Sad to see the demise of the New Musical Express in its print edition, the last one appearing on March 9th 2018.
By coincidence The Raver recently acquired a copy of their 10th Anniversary Souvenir Book, full of fascinating fax’n’info, as sub-editors used to proudly boast.
Our diligent research reveals the first issue appeared on March 7, 1952, edited by Ray Sonin, a former Melody Maker man. By November NME had launched the first Pop Singles Chart in the UK, which would prove a great success in terms of advertising and readership.
The NME was bought by Maurice Kinn, aged 26, in 1953 when it seemed to be ‘a dying weekly paper’. The circulation was just 18,500 as latter-day editor Andy Gray recalled in the foreword to his 1962 book. Promotion via Radio Luxembourg, the Pop Poll Winners Awards scheme, star interviews and excellent news coverage ensured the sales figures rose rapidly to 100,000 a week by 1955, a world record for a music paper. They would hit a quarter of a million by the Sixties and Seventies.
So, who were the big NME Poll Winning Stars of 1952? The Ted Heath Orchestra, singers Lita Roza and Dickie Valentine, and jazzmen Johnny Dankworth and Ronnie Scott. Hurrah! By 1958 it would be Elvis Presley, Elvis Presley and er Elvis Presley, in nearly all categories including the Worlds Most Outstanding Popular Singer.
Interestingly, in the 1962 NME Book, while much space was devoted to Cliff and the Shadows, Connie Francis and Helen Shapiro, there is not one mention of a certain beat group of ‘guitars’ from Liverpool, soon to revolutionise the entire music industry. Bet the Alley Cat never predicted that…
The modern equivalent of the NME Poll Winners concerts is of course the BRIT AWARDS.
That’s where the inarticulate gather to make their acceptance speeches. One industry insider tells us he paid £1000 for a ticket to the recent show at the O2 Arena and complained he couldn’t hear a note of Ed Sheeran’s performance, due to the noise of revellers talking loudly at their tables. It was ever thus.