contractual obligations created a labyrinth of disputes and legal obstacles. Release Records saw the opportunity presented by the Eurovision and rushed out an album of material recorded in late 1977 and 1978, along with What’s Another Year . Release sold the UK rights of the album to Pye, but Release only had the Irish rights to What’s Another Year so the UK album was missing this song.
Another company called Spartan Records spotted this omission and began importing the Irish version of the album into the UK at the same time. If this wasn’t already a glut of record companies, Irish firm Spider Records owned the world rights and CBS (now Sony), the only global player involved, had purchased the future world rights. Deciphering which company was entitled to which rights took time to disentangle, but time was the one thing Logan did not have on his side. It was crucial for the future of his career that a strong follow-up single and an album of new material were released quickly.
As protracted negotiations started to reach agree-ment between the record companies involved, Logan embarked on an Irish tour in the summer of 1980. The tour, however, was over-ambitious and proved to be a disaster from a financial point of view. Tommy Hayden Enterprises was left seriously out of pocket. Logan was devastated by the failure of the tour. To make things worse, the media began to turn on him.
Four months after Logan had won the Eurovision, CBS finally released a second single called Save Me . It received dreadful reviews and flopped. It didn’t even reach No. 100 in the charts. CBS had already spent £87,000 on Logan’s album but the record company decided it was better to cut its losses and run. Logan was dropped. Louis was gutted.
The media went to town on Logan and it didn’t take long for his star to fade. By Christmas 1980, he was a has-been. Instead of topping the charts again, he was appearing as Joseph in Rock Nativity in Cork Opera House.
Louis didn’t see the experience as a complete failure. “Johnny became famous but he could have been a lot more famous,” he says. “He had a No. 1 in 10 countries. I remember going to Top of the Pops with him and him singing live. Everybody loved him. The record was huge. What’s Another Year was a huge hit record. He recorded it in Spanish, in German and everything and it’s still a well-played record around the world.
“Everybody blames everybody when it doesn’t work. When it works, they never praise anybody. He’s had a good career, but he hasn’t been as big as he should have been. At the end of the day, what really happened? I don’t know. It’s one of those great Irish things; everybody had an opinion on it. We were all naïve but we believed in him. Everybody can blame everybody else, but I still believe the records weren’t as good as they should have been but he still had a big career, and he still does very well.”
Was Louis to blame for what happened to Logan? A little, but not too much. Other factors played a part in the young singer’s downfall.
Whatever mistakes Louis made in the summer of 1980, he made up for them many times over, according to friends. As Logan’s career stumbled and faltered over the next decade, Louis was one of the few people in the business who stood by him.
4
MR. EUROVISION
Life for Louis quickly returned to normal after his experience at the Eurovision. Logan was just one of the artists managed by Tommy Hayden Enterprises. For months after Logan’s career slid into ignominy, he remonstrated with himself, wondering if he could have done things differently. In truth, he knew he had done everything possible for Logan. Any mistakes he made, were not intentional or malicious. Chastened by the experience, he went back to his day job, more determined than ever to push his artists as best he could.
For some years, Louis had been booking concerts for Linda Martin and her band Chips, and later become her manager. He was first
Another company called Spartan Records spotted this omission and began importing the Irish version of the album into the UK at the same time. If this wasn’t already a glut of record companies, Irish firm Spider Records owned the world rights and CBS (now Sony), the only global player involved, had purchased the future world rights. Deciphering which company was entitled to which rights took time to disentangle, but time was the one thing Logan did not have on his side. It was crucial for the future of his career that a strong follow-up single and an album of new material were released quickly.
As protracted negotiations started to reach agree-ment between the record companies involved, Logan embarked on an Irish tour in the summer of 1980. The tour, however, was over-ambitious and proved to be a disaster from a financial point of view. Tommy Hayden Enterprises was left seriously out of pocket. Logan was devastated by the failure of the tour. To make things worse, the media began to turn on him.
Four months after Logan had won the Eurovision, CBS finally released a second single called Save Me . It received dreadful reviews and flopped. It didn’t even reach No. 100 in the charts. CBS had already spent £87,000 on Logan’s album but the record company decided it was better to cut its losses and run. Logan was dropped. Louis was gutted.
The media went to town on Logan and it didn’t take long for his star to fade. By Christmas 1980, he was a has-been. Instead of topping the charts again, he was appearing as Joseph in Rock Nativity in Cork Opera House.
Louis didn’t see the experience as a complete failure. “Johnny became famous but he could have been a lot more famous,” he says. “He had a No. 1 in 10 countries. I remember going to Top of the Pops with him and him singing live. Everybody loved him. The record was huge. What’s Another Year was a huge hit record. He recorded it in Spanish, in German and everything and it’s still a well-played record around the world.
“Everybody blames everybody when it doesn’t work. When it works, they never praise anybody. He’s had a good career, but he hasn’t been as big as he should have been. At the end of the day, what really happened? I don’t know. It’s one of those great Irish things; everybody had an opinion on it. We were all naïve but we believed in him. Everybody can blame everybody else, but I still believe the records weren’t as good as they should have been but he still had a big career, and he still does very well.”
Was Louis to blame for what happened to Logan? A little, but not too much. Other factors played a part in the young singer’s downfall.
Whatever mistakes Louis made in the summer of 1980, he made up for them many times over, according to friends. As Logan’s career stumbled and faltered over the next decade, Louis was one of the few people in the business who stood by him.
4
MR. EUROVISION
Life for Louis quickly returned to normal after his experience at the Eurovision. Logan was just one of the artists managed by Tommy Hayden Enterprises. For months after Logan’s career slid into ignominy, he remonstrated with himself, wondering if he could have done things differently. In truth, he knew he had done everything possible for Logan. Any mistakes he made, were not intentional or malicious. Chastened by the experience, he went back to his day job, more determined than ever to push his artists as best he could.
For some years, Louis had been booking concerts for Linda Martin and her band Chips, and later become her manager. He was first
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