I found 1960s business papers belonging to The Who

[Ric-O-nfused]

Edit: now I know they're not real copies. I PM'd a few of you to check this thread out. Sorry for wasting your time! I'll leave the rest unedited for historical purposes.

or more particularly to their business manager.

I've been doing a lot of record shopping lately and the other day I was at a Salvation Army store and came across a used vinyl record called 'Hits Of The Mersey Era Volume 1' with different Liverpool groups on it. This already seemed like a rare find for this Salvation Army store but when I pulled the record out to check for scratches I found a bunch of papers inside. After inspecting the papers I came to the conclusion that they seemed real so I stuck them back in the record and bought it. It's 8 documents. Some are hand signed or hand written. The papers include a club receipt with The WHO's names written down in ink and stuff, tour dates with the money they made written down, a court paper where it looks like The Who's manager was being sued for something to do with musical instruments, receipts for equipment like smoke generators (I assume for The Who) from a fireworks place, letter from EMI about The High Notes, a letter from King's Agency about the Who which is hand signed, and some kind of set list or recording sheet used by the Who for My Generation that has handwritten stuff on it having to do with how the song should be sung.

Yeah.. I'm freaking myself thinking I have some really cool rare stuff here but I don't know, so I figured I'd post on this forum because if anyone would have a clue it would probably be you guys.


Note, when I say "print" I mean by a machine and when I say "writing" I mean by hand.

I'm going to split these posts up for each document to make it easier to read....

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 1:

A long white paper folded in half. It has "ACTION" printed near the top in big block faded grey and then has the following in print :

New Action LTD
Kit Lambert - Christopher Stamp
84. Eaton Place
London, S.W.1.
Belgravia 8989

then all the following is written in red ink:

Yr N 'LD LNT
Malcolm Rose

14th March (it's crossed out)
18th April. Civic Hall, Crawley = 51 pounds (he used a pound symbol but I don't have a pound money symbol on my keyboard)
21st Aril (it's crossed out)
24th April. Ricky Tick, Windsor = 150 pounds
26th April Ricky Tick, Windsor = 150 pounds

after this the document goes on and on with more of the same. There's like 18 dates and a lot of them have a percentage written next to the money like 60%, 65%, 50%

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 2:

It's a long yellow paper folded in half and everything is typed by a typewriter or some other machine. It says:

The High Numbers
Sun. 26th July to Sat 1st Aug

Date, Place, Fee, paid Commiss. Money deducted

Sun. 26th July White Hart, Acton. 12. 0. 0. paid 1. 4. 0.

And the document goes on and on like this with lots of dates and figures

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 3:

It's a letter from E.M.I. This is a regular sized white sheet of paper with E.M.I. Records LTD printed at the top in big red ink and it has their address printed on it and some other stuff in print near the top. Then it says:

22nd October, 1964.

Kit Lambert, Esq.,
113 Ivor Court,
Gloucester Place,
London, N.W. 1.

Dear Mr. Lambert,

I have listened again and again, to the High Numbers' white labels, taken from our test session and still cannot decide whether or not they have anything to offer.

You may, of course, in the meantime, have signed with another company, in which case, I wish you all the luck in the world. If you have not, I will be very interested to hear any other tapes you may have, Featuring the group.

Yours sincerely,

John Burgess
Assistant to Norman Newell
Artistes & Repertoire Manager

And then it's signed by John Burgess in black ink.

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 4:

This is a white sheet of paper and everything is printed by machine and has a signature at the bottom. It says:

King's Agency (Variety) Limited

7 Denmark Street London W.C.2
Temple Bar 6303-4 6332-3
Direction
Terry King Reg Calvert Kenny Bell

Christoper Lambert, Esq.,
84 Eaton Place,
LONDON, S.W.1.

Dear Sir,

I regret to inform you that THE WHO's engagement at the Locarno Ballroom, Swindon, on Thursday 15th April, has now to be cancelled. This is due to the fact that the Promotor has had a lot of trouble there recently and he feels that THE WHO are not the type of Group that would go well in his Ballroom.

I feel doubly sorry about the cancellation as you personally took quote a lot of trouble in reserving this date for me. I do think that it is nearly a month away and you will most probably get a better price for this date anyway.

Kind regards.

Yours sincerely,

BARRY PERKINS

and it's signed by Barry Perkins in blue ink

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 5:

It appears to be a set list.. well sort of it's just the one song so I don't know what you call it. It's of My Generation and it's got the lyrics to the song printed by machine and then handwritten it says things next to the lyrics like:

"twice"
"2 key changes"
Then I can't understand what it says but it looks like "take rhythm to on beat instead of chug-chug" ..whatever that means

then at the bottom is says "solo" "Feedback" "leave" "stutter out, on final recording"

Yeah.. so I don't know if this is actually from when they recorded My Generation or something (ha!) but that's what it says
I believe all of the handwritten stuff is in pencil. It's grey and faded but very visible.

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 6:

It's a small white sheet that has everything printed by machine. It says:

DELIVERY NOTE
From
BROCK'S Crystal Palace FIREWORKS Ltd.
HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, HERTS.

25th May, 1967.

To New Action Limited,.
58. Old Compton Road,
LONDON. W>1.

M/4310/S.

Please receive the following:----

1 Case containing 1 Gross

Y.2. Smoke Generators.

PLEASE CHECK NUMBER OF PACKAGES

Received by __________ (nobody signed on this line)

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 7:

This document is machine print and handwritten intermixed all over the page so I'll just tell you everything it says:

NOTICE

BEFORE PROCEEDINGS
UNDER THE COUNTY COURTS ACTS

JENNINGS MUSICIAN INDUSTRIES ld
To Mr. Lambert - WHO
113, Ivor Court
London NW1

Your attention is called to the goods outstanding below and you are now informed that unless some arrangements be made for the goods to be returned 10 - Mareh 1965 (that bit's handwritten and I'm not sure if it really says "Mareh") immediate proceedings will be taken against you in the County court for the recovery of the same without further notice.
Vox Phampton Guitar x Case x
Vox Piano Bass - Pavs Cheque Return
From Bank
Balance outstanding (pounds symbol) : s. d.

then the print is really faded but I can tel it says"

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS
MIDDLE (can't read the rest)
246. Plmstead High (faded) London (faded) 18

Dated this.. 6 day of March 1965
Phone Woo.. 3630
sl.5

[Ric-O-nfused]

Document 8:

This document is a big paper and half is machine print, half is blue ink:

(faded)UEE CLUB, 90, WARDOUR STREET, LONDON W.1. BOX OFFICE
DATE 1-12-64? (i really can't tell if the year says 64 or not, it's sixty-something)

FLOAT....
ADMISSIONS (pound symbol) s. d.
Nos. /23 ... 15 7 6

CLOAKROOMS
Ladies:
@6d.

@3d.

Gents:
@6d.
@3d.

@

(there's all kinds of handwritten stuff on here, lots of numbers, percentages etc)
Memberships

Payments
Musicians: (this part is handwritten)

(somebody's name that I can't read)
John
Keith
Roger
Peter
Mike

(and it's got how many pounds they made or something)

Checked by
Late Admissions
Net Income
Amount C/F
Amount Banked

[Ric-O-nfused]

That's it. What do you guys think of these?

[Len]

I don't have all my LPs here now so I can't check, but there was one Who album that included copies of a pile of documents from Woodstock. Maybe this is something the Who did as album bonuses?

[Ric-O-nfused]

I don't have all my LPs here now so I can't check, but there was one Who album that included copies of a pile of documents from Woodstock. Maybe this is something the Who did as album bonuses?

Hmm, I could imagine that but just in my mind it seems unlikely because these documents don't seem very cohesive in relation to each other and everything that is handwritten doesn't look to be photocopied. It's real ink and pencil written against machine printed paper.. like basically it looks real, seems real, feels real. I don't know. I found them in this Merseyside EMI record and I'm thinking maybe this record made it's way out of Kit Lamert's hands (or someone else in relation to him) and to a Salvation Army store in America somehow.

[collin]

I don't have all my LPs here now so I can't check, but there was one Who album that included copies of a pile of documents from Woodstock. Maybe this is something the Who did as album bonuses?

+1


Nice find, Jason-----but if they look like these: http://www.thewho.info/LiveAtLeeds4.htm , they aren't worth anything.

It is cool to read all that info though!

[Ric-O-nfused]

I don't have all my LPs here now so I can't check, but there was one Who album that included copies of a pile of documents from Woodstock. Maybe this is something the Who did as album bonuses?

+1


Nice find, Jason-----but if they look like these: http://www.thewho.info/LiveAtLeeds4.htm , they aren't worth anything.

It is cool to read all that info though!

Yeah, that's exactly what they look like. Since I didn't know anything about them It was really convincing finding them inside an old merseyside record. Bummer! But now I know. Thanks for filling me in!

[opticnerve]

Easy to be fooled by these if you don't know what they are. I had a friend call me a bunch of years back...all out of breath and super excited about finding these.