Publishing is the bank of the music business and songwriting is the lifeblood that sustains it.

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

Orange’s publishing division started in late 1969. After reading a standard publishing contract from my lawyer, Nick Kanaar, I had a basic grasp of how publishing worked. Nick, who was and still is a famous lawyer specialising in publishing, helped me to understand the craft. I learned that music publishing is very involved and far more complex than just contracts. It is an international business and a knowledge of all the world collection societies and the territories in which they operate, is essential. I now needed an expert to head the company.

I asked Dennis Sinnott to join Orange. Dennis had worked in music publishing ever since he left college and was Head of Copyright at EMI before joining us. He still runs Orange Publishing from St. Louis in America. Dennis has also written a book called ‘Masters of Songwriting’, which is essential reading for anybody who is keen to succeed in today’s ‘Digital Download’ music industry.

Dennis Sinnot – MD Orange Publishing

EMI Publishing was in Dean Street Soho, and then later Charing Cross Road, just around the corner from the Orange Shop. At EMI, I was working on deals with bands and artists such as Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash, Queen and Bob Dylan. I then discovered that a lot of our artists were laying down demos or doing finished masters at the Orange Studio. It was a very good studio in a great location, because you had all of the best writers and the big artists – such as David Bowie and Rod Stewart – coming to Denmark Street. Sometimes they came looking for good songs. It was a very exciting place to be, and my Orange Publishing office was on the third floor of 22 Denmark Street. My first impression of Cliff was that he had so much energy, and everything about his attitude was positive. Then, the next thing I knew, he was offering me a position at Orange Publishing. Over lunch, Cliff told me that, basically, I could do whatever was needed to establish Orange Publishing.

At EMI, I was in charge of about fifteen people and a catalogue of over one million songs. EMI Publishing was massive but everything there had pretty much already been done for me. I saw Orange Publishing, on the other hand, as a huge challenge – almost everything there still needed to be done, and it was down to me to get it organised. I remember I had this gut feeling that Orange was really going to go places as a company – and it was not long before I was proved right.

Over the next five or so years Orange Publishing signed an incredible variety of bands and artists, ranging from punks and rockers like Cock Sparrer, and The Little Roosters, right through to The Tremeloes and Kenny Ball. Many of them had records out on Orange’s AMI subsidiary label. Orange Publishing (now Orange Songs) currently has a huge catalogue with numerous copyrights including the Grand Rights to several musicals and film scores.”

A good manager is someone who knows when to say ‘no’, and really cares about the artists’ personal well-being.

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

I’d heard about this massive talent in the North East called John Miles. I went to see him play live and his show was amazing, I just knew that he was going to be very successful. I also knew that he would need to come down to London to record. I spoke with John and his manager and eventually we agreed a deal where I would buy John’s management contract.

Forty years later, I still manage John, and he is a good friend. John is a unique artist and continues to perform all over Europe, where he has a big following and plays to packed-out venues. John has played with just about everybody in the music business from Tina Turner to Jimmy Page, from Joe Cocker to Andrea Bocelli, to name but a few. He’s one of these gifted musicians who can play anything. He’s a great guitarist, pianist, vocalist, songwriter… and golfer. His hit ‘Slow Down’ reached Number 2 in the American charts and the epic ‘Music [was my first love]’ charted in every country in the Western Hemisphere, often reaching Number 1.

In 1971, I signed Eddie Kidd, the motorcycle stunt rider. He was a great looking guy and fearless when riding his motorbike. He became a household name and I signed him to star in the full-length feature film, Riding High. Eddie also had a great modeling career and featured in the famous Levi’s 501 TV commercial. I was devastated when I heard in 1996 – 3 years after I stopped managing him – that he had a terrible accident which left him unable do stunts again.

I also managed the band Smokie, Nigel Benjamin [ex-Mott The Hoople] together with his band English Assassin, Cock Sparrer, The Realistics (from the U.S.) and The Little Roosters. We went on to sign many of the Orange artists to major record labels.

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

We started to build the Orange Studio in the basement at 3 New Compton Street in the summer of 1968. I worked with Brian Hatt, a good friend of mine and an excellent studio technician. Brian Hatt was also a good producer and musician, and played in the band Candy Choir. That summer we both burned the midnight oil for several months building the studio and preparing equipment. In those days, every jack socket and loom had to be hand-cut, stripped, wired and soldered – which seemed to take forever! I can remember doubting whether it would ever get finished, or indeed, work at all. Luckily, it did, and we opened the studio for business that same summer. The studio, with its ex-IBC 24-channel mixing desk worked very well.

In those pre-digital times, every module in the desk had four preamp valves – and if you’ve got twenty-four modules in the desk, that is a lot of valves… One effect of this valve situation is that the heat they generated kept us warm in the winter, but very hot in the summer. Valves also wear out, especially as they are often working 24/7, and so the studio’s equipment required ongoing monitoring and maintenance. A good engineer could hear any slight sound differences between each channel, and would become acutely aware of any loss in sound quality between the desk’s modules.

We employed a very gifted designer, Roger Jeffrey, who maintained the equipment and went on to design our Amity 24-track tape machines. I invested in an AG440 Ampex 4-track, which was a state-of-the-art professional tape recorder. With this and the stereo Ampex, we were able to bounce tracks. Our sound engineering had really moved forward and we attracted many famous names including Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Robin Gibb, Mickie Most, John Miles, Paul Anka and lots of heavy metal bands. Our basement studio had a great vibe – it was very large and, as nobody lived or worked on either side, volume wasn’t an issue. Most bands preferred to come in for night sessions.

Hot Chocolate recorded one of their early hits ‘Love Is Life’ at the Orange Studio with their producer, Mickie Most. Many of our own studio engineers went on to become world-class producers and engineers. The Orange Studio is where Steve Churchyard learned his craft from Brian Hatt. We gave Steve his first job as a trainee engineer when he was eighteen, and he stayed with us for three years, before landing a job at Sir George Martin’s legendary AIR studios. Currently Steve lives in LA and has worked with just about everybody – world-class artists such as The Eagles, The Darkness, George Michael, and Sheryl Crow.

A new idea to improve after-sales service

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

The Orange log book was essentially a guarantee card and a service record which showed the age of the amplifier, its history and maintenance record. In those days, by law, every car had to have a log book which showed details of the car maker, number-plate, engine size, year of manufacture and change of owner.

I thought it would be a good idea to have a log book for our amplifiers. When an amplifier was purchased from a shop, the buyer would receive his log book and send it back to our head office to register the guarantee and have it stamped [shown opposite]. We in turn would notify our sales reps that an amplifier had been sold in that particular shop. Should a problem have occurred with the amp or it had needed a service, change of valves etc, the customer would take his amplifier along with his log book to an Orange service centre. The work done would be registered in the log book, duly stamped, signed and dated.

If somebody was looking to buy a second-hand Orange, they could see the history of the amplifier and would know that genuine replacement parts had been used. This also made it more difficult to sell a stolen or modified amplifier. The log book was a big success in those days and gave us a lot of good publicity. Sometimes an amplifier would change hands several times and come back to us for stamping.