The John Howard Story
British singer songwriter John Howard has always been a Kid in a Big World.
John Howard’s story is one of the most fascinating in the history of songwriting. Signed to CBS as potentially “the next big thing” way back in 1973, he released his first album Kid in a Big World at Abbey Road and Apple studios in 1975.
Two singles taken from the album – "Goodbye Suzie" and "Family Man" – were turned down by Radio One on the grounds that the former was too depressing and the latter was anti women.
Whilst it wouldn’t be strictly true to say that Kid sunk without trace, it only brought a few small ripples and CBS shelved the follow up Technicolour Biography before it was completed and John instead went into the studio with disco producer Biddu. The resultant album Can You Hear Me Okay was also shelved and in April 1976 John left the label and returned to performing in London clubs where he had the dubious distinction of being heckled by the Sex Pistols – something he now regards as an honour.
Lady fortune still failed to smile as his career was brought to a grinding halt when he broke his back in an accident at his home.
A fully fit John was introduced to Trevor Horn and in 1977 they made a number of demos together and the song I Can Breathe Again became Horn’s first commercially released production. The backing band composed what would later become the nucleus of Buggles and the Art of Noise.
By the early 1980s John became disillusioned with his lack of success and recognition and in his own words “walked away from unrealised ambitions.
“I got fed up chasing a dream," he says.
Even today he remembers the hurt of seemingly being set for a glittering career only to have everything put on hold.
"It hurt a lot and for an ambitious young guy who loved writing and recording it felt like a part of me had been taken away when CBS dropped me in 1976 and no other labels were interested. But I am someone who moves on quite quickly without dwelling too much on failure. I was lucky to have a personality that helped me survive rejection, but part of that survival instinct was to bury the hurt rather than face it.
"When I retired from recording in '84 I had come to a decision that the talent I believed I had was in fact not there. An illusion. Even as early as '77, without a record deal and with punk burgeoning and the disco scene virtually wiping out the singer songwriter genre, I was only 24 but felt like a has-been. It was a strange emotion, after I had been so positive about my writing since the age of about 15.
Such was John's disillusionment that he even turned down the opportunity to be lead singer with Bronski Beat in the mid 80s. On a slightly stranger note heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden had also approached him in the early 70s.
Assuming his recording career was over he carved out a niche in marketing and A&R with various companies, working with the likes of Elkie Brooks, Connie Francis, Lonnie Donegan, Madness and finding time to write songs for artists as diverse as Dave Willetts, Stephanie Lawrence and even Des O’Connor who ironically provided John with his first hit song with his version of the Howard song Blue Days.
But below the surface John's optimistic character was just waiting to re-surface.
"Being treated with respect by these people brought back my belief in myself. Of course they were totally unaware of the 'John Howard Singer Songwriter' of a few years earlier and I successfully submerged that side of my character to concentrate on other people's talents. It was second best in my heart but a good second best. Kept me alive for twenty years and helped create a good safety net financially for the future. And I know that may not sound too street cred, but it's a fact and one I am very grateful for. I don't do starving in a garret very well I'm afraid."
Re-starting his recording career came as much a shock to John as it did to those who thought he was dead but found that he was very much alive.
"Never in my wildest most breathtaking dreams did I ever think there would be interest in my music again. I had got to the stage where most people were completely unaware I had ever existed! From being extremely lauded and feted at the age of 20 by some of the biggest characters in the music industry to just two years later being totally forgotten and disregarded, I look back now and think how very very strange that was. Thank goodness my mum's optimistic genes came to the fore and helped me move on."
In reality John’s career as a singer songwriter was only just beginning. In 2001 and approaching his 50th birthday he retired to Pembrokeshire. His father bought him a piano as a housewarming present and he began performing again at local pubs and even in cruise ship piano bars.
Then something amazing happened …. The long deleted Kid in a Big World began to find interest on the internet. Most people who began to discuss the album had no idea who John was. Those who had heard of him probably assumed that he was dead. Suddenly John began to receive e-mails from around the world asking about an album he thought had long been forgotten. Kid was re-issued on RPM Records at the end of 2003 and in early 2004 received a five star rating from Uncut.
“When I received an e-mail from Uncut magazine at the end of 2003 saying how much they loved Kid I actually cried. It was as though all the rejection I had felt and had buried for so many years came to the surface and was transformed into enormous relief that an album I had always believed in had finally been recognised.
John returned to gigging and played his first London concert for 25 years at the Jermyn Street Theatre and this received an excellent review in the Guardian newspaper.
Suddenly the creative juices were once again in full flow:
"When I was writing and performing in my late teens in the Manchester area and then in London around 1973, the fact that many people seemed to love what I was doing spurred me on to write even more material. And then getting the record deal with CBS was such a boost, that was when I wrote songs like Gone Away, Missing Key, The Flame, Deadly Nightshade, Spellbound and Goodbye Suzie. But when all that hope and vast possibility evaporated in the late '70s so did my writing muse. It literally dried up as people's interest and expectations did the same. But following the incredible acceptance and enthusiasm for my music in 2004, the songs started pouring out of me again, an involuntary response, like a dam had burst, and the songs are still pouring out."
RPM released Technicolour Biography 30 years after it had been shelved. Can You Hear Me OK followed in 2005 and suddenly John found himself an artist in demand and strong enough to issue his first all new album since the 1970s.
The Dangerous Hours was a collaboration with the poet/lyricist Robert Cochrane in July 2005. At the end of that year Cherry Red Records released the album As I Was Saying and Uncut referred to John as the British Jimmy Webb something that he found intensely flattering.
In May 2006 his third new album Same Bed, Different Dreams was released to excellent reviews in France and a year later the album got an international release through Cargo Records.
By now John was achieving a full head of steam performing and recording two live albums at Manchester's Britons Protection. The Live Albums "In the Room Upstairs" were released exclusively on Itunes as were three Eps in 2007 featuring some of John's favourite songs such as Kate and Anna McGarrigle's beautiful Talk to Me of Mendocino, David Bowie’s Bewley Brothers and even Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side.
In the summer of 2007 he made another significant career move by moving to Spain and signing to the Bilbao based label Hanky Panky Records and performing his first Spanish live shows in Bilbao.
"My partner and I wanted to live somewhere with a temperate climate but not too far away from the UK. We have friends who have moved out here and they liked it, so we investigated the possibilities and liked what we found. Murcia, the region where we live, is lovely. It all co-incided with signing to the record label based in Bilbao.
Barefoot with Angels was released in 2008 after being recorded on his new home studio and suddenly the Howard creative juices were running full pelt This year saw the release of an almost epic look at life with Exhibiting Tendencies which proved beyond doubt that John Howard still has the songwriting muse couched in a beautifully understated voice.
John's songs seem to be a real mix of his own experiences, his feelings and a view of life as seen through friends and family. That combination makes his songs so rewarding - giving more than a little insight into the human condition.
"Some of my songs, especially those on the album As I Was Saying are very personal, even autobiographical, though I do tend to change history to suit the song, I'm not too worried if a story ends differently than it did in reality! I sometimes mould two or three stories into one song if it fits the requirements. Other times, I use other people's experiences to inspire a song, and quite often the songs come out of nowhere, the ether, as I sit at the piano, they emerge and almost write themselves. Songs such as Punchin' Judy on Same Bed, Different Dreams came out of a place I know not where, 'Judy' really did have a story, a terrible story at that, to tell and she did it, as it were, 'through me'. And then there are the streams of consciousness songs I write, where I simply let the lyric develop at its own pace and within its own structure to produce what at first listen sounds nonsensical then with closer investigation makes its own sense. Oh, Do Give It A Rest Love on As I Was Saying, Coconut Bible on Technicolour Biography, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner on Kid In A Big World are examples of this process. It's organic and great fun."
Somehow his later albums just seem to flow seamlessly from his earlier work - comfortably bridging that gap of 30 years. Barefoot with Angels (2007), Navigate Home (2009) and Exhibiting Tendencies show John to be a consummate songwriter, extremely comfortable with his art.
"This has been said to me quite a few times, and I don't really know, except that I still have the same ethic, the same drive, the same desire I had in the '70s, to write songs with good tunes, good lyrics with something of their own to say, that are slightly left of centre but still accessible. I always try to make albums that I would buy myself and that I would want to listen to more than once and because I loved then what I love now, i.e. good pop music, the work of brilliant producers such as George Martin, Phil Spector, Mort Shuman, Joe Meek, and the great songwriters like Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Webb, John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison, David Bowie, Randy Newman, Ray Davies, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Roy Harper, because they still inspire me today, then I suppose there is going to be a similar 'seamless' link between what I did thirty years ago and what I do now. Newer artists such as k.d. lang, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Antony Hegarty, Mary Cigarettes, Perry Blake, are wonderful as well, with something unique in their music that astounds, staggers, draws you in, you want to hear more.
"I guess the difference in my situation today is that I now have total control over what I write and record and release, whereas in the '70s how my records sounded was often how another producer or arranger or record label would hear me. Now I have the freedom and independence to know how I want a song to sound in the studio and try to attain what I can hear in my head in the studio. I decide before I begin an album on how that album will sound, what atmosphere it will create. The songs direct that of course. And because I write a whole album as a project rather than think every six months or so, "oh good, I've got enough songs now to start work on the new album," then the atmosphere is there already in the batch of songs I've got, be it dark and broody, bright and poppy, arch and panoramic, string drenched or simple piano/voice led. I believe an album is a complete listening arena we sit in and get involved in, it should surround us like a cloudy or a sunny day, we should hear its rain, cry its tears, smile at its winding turn of our emotions. It should affect our mood and our outlook. Music, songs, records can do that, they do do that, and I want to be part of that, feel part of that. And I do feel privileged to be a part of that again.
"There are some I know, dear friends who never lost faith and are as delighted as I am that I have had the chance to record again, to them I say simply thank you, bless you. To those I don't personally know who are out there, wherever they may be, I would say the same really, and how much I appreciate their belief when many others around them probably murmured "fool!".
John now releases records on his own label - not surprisingly called Kid Records - with a little help from his friends such as Ian Hazeldine who has designed the sleeves for Barefoot with Angels, Navigate Home and Exhibiting Tendencies and mastering engineer Ian Shepherd.
"I set the label up as an outlet for my own releases. Named after 'Kid In A Big World', where it all started for me. I had already set the process in motion when I decided to keep all download rights to my albums. I had let a couple go to the releasing label, but now I keep the rights, and release the albums through an online label called AWAL which deals specifically with iTunes etc. It means I first of all get a better royalty and I can also completely control sleeve design, release date, marketing and promotion, all aspects of the album's life.
"So, it made sense to take that a step further into the physical release of the CD as well. Kid Records doesn't release into the shops or onto Amazon or anything like that, it's not meant for that, it is simply my little home label, which sells the CDs via my website. I like this new way of controlling everything myself. Sure, one can't afford PR companies or radio promo guys or magazine ads, but really, my market is very niche so I don't get mainstream radio play, never have, my last two CDs released through record labels didn't get a single review in the UK rock magazines, so I don't ever really benefit from all that outlay.
"My albums still get commercial releases on iTunes and Napster etc so they are not 'Vanity' releases, and I think we are all moving into a world where artists will increasingly release their own albums themselves and bypass the labels."
In many ways John Howard is a Renaissance man. He has embraced new technology as a way of getting his music to a wider audience. It's all part of the enjoyment John has in bringing his music to a wider audience. In many ways he is still that Kid in a Big World.
John Howard’s story is one of the most fascinating in the history of songwriting. Signed to CBS as potentially “the next big thing” way back in 1973, he released his first album Kid in a Big World at Abbey Road and Apple studios in 1975.
Two singles taken from the album – "Goodbye Suzie" and "Family Man" – were turned down by Radio One on the grounds that the former was too depressing and the latter was anti women.
Whilst it wouldn’t be strictly true to say that Kid sunk without trace, it only brought a few small ripples and CBS shelved the follow up Technicolour Biography before it was completed and John instead went into the studio with disco producer Biddu. The resultant album Can You Hear Me Okay was also shelved and in April 1976 John left the label and returned to performing in London clubs where he had the dubious distinction of being heckled by the Sex Pistols – something he now regards as an honour.
Lady fortune still failed to smile as his career was brought to a grinding halt when he broke his back in an accident at his home.
A fully fit John was introduced to Trevor Horn and in 1977 they made a number of demos together and the song I Can Breathe Again became Horn’s first commercially released production. The backing band composed what would later become the nucleus of Buggles and the Art of Noise.
By the early 1980s John became disillusioned with his lack of success and recognition and in his own words “walked away from unrealised ambitions.
“I got fed up chasing a dream," he says.
Even today he remembers the hurt of seemingly being set for a glittering career only to have everything put on hold.
"It hurt a lot and for an ambitious young guy who loved writing and recording it felt like a part of me had been taken away when CBS dropped me in 1976 and no other labels were interested. But I am someone who moves on quite quickly without dwelling too much on failure. I was lucky to have a personality that helped me survive rejection, but part of that survival instinct was to bury the hurt rather than face it.
"When I retired from recording in '84 I had come to a decision that the talent I believed I had was in fact not there. An illusion. Even as early as '77, without a record deal and with punk burgeoning and the disco scene virtually wiping out the singer songwriter genre, I was only 24 but felt like a has-been. It was a strange emotion, after I had been so positive about my writing since the age of about 15.
Such was John's disillusionment that he even turned down the opportunity to be lead singer with Bronski Beat in the mid 80s. On a slightly stranger note heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden had also approached him in the early 70s.
Assuming his recording career was over he carved out a niche in marketing and A&R with various companies, working with the likes of Elkie Brooks, Connie Francis, Lonnie Donegan, Madness and finding time to write songs for artists as diverse as Dave Willetts, Stephanie Lawrence and even Des O’Connor who ironically provided John with his first hit song with his version of the Howard song Blue Days.
But below the surface John's optimistic character was just waiting to re-surface.
"Being treated with respect by these people brought back my belief in myself. Of course they were totally unaware of the 'John Howard Singer Songwriter' of a few years earlier and I successfully submerged that side of my character to concentrate on other people's talents. It was second best in my heart but a good second best. Kept me alive for twenty years and helped create a good safety net financially for the future. And I know that may not sound too street cred, but it's a fact and one I am very grateful for. I don't do starving in a garret very well I'm afraid."
Re-starting his recording career came as much a shock to John as it did to those who thought he was dead but found that he was very much alive.
"Never in my wildest most breathtaking dreams did I ever think there would be interest in my music again. I had got to the stage where most people were completely unaware I had ever existed! From being extremely lauded and feted at the age of 20 by some of the biggest characters in the music industry to just two years later being totally forgotten and disregarded, I look back now and think how very very strange that was. Thank goodness my mum's optimistic genes came to the fore and helped me move on."
In reality John’s career as a singer songwriter was only just beginning. In 2001 and approaching his 50th birthday he retired to Pembrokeshire. His father bought him a piano as a housewarming present and he began performing again at local pubs and even in cruise ship piano bars.
Then something amazing happened …. The long deleted Kid in a Big World began to find interest on the internet. Most people who began to discuss the album had no idea who John was. Those who had heard of him probably assumed that he was dead. Suddenly John began to receive e-mails from around the world asking about an album he thought had long been forgotten. Kid was re-issued on RPM Records at the end of 2003 and in early 2004 received a five star rating from Uncut.
“When I received an e-mail from Uncut magazine at the end of 2003 saying how much they loved Kid I actually cried. It was as though all the rejection I had felt and had buried for so many years came to the surface and was transformed into enormous relief that an album I had always believed in had finally been recognised.
John returned to gigging and played his first London concert for 25 years at the Jermyn Street Theatre and this received an excellent review in the Guardian newspaper.
Suddenly the creative juices were once again in full flow:
"When I was writing and performing in my late teens in the Manchester area and then in London around 1973, the fact that many people seemed to love what I was doing spurred me on to write even more material. And then getting the record deal with CBS was such a boost, that was when I wrote songs like Gone Away, Missing Key, The Flame, Deadly Nightshade, Spellbound and Goodbye Suzie. But when all that hope and vast possibility evaporated in the late '70s so did my writing muse. It literally dried up as people's interest and expectations did the same. But following the incredible acceptance and enthusiasm for my music in 2004, the songs started pouring out of me again, an involuntary response, like a dam had burst, and the songs are still pouring out."
RPM released Technicolour Biography 30 years after it had been shelved. Can You Hear Me OK followed in 2005 and suddenly John found himself an artist in demand and strong enough to issue his first all new album since the 1970s.
The Dangerous Hours was a collaboration with the poet/lyricist Robert Cochrane in July 2005. At the end of that year Cherry Red Records released the album As I Was Saying and Uncut referred to John as the British Jimmy Webb something that he found intensely flattering.
In May 2006 his third new album Same Bed, Different Dreams was released to excellent reviews in France and a year later the album got an international release through Cargo Records.
By now John was achieving a full head of steam performing and recording two live albums at Manchester's Britons Protection. The Live Albums "In the Room Upstairs" were released exclusively on Itunes as were three Eps in 2007 featuring some of John's favourite songs such as Kate and Anna McGarrigle's beautiful Talk to Me of Mendocino, David Bowie’s Bewley Brothers and even Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side.
In the summer of 2007 he made another significant career move by moving to Spain and signing to the Bilbao based label Hanky Panky Records and performing his first Spanish live shows in Bilbao.
"My partner and I wanted to live somewhere with a temperate climate but not too far away from the UK. We have friends who have moved out here and they liked it, so we investigated the possibilities and liked what we found. Murcia, the region where we live, is lovely. It all co-incided with signing to the record label based in Bilbao.
Barefoot with Angels was released in 2008 after being recorded on his new home studio and suddenly the Howard creative juices were running full pelt This year saw the release of an almost epic look at life with Exhibiting Tendencies which proved beyond doubt that John Howard still has the songwriting muse couched in a beautifully understated voice.
John's songs seem to be a real mix of his own experiences, his feelings and a view of life as seen through friends and family. That combination makes his songs so rewarding - giving more than a little insight into the human condition.
"Some of my songs, especially those on the album As I Was Saying are very personal, even autobiographical, though I do tend to change history to suit the song, I'm not too worried if a story ends differently than it did in reality! I sometimes mould two or three stories into one song if it fits the requirements. Other times, I use other people's experiences to inspire a song, and quite often the songs come out of nowhere, the ether, as I sit at the piano, they emerge and almost write themselves. Songs such as Punchin' Judy on Same Bed, Different Dreams came out of a place I know not where, 'Judy' really did have a story, a terrible story at that, to tell and she did it, as it were, 'through me'. And then there are the streams of consciousness songs I write, where I simply let the lyric develop at its own pace and within its own structure to produce what at first listen sounds nonsensical then with closer investigation makes its own sense. Oh, Do Give It A Rest Love on As I Was Saying, Coconut Bible on Technicolour Biography, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner on Kid In A Big World are examples of this process. It's organic and great fun."
Somehow his later albums just seem to flow seamlessly from his earlier work - comfortably bridging that gap of 30 years. Barefoot with Angels (2007), Navigate Home (2009) and Exhibiting Tendencies show John to be a consummate songwriter, extremely comfortable with his art.
"This has been said to me quite a few times, and I don't really know, except that I still have the same ethic, the same drive, the same desire I had in the '70s, to write songs with good tunes, good lyrics with something of their own to say, that are slightly left of centre but still accessible. I always try to make albums that I would buy myself and that I would want to listen to more than once and because I loved then what I love now, i.e. good pop music, the work of brilliant producers such as George Martin, Phil Spector, Mort Shuman, Joe Meek, and the great songwriters like Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Webb, John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison, David Bowie, Randy Newman, Ray Davies, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Roy Harper, because they still inspire me today, then I suppose there is going to be a similar 'seamless' link between what I did thirty years ago and what I do now. Newer artists such as k.d. lang, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Antony Hegarty, Mary Cigarettes, Perry Blake, are wonderful as well, with something unique in their music that astounds, staggers, draws you in, you want to hear more.
"I guess the difference in my situation today is that I now have total control over what I write and record and release, whereas in the '70s how my records sounded was often how another producer or arranger or record label would hear me. Now I have the freedom and independence to know how I want a song to sound in the studio and try to attain what I can hear in my head in the studio. I decide before I begin an album on how that album will sound, what atmosphere it will create. The songs direct that of course. And because I write a whole album as a project rather than think every six months or so, "oh good, I've got enough songs now to start work on the new album," then the atmosphere is there already in the batch of songs I've got, be it dark and broody, bright and poppy, arch and panoramic, string drenched or simple piano/voice led. I believe an album is a complete listening arena we sit in and get involved in, it should surround us like a cloudy or a sunny day, we should hear its rain, cry its tears, smile at its winding turn of our emotions. It should affect our mood and our outlook. Music, songs, records can do that, they do do that, and I want to be part of that, feel part of that. And I do feel privileged to be a part of that again.
"There are some I know, dear friends who never lost faith and are as delighted as I am that I have had the chance to record again, to them I say simply thank you, bless you. To those I don't personally know who are out there, wherever they may be, I would say the same really, and how much I appreciate their belief when many others around them probably murmured "fool!".
John now releases records on his own label - not surprisingly called Kid Records - with a little help from his friends such as Ian Hazeldine who has designed the sleeves for Barefoot with Angels, Navigate Home and Exhibiting Tendencies and mastering engineer Ian Shepherd.
"I set the label up as an outlet for my own releases. Named after 'Kid In A Big World', where it all started for me. I had already set the process in motion when I decided to keep all download rights to my albums. I had let a couple go to the releasing label, but now I keep the rights, and release the albums through an online label called AWAL which deals specifically with iTunes etc. It means I first of all get a better royalty and I can also completely control sleeve design, release date, marketing and promotion, all aspects of the album's life.
"So, it made sense to take that a step further into the physical release of the CD as well. Kid Records doesn't release into the shops or onto Amazon or anything like that, it's not meant for that, it is simply my little home label, which sells the CDs via my website. I like this new way of controlling everything myself. Sure, one can't afford PR companies or radio promo guys or magazine ads, but really, my market is very niche so I don't get mainstream radio play, never have, my last two CDs released through record labels didn't get a single review in the UK rock magazines, so I don't ever really benefit from all that outlay.
"My albums still get commercial releases on iTunes and Napster etc so they are not 'Vanity' releases, and I think we are all moving into a world where artists will increasingly release their own albums themselves and bypass the labels."
In many ways John Howard is a Renaissance man. He has embraced new technology as a way of getting his music to a wider audience. It's all part of the enjoyment John has in bringing his music to a wider audience. In many ways he is still that Kid in a Big World.