A Co Derry man who left his hometown of Magherafelt at the age of 17 is launching a memoir telling of his music industry adventures with the likes of Van Morrison, Ray Davies and Tom Waits.
Paul Charles, agent or manager at various times to the likes of The Undertones, The Waterboys, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Elvis Costello, and Carly Simon, describes in his new book 'Adventures in Wonderland' how he started out in the music business operating from a phone booth in his home town before moving to London as a teenager.
Speaking to Belfast Live, he said he started in the business when "a bunch of mates" formed a band known as 'Blues by Five'.
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"I would have been about 15 and I used to hang about with a bunch of mates and they started to form this group called 'Blues by Five'," he said.
"The singer was from Castledawson and the rest of them were from I think Maghera, so the same sort of neighbourhood.
"I couldn't, for the life of me, sing or find any other way that I could continue to hang out with my mates. So I found that a way around it. Two doors down from me lived this man who played saxophone in a showband. He was very easy to approach and ask for some of the support spots from him.
"He gave them to us, no problem, and because of that - because I had got them two or three bookings - I was appointed the manager. We went on from there, pretty much."
He would go on to represent the progressive rock band Fruupp, from Belfast, and eventually found himself working with the likes of the Buzzcocks, Rory Gallagher and Christy Moore.
Asked how his early move to London at the age of 17 went, he said: "It's easier than we're led to believe it is. For getting gigs, you just have to be resourceful. In the early days you would keeping checking the papers to see which clubs and venues were open to new acts. You just do it, it happens to work, you keep making small steps and eventually one of the groups that you're working with or trying to work with gets a bit of a break so you get a bit of a break.
"It isn't really much different booking somebody who is going to be playing to 100 people than booking someone who is going to be playing to 1,000 people. It's the ability to sell the tickets. You get into the system of nearly knowing how to do it, and then you're there on the spot, you've got to take a leap of faith. You get started and away you go."
On the diverse range of artists he has worked with over the years, he said: "They all share a common bond, one and all, of being just great songwriters. That's what I've always looked out for. Whether it's country, or folk, or rock, or punk, it's whether it is based on the work of great songwriters."
And on his success forging a career in the music business over the years, brushing shoulders with the likes of The Beatles and U2, he said: "My theory always has been that somebody has to do these things. Someone has to be their painter, their window cleaner, their candlestick maker, or their manager. Someone has to do it so why not a young lad from Magherafelt?"
In the business since the 1960s, Mr Charles said he encouraged artists to play in Northern Ireland during the Troubles by promising to accompany them.
"During the Troubles it was difficult for everybody just because it was really hard for quite a while to get people to want to go to play in Northern Ireland, to go to Belfast," he said.
"The way it used to work was that, during the punk days, when you got to know people you would try and blag and persuade them to do it. Some of them would have said 'look, if you come over with us and do the trip with us, we definitely will do it but if you don't we won't'. There was a bit of that.
"In those early days people were looking for the Undertones, for the Buzzcocks or whoever and you wanted to help them and provide entertainment for people who weren't getting much entertainment at that time."
A talented novelist whose Christy Kennedy series of detective novels enjoy a dedicated following, Mr Charles' memoir Adventures in Wonderland becomes available on May 18 with an appearance the following day at the Irish Cultural Centre in London.
The book officially launches at The Rock ’n’ Roll Book Club in Walthamstow
There's also a date at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy, Co Derry on June 8 with an interview scheduled with Michael Bradley.
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