Record label chief ’ didn’t want to know’ about fledgling Minogue
A NEW biography about music boss Michael Gudinski claims he was unsure about signing Kylie Minogue and thought she might ruin his rock credibility.
“Michael didn’t want to know,” Gary Ashley, a former managing director at Gudinski’s record label Mushroom, says in the tell- all book by Stuart Coupe.
“Was he happy about having a young TV star who really couldn’t sing that well on Mushroom? No.”
The book also claims other staffers believed signing Minogue would “undermine ( the company’s) hard- earned reputation as a label whose core was credible rock ' n' roll and quality music”.
But Gudinski heeded the advice of Ashley and former publicity manager Amanda Pelman and signed Minogue in 1987.
Gudinski’s sister Tina, whose two young children got excited at the mention of Minogue, also helped convince him.
Ashley says Gudinski told him: “I don’t want anybody telling me what my record company should or shouldn’t do. We do pop music. We do everything.”