Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Rock’s hard place
SHARON OSBOURNE PRESENTS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL’S DODGIEST DEALS BBC4, 10pm
HAILED as music biz royalty, Sharon Osbourne is the perfect hostess for this romp through the history of the British record industry. The usually swearing and outrageous Sharon seems to be on her best behaviour, gently narrating events and sharing some of her many anecdotes, without so much as an F-word or a cackle. Well I suppose this is BBC4, darling. For the past 40 years, the music business has been Sharon’s world. She grew up as daughter of fearsome manager Don Arden and herself managed Black Sabbath and husband Ozzy. She says: “I’ve grown up in this world. And as long as I’ve been doing this, the story of deals has always been between about the artist vs the man. You’re basically at war with the music biz.” From the start of rock ’n’ roll to the present day, Sharon explains how it all works, from record and publishing deals to merchandising and licensing. She highlights Little Richard’s half a cent per record for Tutti Frutti, Robbie Williams’ huge £80million advance, The Police’s DIY deal and how Led Zeppelin revolutionised income from live gigs. With personal insight and visits to key locations in London, Birmingham and LA, Sharon recounts the story of notoriously bad deals for The Beatles, Animals and the Small Faces – revisiting the flat where the latter’s manager, her dad Don, dangled rival impresario Robert Stigwood out of a window. And she recounts with some pride how Ozzy bit the head off a live dove after his record company gave him a bad deal in 1980. “The label went nuts,” she recalls. “Obviously they were disgusted, but at the end of it they knew who was boss – and it wasn’t them.”