Jonathan King: Difference between revisions

Jonathan King (born December 6, 1944) is the stage name of Kenneth George King, a British pop music producer and personality. He had a global smash in 1965 which he wrote and sang, "Everyone's Gone to the Moon". He became one of Britain's top producers, record label executives and TV personalities. He claims to have sold over 40 million records under various pseudonyms. In 2001, he received a seven-year prison sentence for four indecent assaults and two more serious sexual offences going back to the 1980s involving schoolboys aged 14 and 15. He continues to protest his innocence of these convictions, saying anything that did go on was consenting. These are currently being reviewed by the official Government body, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). In September 2006 he started a video blog autobiographical diary on YouTube which immediately received thousands of views within days.

The child of an American father and an English mother, King was educated at Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He made his first recordings with Joe Meek, but those weren't released. As an teenage undergraduate, he wrote and sang his first hit, Everyone's Gone to the Moon in 1965, eventually selling a reported 4.5 million records worldwide. Before graduating, he wrote and produced further hits such as It's Good News Week by "Hedgehoppers Anonymous", also discovering, producing and naming Genesis, whose founding members were at Charterhouse.

Soon after King graduated, his Saturday evening ITV series Good Evening; I'm Jonathan King, was seen nationally for six months.

He ran Decca Records twice in the late 60's and late 70's, and in 1971, 1972 and 1973 was acclaimed Producer of the Year. He performed and produced many big hits under different names, often two or three at the same time. He had huge hits with Let It All Hang Out, It Only Takes A Minute, Loop di Love and others. He produced The Bay City Rollers and sang most of their first hit, Keep on Dancing. He backed and produced The Rocky Horror Show. His own label, UK Records had hits with 10cc whom he discovered and named, Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs (Seaside Shuffle), Roy C (Shotgun Wedding), Lobo (I'd Love You To Want Me) and many others. King usually performed under pseudonyms, such as 'Shag', 'St Cecilia', 'Bubblerock', '100 Ton and a Feather', although in 1975, a rendition under his own name of "Una Paloma Blanca" was named Record of the Year. He scored another Top 20 hit in 1978 under his own name with a song titled 'One for Me, One for You', which spawned a memorable appearance on Top of the Pops with him wearing a multi-coloured wig and two girls behind him in similar headgear - one of whom, Viola Wills, went on to have limited success as a solo singer. His first hit in 1965, under his own name, was entitled "Everyone's Gone to the Moon". The satirical journal Private Eye parodied this title around the time of his arrest in 2001 with a caption showing King singing "Everyone's Gone to the Police". The Mail on Sunday also quoted from the chorus of "Una Paloma Blanca": "No-one can take my freedom away". King responded that it was true and cited Nelson Mandela as another example. It was reported in 1975 that Gary Gilmore requested King's "Una Paloma Blanca" as the last record to be played at his execution in the USA.

In 1979, King scored a minor hit single under the pseudonym Father Abraphart and the Smurps entitled "Lick a Smurp for Christmas (All Fall Down)", a parody of Father Abraham and the Smurfs. The title of the song referred to the fact that some Smurf toys had been decorated with lead paint, given away free with purchase of petrol, and that young children had been falling ill from placing them in their mouths. He released this on Petrol Records as a flexidisc costing 10p on all counters of record shops. After it charted and caused hysteria amongst the compilers, he let Magnet Records, then owned by Michael Levy (later Lord Levy), pick it up and sell it on vinyl.

King presented his own daily radio show on New York's WMCA throughout 1980 (15 years earlier he had been No1 on their "Good Guys Survey" when they were a top 40 station with Everyone's Gone To The Moon) and started doing regular reports from the US on Top of the Pops. These developed into Entertainment USA, a BBC2 series that reached over nine million viewers. He also created and produced No Limits which topped the channel ratings chart at over five million.

During the 1980s, he wrote a column in The Sun for eight years; Bizarre USA. He has written regular features in many other newspapers and magazines, and has two published novels.

King wrote and hosted the Brit Awards for the BBC in 1987 and, after the fiasco of the 1989 event, he wrote and produced them in 1990, 1991 and 1992. In 1995, he took over A Song For Europe, the BBC quest for a Eurovision Song Contest winner. His 1996 entry, Just A Little Bit by Gina G, was a global smash and he won the contest in 1997 with Katrina and the Waves' "Love Shine a Light". Over nine million ITV viewers saw his Record of the Year shows at Christmas 1998-9 and 2000, and the annual show still continues on Saturday evenings in early December with equally spectacular ratings.

In 1993, he formed The Tip Sheet, a music weekly publication which continues online with thousands of music viewers and posters www.tipsheet.co.uk, promoting artists like The Corrs and Eva Cassidy, whilst they were unsigned or unknown, and such future hits as Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping", The Cuban Boys "Cognoscenti Vs. Intelligentsia" and "Who Let the Dogs Out". King recorded the original finished version of the latter under the pseudonym Fat Jakk And His Pack Of Pets.

In 1995, he presented a programme on Talk Radio UK from 10-12 every weekday morning which was a national success.

In October 1997, the British Music Industry Trust honoured King with a lifetime achievement award; The Man Of The Year. In a letter read out at the ceremony, Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged King's "important contribution to one of this country's great success stories". Over £400,000 was raised for the industry Trusts charity.

In 2001, King received a seven-year prison sentence for four indecent assaults and two more serious sexual offences on teenagers.

On his release (see below) he returned to the music and entertainment industries, discovering the US band Orson on MySpace and attracting a deal for them that brought No1 singles and albums for them in the UK after 8 sterile years being ignored in their native Los Angeles. He was associated with Madonna's hit which sampled Abba (one of his associate companies publishes them), helped Nizlopi get a UK Xmas No1 with The JCB Song and enjoyed a TV campaign when Fosters Twist Lager used Let It All Hang Out for their commercial.

In 1987, Jonathan King was involved in a legal battle with English pop duo Pet Shop Boys. He repeatedly accused the boys of stealing the melody for their hit single "It's a Sin" from the Cat Stevens song "Wild World". When King continued with his allegations, the Boys took him to court. The Sun newspaper, for whom King wrote the weekly column, settled the case out of court, paying a small sum in settlement to the Pet Shop Boys, who in turn donated it to charity. King then recorded and released a version of "Wild World" with the same arrangement and in the same style as "It's a Sin" to prove his point. Neil Tennant once auditioned for King, when King was looking for new singers. He, however, was not impressed with Tennant's singing.

On November 24, 2000, King was charged with three sexual offences against two men, now in their late 40's, dating back 32 years. In the light of the publicity surrounding his arrest, a dozen other boys (now men) came forward to claim that King had abused them too, during the 1970s and 1980s. King denied these allegations and claimed his contact with teenagers had been market research, promotion, helping him write hits and genuine friendships. In the first trial he was found guilty of offences against five men. In a second trial, he was acquitted on all charges and many other allegations were ordered dropped by the judge or abandoned by the prosecution when he proved they were false. However he was sentenced to seven years for the first verdict, and was released on parole after serving half that.

On March 21, 2005, King's lawyer announced that he had made parole at the very first application. He was released on Tuesday, March 29. He planned to spend time with his mother, then go back to work. He issued the single "My Love, My Life" at the same time as his jail release, knowing this would attract negative publicity. "If I'm going to be a Vile Pervert I'd prefer to be a Page One Vile Pervert than buried away on Page 37", he said. The media, true to form, gave him massive publicity as reflected in the size of his April monthly royalty cheque.

King still protests his innocence and he says he is confident that he will be cleared on appeal. He says his time in prison was not as bad as he thought it would be, finding it "fascinating". His only complaint was about the food at Belmarsh. He intends to spend time campaigning for others who believe they have been falsely accused. The Daily Mail on 19 February 2005 revealed £156,644 had been paid out in compensation to 14 men (he was only convicted of offences against five) by the Government compensation board (an indication of possible motive). Since his time in prison, he has made regular monthly contributions to Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners.

His appeal process continues and it was announced in 2006 that the Criminal Cases Review Commission have opened a further urgent review into the safety of his convictions. He claims a "mountain of fresh evidence" has been discovered, including a cast iron alibi that he was in America at the time of one of the claimed crimes in his convictions. Another new song "Plead Guilty" was issued by King at this time.

King's involvement with prison and justice reform has escalated; in June 2006, he addressed an audience in the House of Commons alongside Jonathan Aitken and spoke at length on the need for reform of the system, an appearance covered at length in The Times on June 27.

• Jonathan King personal site
• King discography by 45-rpm.org.uk
• UK Records discography by Beautiful-Records.com