Colin Burn, who died recently aged 76, is not a name that one might immediately associate with Ace Records, however, in 1978, he played a crucial role in our early history.

Colin was running the EMI’s Licensed Repertoire Division with Alan Kaupe that year. He had joined the company in 1956 as a promotions man and was influential in helping the company to achieve major success through the 1950s and 1960s. In the 50s, he plugged Norrie Paramor’s acts. He kept some of his old receipts from those days, including one for a meal at a Lyons Corner house with Cliff Richard which cost all of 4/6d. He sometimes regaled friends with stories of having to visit the police station from time to time to bail out another of Paramor’s teenage stars, the so-called Sheik of Shake, Dickie Pride, after he’d been hitting the bottle. Colin’s work in the 60s included promotion of the Beatles and the Beach Boys. In January 1973, as part of EMI’s reorganisation under MD Gerry Oord, he was appointed head of marketing and promotion for Tamla Motown, Asylum, Probe and EMI’s other American licensed labels, before heading LRD.

In 1979, the fledgling Chiswick label, as Ace was known then, had just lost its UK distributor. After initial chart success with the first Motorhead album, Chiswick was poised to up its game with albums from Sniff ‘n’ The Tears, Rocky Sharpe and the Radiators’ Tony Visconti-produced album Ghostown, so effective distribution and promotion was urgently needed.

Chiswick, which had been operating on a shoestring budget, approached Colin at LRD with tapes of some projected releases. He liked what he heard and agreed pay a substantial advance in return for a three year licensing agreement with us. At this time LRD was run from offices in Thayer Street, just around the corner from EMI headquarters in Manchester Square and was more or less independent from the main EMI business. LRD’s licensed labels included Motown, Stax, Fantasy, Island, Stiff and Bronze. They were joined by Chiswick in Autumn 1978.

However, Burn was only interested in our contemporary acts. He figured that EMI had enough old repertoire of its own and he was not interested in Link Wray, Huey “Piano” Smith, Sonny Fisher, B.B. King etc and so all Chiswick’s “Heritage repertoire” was transferred to a new label, Ace Records, which was placed with Pinnacle for independent distribution.

Under Colin Burn and Alan Kaupe’s supervision, LRD was enjoying much chart success, mainly due to its highly effective sales force and strong Radio/TV promotion team, which included the legendary Garry Farrow. Once under their wing Rocky Sharpe and the Replays had a Top 20 hit with ‘Rama Lama Ding Dong’. The promotion team even managed to get the Bishops on Top of The Pops, despite the band not having achieved the mandatory chart position. However, changes were blowing in the wind (from Manchester Square) which was rumoured to covet LRD’s crack sales force. In 1980, almost overnight, LRD was closed down, the sales and promotion people were transferred to Manchester Square to be amalgamated with EMI’s main sales force. Many of the licensed labels, including Motown, were transferred to the United Artists offices at Mortimer Street. Chiswick and a few other labels moved to Manchester Square with label manager Martyn Barter and Colin Burn. Alan Kaupe, perhaps sensing what was coming, had already left to go back to the film business. It kyboshed the success of Sniff’n’The Tears’ ‘Driver’s Seat’, but the deal with EMI had prevented Chiswick from going belly-up and allowed us to expand into our heritage repertoire with a cushion to assist that move.

Towards the end of 1980 Burn quit EMI to work with the Rolling Stones and ran their record label for seven years before retiring from the music business. He then started a successful landscape gardening business in Hertfordshire. Colin used to spend six months of each year in South Africa, where he had a house and many friends.

Colin Burn had been ill for some time and collapsed and died in the waiting room of his doctor’s surgery near his home in Hertfordshire on 19 October. He is remembered with affection and respect by the partners at Ace as someone that recognised the quality of Chiswick’s repertoire and who was prepared to give us the chance to prove that we could be successful. We were always treated with respect, although Burn was not a pushover. Without Colin’s insight back in 1978, Ace Records might not exist today.

Ted Carroll
(with thanks to Bob Fisher)