.'

There follow five weeks of gruelling rehearsals. Five weeks of barked instructions and tired limbs; of navigating complex steps and predatory men; of money worries and blossoming romances; of temper tantrums and nervous exhaustion.

The night before the show's opening, Marsh has a loss of confidence and his angel investor contemplates withdrawing. To cap it all, the leading lady breaks her ankle. 

It’s down to the inexperienced Sawyer to step up and save the show. Marsh rehearses her mercilessly until an hour before the premiere.

'All right, I'll give you a chance - because I've got to... I'll either have a live leading lady - or a dead chorus girl.’

Just before she takes to the stage, Sawyer is visited in her dressing room by the injured star.

'You're nervous, aren't you? Well, don't be. The customers out there want to like you. Always remember that, kid. I've learned it from experience. And you've got so much to give them. Youth and beauty and freshness. Do you know your lines? And your songs? And your dance routine? Well, you're a cinch… Now go out there and be so swell that you'll make me hate you!'

Of course, the plot of ‘42nd Street’ may now seem somewhat commonplace and the characters rather familiar. Critic Pauline Kael famously observed that it was the movie that 'gave life to the clichés that have kept parodists happy.' But ‘42nd Street’ was there first, and it presents its story with such gusto, conviction and good humour that it can still put a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye. At the end you’re willing sweet Sawyer to succeed.

As a former adman I can’t help being reminded of the drama of the pitch process. That spirit of camaraderie as a team embarks on an intense period of toil and trouble; that sense of urgency and consequence regardless of the Client or the task.

One of the marks of a great leader is the ability to unite a disparate group of people in a common endeavour; to instil the belief that this particular challenge really matters, and that each individual can make a difference.

I often watched my great friend and long-time colleague Gwyn Jones motivate a pitch winning team. He would inspire commitment with passionate oratory and one-to-one encouragement. He would give youth the opportunity to shine. He would summon industry and endurance, and yet be sympathetic when morale was flagging. And he would always demand excellence in the finished product.

It’s the night before the pitch, and the team is assembled in Gwyn’s office with the finished deck awaiting final adjustments and sign-off. All is expectation. Gwyn pages through the document in silence. At long last he looks up:

‘Now I know we’re going to have a great pitch tomorrow and you’re all going to be brilliant… But I want all of us here to understand one thing: right now we are nowhere!’

He would then pick them up off the floor and help them piece together the winning argument.

There’s nothing quite like the galvanising power of a timely, well articulated motivational speech - to revive drooping spirits, to summon last reserves of energy, to focus the eye on the prize.

‘The Bridge of Thighs’

Before Sawyer steps out on stage for her make-or-break performance Marsh gives her one last pep talk.

'Sawyer, you listen to me, and you listen hard. Two hundred people, two hundred jobs, two hundred thousand dollars, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It's the lives of all these people who've worked with you. You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give and give. They've got to like you. Got to. Do you understand? You can't fall down. You can't because your future's in it, my future and everything all of us have is staked on you. All right, now I'm through, but you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out. And Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!’

'Every kiss, every hug
Seems to act just like a drug.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
Let me stay in your arms.
I'm addicted to your charms.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
I used to think your love was something
That I could take or leave alone.
But now I couldn't do without my supply.
I need you for my own.'

Bebe Daniels ‘You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me’ (H Warren, A Dubin)

No. 278

The Miracle of Motown: Ten Commercial Lessons from the Hit Factory

Berry Gordy Photo: Tony Spina/Detroit Free Press

‘Hitsville: The Making of Motown’ is a fine documentary telling the story of the legendary pop-soul record label, from its birth in Detroit in 1958 to its relocation to Los Angeles in the early 1970s.

Motown took the raw sound of gospel, rhythm and blues and polished it to a dazzling shine. Motown was big tuneful bass-lines and foot-tapping drum patterns. It was simple song structures and sophisticated melodies. It was call-and-response singing, jangling tambourines and exuberant hand-claps; handsome orchestration, swinging horns and swooning strings. 

Motown was an intoxicating cocktail of talent, charisma and style. It was the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Supremes and the Jackson 5. It was Diana, Smokey, Marvin and Stevie. It was the youthful yearning of ‘My Guy’ and ‘My Girl’; the human drama of ‘Grapevine’ and ‘Superstition’. It was the earnest exhortation of ‘I’ll Be There’ and ‘I Want You Back.’ It was ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ blaring from the car radio.

Motown was the sound of Detroit, the thriving Motor City; ‘the sound of young America.’  It was the soundtrack to our lives.

‘Hitsville’ tells the Motown story from the particular perspective of its founder, Berry Gordy. Gordy’s Motown adventure is compelling. And it provides an education for anyone working in a business that has talent at its core. 

Born into a middle-class Detroit family in 1929, Gordy was the seventh of eight children. As a youngster he sold the Michican Chronicle on the street. Thinking laterally, he took this black newspaper to a white neighbourhood and sold more than ever. The next week he invited his brother to join him at his downtown paper stand. They sold nothing. Gordy had learnt his first lesson:

‘One black kid is cute. Two were a threat to the neighbourhood.’

Gordy was charming and smart, a natural entrepreneur and a persuasive communicator. And he had a will of iron.

‘I was always a hustler trying to make money, trying to better myself.’

Gordy dropped out of high school, became a professional boxer and served in the Korean War. He wrote songs and opened a jazz record store. Though 3-D Record Mart failed, the experience set him on the road to success.

1. Don’t Sell Jazz When Your Customers Want Blues

It’s natural that people working in music should want to pursue their own personal passions. But Gordy learned that you have to respect popular taste; to understand what working people really want from their music; to appreciate the value of simplicity.

‘I had this record store. I didn’t realise the customer was always right. They’d come in and say ‘You got something by Muddy Waters or BB King?’ and I was trying to sell them jazz… It’s only 12 bar blues, and they all say the same thing: ‘I love my baby, but my baby don’t love me.’ I mean, how many times can you say that in how many different ways? But the people in Detroit that worked in the factories, they wanted the blues. And so I realised that it was that simplicity in the music that people understood and people felt good about.’

The Supremes © Art Shay, 1965

2. Build an Assembly Line for Your Talent 

After the demise of 3-D Record Mart, Gordy found work at Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury plant. It was here that he had his breakthrough idea.

‘The factory had this assembly line and I would see the cars start out a bare metal frame and go round a circle. And different stations would put things on there, and they would go out another door a brand new car. I said, my goodness, I could do this with people.’

Gordy conceived of a record company that worked like an assembly line – a factory of talent that housed under one roof writers, producers, musicians, quality control, artist development, sales and marketing.

In 1959 he bought a two-storey property at 2648 West Grand Boulevard and set about hiring. 

3. Recruit the Best People Regardless of Where They Come From

From the churches, clubs and street-corners of Detroit Gordy drafted raw young singers and performers. From the field of classical music he hired Paul Riser to arrange the songs. From the local city jazz bars he pulled together the legendary house band, The Funk Brothers, who would provide the bedrock of the Motown sound. 

Gordy recruited the best talent regardless of musical background, ethnicity or gender. He appointed women to executive positions at a time when this was not the norm. 

‘He had black, white and Jews working at Motown…The colour of business is green.’
Otis Williams

Gordy hired Italian American businessman Barney Ales to head up Motown’s sales and promotion department after an incident at a new Detroit chop-house. When Gordy, Ales and their partners arrived at the restaurant, the maitre d’ challenged Ales.

‘I’m sorry. We don’t serve black people here.’
‘Well, that’s fantastic, because I don’t eat ‘em.’

4. Always Apply Positive Pressure

‘Sometimes you have it perfect. And you want to just get better.’

Gordy was never satisfied. He was driven by a relentless desire to improve. And he kept applying positive pressure on his artists.

In 1960 the Miracles’ ‘Shop Around’ was selling pretty well, but Gordy was frustrated. He summoned lead singer Smokey Robinson back to the studio in the middle of the night to change the beat, the sound and the feeling. The adjusted record was immediately released and became Motown’s first million seller.

‘The sky is not the limit. The sky is the first stop.’

David Ruffin, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Otis Williams and Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations, 1965.
Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

5. Unlock Your People’s Potential

Gordy was himself a gifted songwriter. (He wrote 'Lonely Teardrops', 'Shop Around' and 'Reet Petite.') But he had a very particular skill in recognising and encouraging the talent of others.

‘Berry Gordy’s great ability was to be able to sense the talent that one had… Berry could sense what needed to happen to make it pop…to make it have that thing.’
Stevie Wonder

Marvin Gaye thought of himself as a jazz singer and initially struggled to find success. In 1962 Gordy stripped ‘Stubborn Kind of Fellow’ of its jazz inflections, added some big chords, some ‘Yeah, yeah, yeahs’ and ‘Do, do, do, pow!’ And Gaye had his first smash.

When Gordy didn’t have musical roles for talented musicians, he hired them for office positions. Martha Reeves was working as a secretary in the A&R Department when she was first invited to record a voice track. Norman Whitfield was employed in the quality control department before he was given the chance to join the in-house song-writing staff.

6. Create a Unique Culture

Once Motown had had its initial success, inevitably competitors flew into Detroit to determine what the secret was. They returned home empty-handed as the label’s unique difference lay in its culture: its special combination of talent, camaraderie, location, and values.

‘No one could duplicate our sound… They couldn’t get our sound because the echo chamber was the bathroom upstairs.’

There were great musicians just hanging out at Motown at all hours of the day or night. When Smokey Robinson wanted a ‘live party’ sound on 1963’s  ‘Micky’s Monkey’, he popped outside the recording studio and came back with the Marvelettes, the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, Mary Wilson and two Temptations.

7. Competition Breeds Champions

Having pulled together such a rich array of talent, Gordy encouraged a competitive spirit throughout the business. 

‘As the company grew, so did the challenges of managing a team… So I created competition: beat me if you can - have a better record than I have… Competition breeds champions.’

Smokey was competing with Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield to write the next Temptations song. The Supremes were contending with Martha and the Vandellas to record the next Holland, Dozier and Holland song. Everyone was vying to create the next hit. And as solo artists developed and grew in confidence, they sought to demonstrate to Gordy that their own ideas could sell too.

‘The challenge obviously is him proving himself right or us proving him wrong. But at the end of the day we all win.’
Stevie Wonder

8. Maintain Rigorous Quality Control

With so much talent competing for limited release slots and marketing support, Gordy was determined that objective quality standards be maintained. 

‘Quality control was something that I picked up from the Ford Motor Company. After the assembly line was done, they still had to go to quality control to make sure the quality was there.’

Gordy convened a regular meeting of senior executives to vote on different records’ hit potential.

‘If you don’t get them in the first 4-8 bars, you gotta go back to the drawing board.’

Such sessions could of course be the source of arguments and resentment. So it was critical that a spirit of openness and honesty was observed.

‘You’re free in here. Whatever you say, it will never be held against you.’

9. Deliver Style as Well as Substance

Gordy didn’t just produce a polished sound. He also calculated that, for his performers to achieve a broad popular appeal, they needed a polished look. Two days a week they had to visit the artist development department. At the Motown ‘charm school’ Cholly Atkins taught them choreography, and Maxine Powell instructed them on etiquette, how to walk and talk gracefully.

‘It isn’t where you come from, it’s where you’re going… We start with body language. Body language tells so much about you. You do not protrude the buttocks!’
Maxine Powell

Stevie Wonder

10. Manage a Cycle of Success

‘I always had the feeling that if you don’t keep up with the times - if you don’t innovate - you stagnate.’

Gordy knew that he had to keep moving Motown forward. And this led to hard choices.

‘It’s very hard to go through the cycle of success. People treat you differently. You treat people differently. My problem as their manager was I had to tell them the truth. And that was not always easy.’

And so in 1967 the Supremes became Diana Ross and the Supremes to give the glamorous lead singer more of the spotlight. In 1968 the Temptations evolved a psychedelic soul sound in tune with changing musical tastes. In 1969 Motown launched the Jackson 5 to bring in a new more youthful audience and to extend the company’s activities in TV. And in the early ‘70s Stevie Wonder was given more creative freedom so that he could deliver a phenomenal series of solo albums: ‘Music of My Mind’, ‘Talking Book’ and ‘Innervisions.’

However, Gordy was not as comfortable with the shifting culture of the 1970s. The golden age of Motown had been built on a spirit of optimism and bringing people together. But the US was increasingly fragmented by inequality and the Vietnam War. When in 1971 Marvin Gaye presented Gordy with the ‘What’s Going On?’ album, he balked at the overt political themes.

Although Gordy did go on to release ‘What’s Going On?’, ultimately his instincts let him down. In 1972 he moved all of Motown’s operations to LA with a view to developing its movie interests. Many of the original songwriters and musicians drifted away, and, though the label continued to be successful, something of its soul was lost. 

‘You have the greatest assembly line in the world. But people are not cars, and eventually they are going to express themselves outside the system.’

As an authorised documentary ‘Hitsville’ naturally glosses over some of Gordy’s shortcomings. But there’s still a huge amount we can learn from Motown’s founding genius - his was a phenomenal cultural achievement. And maybe that gloss is just in keeping with what was after all a fundamentally positive, life-enhancing enterprise.

‘Motown is different. Born at a time of so much struggle, so much strife, it taught us that what unites us will always be stronger than what divides us.’
President Barack Obama

'Remember the day I set you free,
I told you you could always count on me, darling.
From that day on, I made a vow
I'll be there when you want me.
Some way, some how.
'Cause baby there ain't no mountain high enough,
Ain't no valley low enough,
Ain't no river wide enough,
To keep me from getting to you.’

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough’ (Simpson / Ashford)

No. 277

Lunch at the Spaghetti House, Holborn: Making Friends with Failure

New York Resturant - Edward Hopper, 1922

'If you want to win at life every time, do not step in the ring.’
Anthony Joshua, on regaining the World Heavyweight Boxing Title

One day in the Autumn of 1991 I took my mother to the British Museum. We wandered around the galleries reflecting on Samurai armour and the Sutton Hoo helmet; pausing in front of Ramesses, reliquaries and the Rosetta Stone. Devout and Irish, she was particularly interested in the Celtic crosses and medieval church statues. I was drawn to anything Classical, and the bearded Assyrian man-beasts. I bought her a few postcards from the shop for the collection she kept in scrapbooks back at Heath Park Road.

Afterwards we adjourned to the Spaghetti House in Holborn. I ordered spaghetti bolognaise and told Mum that it wasn’t as good as the one she made at home – with Heinz tomato soup and mince from the local butchers. We chatted affectionately about Dad, her school and my siblings.

I had decided that this was the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship. I would no longer be the sullen, introverted, taciturn youth. I would be solicitous, attentive, considerate. I would take Mum out to lunch, ask her how she felt. I would be an adult.

The day went very well and, as we parted, I told Mum that next time we could visit the National Gallery together. She was surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

A few months later she was dead.

I had made a mistake. I had left my initiative too late. I would forever be in her debt, unable to pay back all the love and affection of my childhood. And grief and guilt would cast their long shadows.

According to a recent survey of 2,000 people in the UK (Mortar/ KP), we spend 110 hours a year regretting what might have been - the equivalent of 500 waking days over a lifetime. Eight in ten people believe their lives would be better if they had taken more risks. 57% wish they had taken another job. 23% pine for past loves. 

We all walk hand-in-hand with failure and loss, with regret and remorse. And with every passing year our errors add up and accrue. They become life-companions, ghosts that are ready at any moment to tap us on the shoulder and darken the mood.

'Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.'
Salvador Dali

I was nonetheless heartened to read about another recent study, this time from the journal, Nature Communications (November 2019). Scientists at Brown University, the University of Arizona, UCLA and Princeton conducted a series of machine-learning experiments in which they taught computers simple tasks. 

The computers learned fastest when the difficulty of the problem they were addressing was such that they responded with 85% accuracy. The scientists concluded that we learn best when we are challenged to grasp something just beyond our existing knowledge. When a task is too simple, we don't learn anything new; when a task is too difficult, we fail entirely or just give up.

So learning is optimized when we fail 15% of the time. 

This has a ring of truth about it. In the creative arts practitioners have long been familiar with the concept of learning through misstep and misadventure. Failure illuminates the terrain, suggests new opportunities, and points us on the right path. It confirms that we are pioneering something new. It strengthens our resolve.

'An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is.'
Bridget Riley

'I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.'
Sylvia Plath

Similarly in the world of commerce, entrepreneurs and titans of industry have often celebrated the proving ground of trial and error. 

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.’
Thomas Edison

'The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.'
Henry Ford

Indeed the more ambitious a business is to pioneer new categories and sectors, the more it must be prepared to countenance defeat and disappointment. Alphabet’s innovation lab, X, seeks 'radical solutions to huge problems using breakthrough technology.’ X doesn’t just acknowledge the risk of failure; it exalts it:

'If you’re not failing constantly and even foolishly, you’re not pushing hard enough.'

The truth is that failure and how we deal with it define our character. We all look over our shoulders and see a landscape of rash decisions, missed opportunities and wasted time. But, for better or worse, this is our homeland, our mother country. It makes us who we are. 

'Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.'
Truman Capote

I have resolved to be more forgiving of myself and others; to be more comfortable with my past errors of judgement. I plan to make friends with failure. 

So from now on I’m aiming to be wrong 15% of the time. That still gives me a lot to work on. I think Mum would have understood. She’d have been surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

 'I can't eat, I can't sleep anymore.
Waiting for love to walk through the door.
I wish I didn't miss you anymore.’
Angie Stone, ‘Wish I Didn’t Miss You’ (A Martin / G Mcfadden / J Whitehead / L Huff / I Matias)

No. 276