Siggy Jackson is a name that keeps cropping up in my research. This guy was Emille Shallits right hand man, he must have a wealth of information, but where is he now? I decide to find out. After an intense period of research (I typed his name into a web search) I managed to find a number for him, which I duly rang. The nice lady at the end of the line said ”Ooh, no dearie, he moved out about five years ago”
I asked her "Do you have a forwarding number?" fully expecting my quest to end there, but the reply came back ”Hold on a minute” and a few minutes later, I was dialling Siggys number.
Siggy was very accommodating, and he agreed to a meeting on the following Thursday and thus it was that I found myself wandering around Victoria station looking for someone I had only ever seen in a grainy old monochrome image from about thirty years ago. I had tried to phone his mobile as arranged, but was unable to get an answer. Was this a wild goose chase? I spotted this chap dressed in blue, carrying a matching attaché case who seemed to be saying ”I am Blue Beat”, I asked Are you Siggy Jackson?” and sure enough it was he.
Emile Shallit and Jack Chilks formed Melodisc together, and Chilks left in about 1951. Siggy Jackson came into the business in 1953.
Mark Downie "So did Shallit run it himself for that year?"
SJ "No, there was another fellow by the name of Dera, he was at the head but there was no production at that time, until I got there it was all just licenced product.”
MD "The early releases were jazz from people like Louis Jordan and Charlie Parker?"
SJ "Yes, Jazz was a big money spinner, they were best sellers. We had that girl, the famous Jazz singer...Billie Holiday... unbelievable. She came over here, and I had to go and meet her in her hotel room, she was still in bed 'Oh Siggy, come in, come in, sit down, what you drinking?"
"I knew that she was already a lush, terrible thing. She did one or two concerts but at that time she was already on the wane. We had all those beautiful, beautiful things, when she was still in full one hundred percent talent, amazing"
"We were licencing products from all kinds of sources. There must be masses and masses of old 78s, although who knows how many survived? They would get smashed in moving, they would get smashed when we shipped them, sometimes every record in the crate would get smashed, there must be very few left, I think I have about three or four. Of course, then when L.P.s came out I would release them on 10 inch".
MD "Who were the major companies at that time?"
SJ " Just EMI and Decca, that was it.”
MD "and when Melodisc came along..."
SJ "Innovation!”
MD "...was it the first independent?"
SJ " No, there was Esquire who put out Starlight, and a guy in New Bond street, CBS bought them out. Oriole. There was a studio there too, I recorded there. We were very friendly, very, very matey. It doubled as a sort of audition as well, people would come in and say Excuse me sir, "can I record a demo? I am a singer.”
"You would listen and then say whether you thought it could work or not. Then one day Maurie Levy comes in and says ”Listen to this Siggy” and he plays me this song (sings) ”When the moon takes the place of the sun in the sky/I call for my girlie we go walking by - We Will Make Love” - I said; Number One! And that’s what it was; number one. I tell you, incredible! And they were bought out by CBS, it went on and on.”
"Then there was Polygon who did Petula Clarke, and that died down because the guys were short of cash. I mean to be in the pop business and compete with EMI, Decca, it’s not easy is it? Everything is blocked straight away. That was the beginnings of that sort of thing. They went shaky and this guy came to Melodisc and tried to do a deal to get Jack Chilks shares out, and Shallit came to London and they went to a solicitor. The guy was in the right, Chilks had been promised the extra shares, and he deserved them, he did all the work. But the other companies all died out except for Oriole who were taken over by CBS.”
"Then there was Nixa, who were taken over by PYE, people don’t know all this. I, as a small company, was involved in everything. I walked through ‘Tin-pan Alley’ - which doesn’t exist anymore of course- up in Denmark Street, and man, I was feted, and whatever. It was ”Come and listen to this, come and listen to this.” Because in those days publishers were publishers. And you would say ”We’ll do the arrangements and we’ll plug it” and so on. Thats the way it was. I cut a number of pop things, which always paid off because you didn’t pay anything for it.”
MD "So how did you first meet Shallit?"
SJ "Well as I said, there was this guy Dera who worked in Melodisc, and I knew him. He told Shallit about me, that I know lots of things about shipments, and studios, and that I knew all the people there, and he said I was the only guy that could possibly save his company. I was then working for a shipping firm in the city - William H. Muller - a Dutch firm. The Queen of Holland was the biggest shareholder. Whacking big company and I had a terriffic job there, and when I left there was pandemonium, ridiculous isn’t it? I’ll tell you what happened: I had sorted out with Emille about what is what, and he said "I believe in handshakes, that is my contract.” so suddenly I give my notice in to the firm, and pandemonium! I get called up in front of the managing director of this multi-million dollar company, a Dutch guy, and he says ”Look, I don’t understand why you’re leaving, you have a fabulous position in Sloane Square, you’ve got the greatest future. I started off as an office boy, and look, I’m the managing director! What are they paying you? What are your prospects?”
"And my immediate boss, who was the chief of the West End got into trouble, they tried to say he was interfering
with my work. It was so stupid, it’s ridiculous isn’t it? I wrote a letter saying my boss always gave me every opportunity to do whatever I wanted etcetera. This was at the time of the movie ‘The Queen Is Crowned’. I was in charge of global distribution, I was on it day and night. I attended parties and functions. I was invited by J. Arthur Rank to a big dinner for all the managers. And here is a story connected to today: I was in a pub in Kent with my wife, my daughter and my son in law, and there was an old boy there, very elegant, sitting with a younger lady. I looked at him and said to my wife ”Do you know who that is, it’s Tommy Wallace.” she said ”Don’t be silly”. I went over to him and said, ”Are you Tommy Wallace?” he said ”Yes”. He was the chief of the West End. Amazing isn’t it? That was two years ago, he will be 102 now. And I’ll tell you what; an aristocrat, he was a member of the Reform Club in Pall Mall, the number one club of the aristocracy, and who went with him was me. When I did that job I was in there like you wouldn’t believe. That was a brilliant job, lovely people.”
"So I arrived in showbiz, and that was a totally different story. I loved it. Music. I knew music, that was one thing, and so I just let it all go and did the thing. Of course Calypsos were doing tremendously, and Kitch - great lad he was - always had different vibes. Laurel Aitken was different again, in a different mode. It was a great period. Of course in those days: man, you could have done anything.”
"That is why we did the thing with Bill Haley's manager you see? That just goes to show you how money was thrown away. Emille was Yiddish and so was this guy: ”My life, already”. Check it out, it was all worked out. And this guy said ”You
must do something for Bill Haley” - of course Bill was under contract to so-and-so, but he said to do something similar. He a had neighbour or something, who played in a large orchestra, so he suggested: "Why not do versions of ‘Rock Around The Clock’ in classical style?" and Emille said "Yeah, that’s a good idea”, but I knew nothing about it. So then he said: "We’re gonna do this session.” I said: "Emille, do you know how much it will cost?” he said "It doesn’t matter, it will be big, it will be very, very big.” I said: "No record company can make money from classical records, it is all subsidised by the pop business, only few people buy it”. He had it all out of proportion: "No, it’s gonna be big!” If it sold fifty or a hundred records to friends, that was it. You didn’t cop any publishing, it was someone else’s. There were no royalties to be made, it was someone else’s music.”
MD "recently they did just the same thing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing more recent rock anthems, they called it ‘Classic Rock’ it must have been quite an innovative idea back in the fifties?"
SJ "Sure, but nobody wanted to know, we had a symphony orchestra, it cost thousands.”
MD "So apart from Melodisc itself, there were other subsidiary labels?"
SJ "No, no, there was only Melodisc when I got there, Blue Beat was the first. I did all the subsidiaries. It was like having competition against yourself”
MD "But what about labels like Limbo, Dice, Kalypso?"
SJ "Limbo was Bertie Kings label, Kalypso was a Jamaican label, where the (Jamaican) blues came out first. Dice was just melodisc. Dice was the last label I released, the one before was FAB. And when I left Melodisc, I put out the Columbia Blue Beat label, well you can imagine, the publicity, the newspapers, EMI production with Siggy Jackson, that realy hit it....Shallit lived in France, he never had his own place in England, he would spend most of his time in Paris. At those times we were very friendly, we had daughters the same age, and my wife would often spend time over there. he would stay with us when he was in London. I would always say I’m sure he will come up with the goods (money) but every time I tried to broach the subject he would have something else to do "Oh, I’m just off to the states, sorry”, that sort of thing. I resented it. I resented whenever he came back from the states or somewhere he just emptied the till. From a big bank account, it would just go down, you see?"
MD "So he didn’t spend much time in London at all then?"
SJ "No, no, you see he wanted to do all the things, I mean sure, he had heard of Jamaican Blues, but when he came to London one time and I said to him "Hey look I’ve got a label out called Blue Beat". He said "Jeez. Siggy, what is this?” I said "It’s a new label, it’s selling like hot cakes”. He said "Oh, that’s good, that’s good. Fine”.
Then he said he had to go off to the states, OK that made no difference to me whether he went there or not. I could still sign the cheques and so forth. so then he went off to Jamaica, and I didn’t know that, you see? And that is how he introduced himself to those people saying; "It’s me, I do all the work etc”. A and I’m hearing all these things back and saying "What’s all this about?” I mean, in this country, all the papers, everyone knew that it was only me behind Blue Beat, no one even knew Shallit was involved...
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