push boundaries that stopped
those with more experience.
Outside of music, we learn
about his dreams of a career
in aviation and his time in the
Royal Navy during World War II.
We relive his early days at Par-
lophone Records, a subsidiary
of the EMI Group, known more
for light orchestral works, jazz,
and dance-band recordings than
pop artists. It’s a record label
that he helped bring back from
the dead largely from a string
of hit comedy records. Womack
points out nuggets that do not
appear in any of Martin’s auto-
biographies, including achieve-
ments that one would think
would be remembered such as
Paul Hanford’s version of “Itsy
Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Pol-
ka Dot Bikini” giving Martin his
first number one record.
Most of all, we learn about Mar-
tin’s rivalry with Norrie Paramor
at Columbia Records. Paramor
NJ STAGE 2017 - Issue 40
and his main artist, Cliff Richard,
produced sales in excess of five
and a half million records be-
tween 1958 and 1962. In addi-
tion to his success on the charts,
Martin was jealous of Paramor’s
lifestyle. Although Martin had
brought success to Parlophone
and had become the head of
the label, he was desperate to
land a surefire pop artist like
Paramor had.
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