Terry Ellis (foreground) & Chris Wright c 1970s
Before Chrysalis was born, there was the Ellis-wright Agency...set up by Terry and Chris in 1967. Trading on their experience of booking bands into their respective universities and utilising the list of contacts built up while doing it, the Agency nevertheless took a little while to get off the ground. It was doing well enough after a year or so for them to re-locate to an office in London's West End, though they were hardly making fortunes at this stage, as this anecdote will bear out. I hope they won't mind me relating it now they've moved on and up a bit!
Some time in 1968, while I was at Bron Artiste Management, they booked our main band, Manfred Mann, into one of their client universities. It was quite common in those for one agency to book another agency's group into a venue that was their client, then when they received payment of the fee, to deduct their 5% share of the commission before sending on the balance to the artiste's agency. In this case, as I was Manfred's booker at the Bron Organisation, I was responsible for the exchange of contracts and then, after the gig was played, to follow up and make sure that the nett fee was paid to us. Well, on this occasion I had phoned the Ellis-Wright Agency two or three times and been fobbed off with promises that 'the cheque was in the post', so I decided to go to their office and confront them. After their initial surprise at being 'doorstepped', so to speak..a cheque was written quite affably and handed to me. When I commented on the fact that it took a personal visit for them to do this...they replied with disarming candour: "Well, we tend to pay those who push the hardest first!" Well, I guess the system worked pretty well for them, as they both went on to become millionaires! Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, as they say.
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