By Des Burkinshaw

The acclaimed business guru, Robert Craven, famously compares The Beatles and Stackridge as a way of demonstrating how a great business idea can still fail.

The Beatles and Stackridge had lots in common: great regional bands, sparkling songs, multiple songwriters, no definite leader, flawless performances. George Martin arranged and produced their best work.

Despite all that, well, you may not even have heard of Stackridge. Which would be a shame, because they were one of the best bands of the 70s. If this blog achieves nothing else, I hope it drives you to stream some of their music.

I only heard of them because of Robert’s workshop, though I remember a journalist saying that then-new Labour leader, Ed Milliband, was “more Stackridge than Beatles” – a quote I logged but didn’t fully understand at the time. Even the band’s website banner headline alludes to this cultural ghosting: “Stackridge: The missing jewel in the crown that is British pop music.” That’s not an unfair assessment, but it made me sad to read because it speaks of the band’s self-awareness of what happened to them..

I now think Stackridge are the band the Beatles could have been if they’d stuck it out past the recording of Abbey Road. Bold claim, huh?

Have a quick listen to these five Stackridge tracks I’ve put together for you – then come back to the blog!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0J2u9MfTGUiHBxVzt277YG?si=bca2ee33afb847e6

Ok, so hopefully you got the fresh-cut diamond sparkle I hear?

I’m a particularly big fan of The Man in the Bowler Hat album which zings along like chilli ice-cream. It’s not some muted 70s prog-rock mess, but a shiny, sharp, multi-coloured, witty and emotional masterpiece. There’s Pepper-style production, pipe organs and strings, Macca bass-trills, acoustic and electric sounds. Barely dented the charts, making 24 in the UK in 1974. I guess it didn’t sit well with the glam rock/prog era. But the other albums are great too. What did you think of the harmonies on Friendliness Pt 1? Did they remind you of anyone?

Stackridge reformed for one final farewell tour in 2015. Here they are in 2007, live, performing their song, There’s Something About the Beatles.

Like the Beatles, Stackridge split up and solo careers followed. Two members, James Warren and Andy Cresswell-Davis, went on to form The Korgis who made one of the most satisfying songs of the 80s in Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime. James Warren performed an acoustic remake to celebrate its 40th birthday, and I’m gobsmacked he has kept that angelic voice. Have a listen. Apparently, it’s not a love song at all, but about James’ journey into Buddhism and finding self-enlightenment - made explicit in the new version with the addition of a previously missing verse - more of which later.

So what happened to Stackridge? How come they got ghosted? Why did The Korgis do better? How did The Beatles do even better than The Korgis? And how do we explain these extremes of cultural remembrance? I’m beginning to sound like Eric Idle’s reporter in The Rutles, but last time I checked, the Beatles are still one of the most popular bands in the world. Sometimes, people even make podcasts about them:)

It’s not like Stackridge had no opportunities at all. They were signed to big labels. They were the opening and closing act of the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970. They supported big acts like Wishbone Ash and appeared on the Old Grey Whistle Test and John Peel’s Radio 1 show. They worked with George Martin. They got into the album charts. Despite all this, they ultimately only managed to accrue a dedicated fanbase rather than worldwide fame and riches.

If I remember correctly, Robert Craven put Stackridge’s bad luck down to timing and the absence of a guiding force à la Brian Epstein. The Beatles certainly benefited from timing and mentoring, but also put in the hours and were fab gear at marketing themselves. 

But isn’t this all just life? How many ridiculously talented people do you know who are somehow not household names? I know far too many. Turning up at the correct cultural moment is maybe down to Cosmic Luck. The mentoring/marketing side, maybe not so much. Most businesses fail because they don’t do enough marketing, or because they refuse to take advice and opportunities.

Still, no question about it: luck is random, like an eagle wondering which rabbit to pluck from the hillside. You can play the averages though.

I couldn’t quite pin it down, so thought I would go to the man who must surely know, James Warren.

“It was defiinitely internal combustion,” he said. “We had just made The Man in the Bowler Hat with George Martin. That’s the point where we should all have pulled together in the same direction, but we were young men wanting to go in different directions. It just became easier to go off and do our own thing.”

Yes, but I used to produce the ITV Chart Show and had (but didn’t ask for) the power to make or break bands by playing their videos on Saturday morning. I would put a song by an up and coming band on the show (always because of the song, rarely because of the video itself), and then I’d watch it get into the top 40 almost as a matter of course. Even if a little indie band got to number 34, it earned them a place in The Conversation. Press were more likely to seek them out.

I still can’t help wondering why a band as good as Stackridge couldn’t break the charts. My guess is that Radio 1 just didn’t support them. Maybe the producers felt as bad as I did every time I turned down a band a slot on the Chart Show (it really pained me, believe me) due to lack of space. Stackridge would have been too far out for Radio 2 at that time, which was still a Waggoner’s Walk hellhole of soaps and light entertainment. There was only really Top of the Pops and Old Grey Whistle Test for TV. I remember Radio 2 in the 70s. It was the sound of dust.

Truthfully, if the media didn’t adopt you back then… that was it. There was no social media to compensate.

One of our interviewees, Mike Batt of Bright Eyes/Wombles fame, had the biggest success of his career mentoring and writing for Katie Melua. He wrote her breakthrough hit, The Closest Thing to Crazy, and shot the cheapest video you can imagine for it.

Lots of people make cheap, crappy videos. But Mike – refusing to take chances with Cosmic Luck - remortgaged his house to pay for a couple of ads on ITV (ads cost tens of thousands per slot back then).

Luckily for his marriage, it worked out beautifully. Katie got a massive hit and went on to became one of the UK’s most successful artists ever. Album sales currently at 11 million, with 56 Platinum album awards. I keep using words like ‘luck’ and ‘random’ - but didn’t Mike make his own luck in a deliberate action? No bandmates to argue with. Just a wary wife.

The Beatles went stratospheric in the UK after appearing on Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the Palladium. Many commentators mark this one TV slot as the birth of Beatlemania.

Did Stackridge get the equivalent of that TV slot or a Mike Batt-style ITV commercial? No. There was far less music being released in 1969-1975 than today but there were also far fewer outlets, and no streaming, no YouTube.

For an artist operating in such a vacuum, it must have been all too easy to feel the moment would never come, or worse, had already passed. There’s also a natural deflation which accompanies every completed artistic project, which can only be worsened by an indifferent reception. At least a negative review is sign of a reaction. Indifference equaIs impetus lost. Relationships become strained. And indeed, Stackridge split up. From what James has told me, Stackridge gave up the ghost, so why shouldn’t the history books ghost them too?

But I think this proves Robert Craven right. Would Brian Epstein have allowed the Beatles to walk away from each other so easily? Every business needs an angel. And a band is in the business of show.

It’s striking that, just a couple of years after The Man in the Bowler Hat, The Korgis were playing to completely different rules, on a completely different pitch to those Stackridge faced. Watch the video for Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime. James and Andy are togged up in decidely non-hippy suits and casual wear, standing (dangerously) in sneakers in a lit field of water. Random people wander in and out of the set. It’s quite clearly the 80s. And pop videos are now a thing. Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime is one of the best pop songs of all-time for sure, but I bet the video, as well as the increased number of video outlets, helped The Korgis avoid the same fate as Stackridge. Luckily The Korgis had already scored a top 20 hit with If I Had You, so you can bet those radio producers at the BBC gave Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime a sympathetic listen.

That biggest hit has, of course, been covered many times, by the Dream Academy, Erasure, Army of Lovers, and the 1995 dance version by Baby D which made it a global hit all over again. The most recent cover is that acoustic cover by James Warren himself.

“I actually prefer the new version,” James told me. “I have more control as a singer now, and the addition of the second verse improves it too.”

But James! The synths on the orginal! It’s got one of those impossible not to love musical suspensions…

“Ok yes. The synths at the end work really well,” he admits.

James’ current version of The Korgis are still releasing excellent material - check out the United Nations albums (Red and Blue versions - remind you of anyone?). Also, have a listen to this excellent recent single, Matala Moon, a Warren song about Joni Mitchell. The Korgis are also on tour in October 2024.

Please. Make my words worthwhile. Go check out Stackridge/The Korgis. They might just become two of your favourite bands too.