Tony Secunda entered The Move’s world with ideas stacked up before the group could finish their tea, and half of them sounded reckless even by their own standards. Yet they listened, partly because his confidence was hard to resist and partly because the alternatives on offer in Birmingham at the time were so thin. Secunda saw a sharp, noisy group with potential and decided to treat them as if they were already notorious.
Jim McCarty’s account catches the atmosphere around those years. Nothing about the band’s relationship with Secunda felt settled. They were young, impatient and often baffled by what he encouraged them to do. One week it was a stage outfit that made them look like defendants in a Victorian trial, the next it was a publicity stunt that drifted into legal trouble. What comes across most strongly is the speed of it all. The Move learned to live with it but not always comfortably. McCarty presents a picture that emerges of a band pushed hard by a manager who believed standing still was worse than being wrong.
Tony Secunda
“It’s easier to apologise than to ask permission.”
The recondite enigma that was Anthony Michael Secunda
(24th August 1940 – 12th February 1995)
Tony Secunda was once described by the extremely portly, writer and jazz singer George Melly as follows: “Secunda was the most perfect specimens of all those ex public-school layabouts, who had been sitting on their arses, up and down the Kings Road for almost a decade, wondering what to do with the only talent most of them had, an instinct for style.” Johnny Rogan aptly described him as “One of the great sensationalists of the sixties.”
Tony Secunda was one of an elite corps of pop group managers who galvanised the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and helped shape the course of popular music. Among them were astute publicists and wheelers dealers like Andrew Loog Oldham and Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. The men behind the Rolling Stones and the Who respectively. But Secunda was perhaps the wildest and toughest of them all. He was the driving force behind some of the biggest hit-makers of the era. Including The Moody Blues, The Move, Marc Bolan, John Cale and Steeleye Span.
Dave Thompson encapsulates Secunda’s qualities and innate, dark charisma. “Marc Bolan called him ‘Telegram Sam’. Macca called him ‘Sailor Sam’, and Linda McCartney once said he looked like a rat. So he sent her one through the post. Secunda promptly visited the nearest pet store, picked out the meanest, ugliest rat they had and had it delivered, gift wrapped (of course) to Mrs M. He was the greatest agent, I ever had. It’s twenty years since he died — the daft bugger. Tony Secunda was the man who put the ‘mad’ in management and took the old age out of it…”
Tony Secunda was educated at Epsom Public College. After leaving he obtained a job in London, working for the magazine publishers Fleetway Press. Secunda was a frequent visitor to the 2i’s Coffee Bar. He was intrigued by the new rock ‘n’ roll movement. It has been recorded he spent time in the Navy, employed as a Merchant Seaman. His first role in the music industry that Cutting noticed was becoming a manager for The Moody Blues they were his first Birmingham based band. It’s common knowledge that they had a massive UK and international hit with ‘Go Now.’’ But financial bickering quickly ensued. The details are not exactly clear and Secunda parted ways with the group amid significant acrimony. He departed with vocalist Denny Laine as his most exclusive supporter. Denny Laine went on to have a long-time relationship with Secunda. Certainly, all through his sojourn as one third of Paul McCartney’s Wings. Secunda had stayed on as his personal manager.
When Secunda took over the management of another very promising Midland group The Move they brazenly set out to rival The Who with a wild stage act involving their own brand of chaotic “auto destruction”. Encouraged by Secunda, the band adopted a violent gangster image, complete with Savile Row tailored Chicago-style suits. Secunda worked in partnership with the producer, the late Denny Cordell. The two men stayed in touch until the end of each other’s lives. For me, The Move and Secunda were the most successful marriage of insane publicity, hit making and performative controversy and strength. I wish they could’ve gone onto bigger and crazier things.
Carl Wayne, The Move’s fiery extrovert and dynamic powerful lead vocalist explained “Oh, Tony was incredible! When you think about it, The Move were created by Tony Secunda. He gave us the leadership and guidance that we needed. Management can be on different levels. You can have those that will manage a successful band from a financial point of view and allow them to create what they are and their music. In our case, if you took The Move without Secunda then the creativity was from Roy Wood? We would have just been a band playing its hits. With Secunda, he dreamed up all the ideas, the stunts and the clothing – doing a photo session at the fire station in Birmingham for “Fire Brigade” – and of course the Harold Wilson affair! He also had the animals who would do what he wanted to do! In Trevor, Ace, and me – the fiery part of the stage act. I think Roy would obviously qualify this himself, but I believe he was slightly embarrassed by the image and the stunts – but the rest of us weren’t.”
Carl Wayne opined further, “Secunda was creatively a genius. I think he saw the embers of a great band and he was able to fire that. In many ways he was able to bring out the best in everybody – by bringing out the absolute worst!”
The full story of the Flowers In The Rain debacle and the subsequent nationwide (not to say International) controversy where The Move were sued by the Harold Wilson, the extant prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Is dealt with thoroughly in the main body of The Move book. And quite a story it is too. Punk rock in your face, ten years before the Sex Pistols. Involving the release of The Move’s Summer of Love earworm 45 single – Flowers in the Rain. And the subsequent fall out due to Tony Secunda’s risque, scandalous and inevitably litigious postcard advertising the single.
A true pioneer in music management and publicity, Secunda’s methods were years ahead of their time. He brought the group to London and secured a weekly residency at the fashionable Marquee Club, a slot recently vacated by The Who. Seemingly able to manipulate the press at will, Secunda dressed the group as American gangsters and staged a contract signing on the back (literally) of a topless model! He also steered The Move away from Motown and towards a more psychedelic, West Coast-influenced live sound, while encouraging lead guitarist Roy Wood to write more material. Tony Secunda was working in partnership with Harold Pendleton (who was running The Marquee) as part of Marquee Management. He discovered The Move and he knew this was the band. To create money and success and furthermore, controversy. A band who could fire up his weird, roiling anti- establishment ideas and arouse plenty of outrage, trickery and renegade publicity. This dovetailed nicely with The Move enjoying a red hot Thursday night residency at the London Marquee Club. A prime spot to impress movers and shakers; plus the A & R bodies from London record companies and also their growing public. They took over from The Who on Thursday nights. Making heads turn, by playing two x 45 minute sets and taking The Marquee apart.
The Move boasted four first class vocalists and initially pumped out a great set of obscure R&B and USA soul sides, allied to a dynamite stage act. These were things that Tony Secunda couldn’t teach them. By the time Secunda had come across Carl and the guys they were gig hardened and seasoned vocalists. Like all good managers he wanted to put them on the map and Secunda certainly succeeded. The string of hit singles by Roy Wood didn’t hurt either?”
During his initial ‘hot’ or ‘high’ years of management, which ran from 1965 through to around the latter 1970s. He then had a second period in the USA, which ran up to his unfortunate early demise in 1995. Secunda later became ensconced on the West Coast of America. He was located outside San Francisco in the larger Bay Area. Living in the Belvedere, Tiburon area. About a half an hour drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. Out from San Francisco city and into Marin County. A lot of the rockstars, managers and drug dealers etc had all moved out of the city and got property there.
Amongst the massively tall dark green pines and lushly forested areas, the air is good, clean and bracing. After they all made some massive cashola – during the big musical and cultural splurge that had blown through the city like gold dust. Secunda joined the community, that had grown filthy rich from this first great talent explosion. Erupting from San Francisco and the larger Bay Area. He had branched out (sic – pardon the pun) with an interest in conservation and in tree work.
Secunda was a mesmerising individual – hated by some, feared by quite a few others. Dismissed by a good few industry insiders but with a feeling of fealty, respect and a certain amount of awe by others. Secunda’s history is convoluted, weird and pretty fabulous. Some years later on the 22nd February 1995. An obituary for Tony Secunda appeared in The Independent newspaper based in London. Chris Welch; a longtime music journalist described Secunda (with some insight) as follows. “Tony Secunda, was a dark, brooding and somewhat menacing figure. He thrived on taking risks, and he was not afraid to indulge in the most basic scams and publicity stunts. But he achieved results for his artists and took the ethics of the underground hippie scene, into the boardrooms of the music industry.”
Tony Secunda has melted into the hazier rock music background, unlike other managers of the time. He was in the same era and vanguard as Andrew Loog Oldham, Don Arden and others. In fact he inhabited a unique space. Due to his eccentricity and his defined use of sui generis publicity stunts. The Move were definitely Secunda’s plaything. Much more so than his previous act, the relatively controllable and benign Moody Blues. The Moodies were nowhere near as untrammelled, as wild or as dysfunctional as The Move. Secunda didn’t just suddenly appear fully formed – he had to pay his dues. Which he did, in other areas of the entertainment and music business. His mercenary attitude to business and to some people was rooted in his ruthless personality. With a pronounced tinge of threatened (and at times actual) violence.
Secunda himself said in an early interview, “I opened up a club in Leytonstone in East London with Chris Andrews. He discusses his earlier achievements, “After we’d had opened the club in Leytonston with a big publicity campaign. We found the place was becoming packed, every time we opened the doors. By the time I was 18 years, I was earning £150.00 a week. I met Stanley Dale who managed Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes and we all shared an office. Then we went into partnership and opened a string of ballrooms. (For reasons not exactly clear and regrettably for Secunda maybe as a temporary setback? His partner Stanley Dale, ousted him from his managerial post). Secunda elaborates further. “I ran into a guy called Johnny Kidd – he’d had a minor hit record but as all the National newspapers were on strike. He’d received no exposure at all? Kidd was complaining about having no work. Clem Cattini, Brian Greg and Alan Caddy were his backing group and they were only getting about 30 shillings (30 bob) a night, five nights a week. I took over and I upped their money — and they started happening. At the time, I was also running about eight venues. ‘Shaking All Over’ then hit the charts. A stupendous classic piece of psyche rock ‘n’ roll, with that succulent guitar solo. We became the first people, to quote £100:00 and £150:00 quid fees – for just one night. People said you will never get that sort of money, for a Number One record.”
After this Secunda changed gears for awhile. He decided to go into wrestling and became a wrestling promoter. This is where Secunda first really began to learn, what it was all about. “I had to zoom around five nights a week. I’d go to a drill hall. I’d set up 1000 chairs, number them, set the lights up – run the whole show myself. In fact after the show was over. I’d pack it all up, go out and put about 150 posters around. Then leap into the next town and do it all again. I did that for about a year.” Paul Lincoln was his partner and he was the guy, who really turned Secunda, on to what he learnt, about show business and showmanship.” Secunda remembers, “I made so much money, I went a bit crazy for awhile. After that, I went AWOL and nuts for awhile. I met a guy called Alex Murray and he said. “Let’s go to South Africa, so I looned off there with him, all within 48 hours of him making the suggestion. Over there, we sang and produced records with Micky Most. Mickey Most had about ten Number One Records out there. Then I went out to the Congo (Africa) for a month and then I returned to London in 1964.” Back in the smoke, he started doing the music administration for Lesley Duncan. The first, big break came, when he began exploring the Birmingham Beat scene.”It was then, I found The Moody Blues”. Later on, in that first year back in the UK. Secunda’s luck transformed when he obtained the Birmingham-based Moody Blues. The group struck Number One, early the next year, with the gigantic international hit ‘Go Now.’
His path also crossed with Procol Harum who had the massive seller ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ produced by his good pal producer Denny Cordell. These two men’s lives were linked throughout – they were a ‘non-official’ music scene duo for awhile in London. Sharing an office and cross platforming The Move, Procol Harum etc. Secunda was trying to offload Procol Harum and sell off the contract “My asking price is £75,000,” said Secunda, “and there are four years left to go on the contract. My reasons for selling Procol Harum boils down to the fact that our personalities clash. It’s like a divorce – it’s better for future happiness that we should part. Let’s be frank,” he said, “for one thing, Procol no longer agreed with me on their future music style. They became terribly introvert and incommunicative [sic]. They refused to accept my guidance and adopted a prima donna manner. They turned down £100,000 worth of engagements – I had arranged for them and that’s an awful lot of bread. Because of this, I decided I could not negotiate for them any longer.” So endeth the Procol Harum / Tony Secunda episode in his ongoing management history.
Steve Gibbons went on to be managed by Secunda as a solo act. This included the release of his first solo record ‘Short Stories.’ Again, it is said Secunda got a considerable cash advance for Steve. Some of which was ploughed into the ornate record production. The production was overseen by Jimmy Miller, who made his name with The Rolling Stones and this was a successful liason. On Steve’s debut solo record, the musicians were the cream of London’s finest, Albert Lee the guitarists guitarist. On drums from Balls (and going on to future stints with Lennon, Harrison and YES) was Alan White. Mike Kellie was also on some tracks. Beatles pal Klaus Voormann was one of the bassists featured, along with Greg Ridley. Also on bass was his long time running buddy with the Steve Gibbons Band, the funky, extremely talented ex – Mover Trevor Burton. A large US American choir featured Madeline Bell, an American living in London and another famous solo and backing singer Doris Troy, who rounded off the package. The album was a lively confection of country and pop with harder rock songs. Some would credit the album with ‘a Rolling Stones tinge’ to the sound? Needless to say, it was released on Tony Secunda’s new record label Wizard. Although the record garnered garnered critical applause. Secunda’s discovery of Marc Bolan as a major star talent at this time. Overshadowed the usual amount of dedication Secunda, would put into marketing Steve Gibbons’ new project.
Gibbons had already spent about a two-year period under Secunda’s management with the proposed “super group” Balls.
“It was only a short time before problems arose within Balls. Dave Morgan and Richard Tandy were fired as incompatible, with the new group’s musical direction…Keith Smart (RIP) also left to be replaced by Spooky Tooth drummer Mike Kellie. Steve Gibbons blamed Secunda for being ruthless. In sifting and in sorting out all the musicians who, in his opinion, did not fit the image of a successful band or as “having balls.” Gibbons talked about it in the TV documentary, ‘Untold Stories’ “I am pretty sure Tony Secunda had this agenda going. He looked at the individuals and he thought “He’ll do, he’ll do!” Not only did the constant change of musicians prevent progress. The way of life of the band, did not exactly encourage very concentrated work. We used to rehearse in a barn. We always ended up rehearsing about three o’clock in the morning. We would get complaints from the local constabulary, the sound at night would be carrying for miles.”
During his time leading The Steve Gibbons Band. Steve penned a composition called ‘Chelita.’ It is a beautiful song, big and expansive with a big open Bruce Springsteen vibe. It was produced by Tony Visconti as was the entire ‘Down In The Bunker’ album. It was directed at Chelita Secunda and the destructive lifestyle she was involved in, namely the excessive use of cocaine.
Joe Boyd had a definite point of view on cocaine. He used it for awhile but quickly left it aside. “Chelita Secunda was a fascinating person. I never really got to know her well, but I used to see her at parties. We got along, she was very friendly. But I was not a coke user. I never used coke, I always felt coke was a big mistake. I think a lot of bands would say that now? It destroyed so many groups, didn’t it? I went off it very quickly – because I would hear it through the microphones. You know, you would be sitting in the studio listening to a group. They would be getting somewhere with a track. The white lines would come out and the quality of music would just go down, down and down.”
Gibbons was a good-looking young man with chiseled features. He looked the business, he looked like a rock star. “But I felt a bit like a fish out of water whilst I was there. I thought, ‘What the bloody hell am I doing here?’ “He had this horrible thing which he did. He wanted to do something with my eyes. These lenses type things were about the size of a half a crown. You just slid them under your eyelids and these lenses were chrome on the surface. If someone looked at you they would see their reflection. Was it for the stage or for Vogue magazine?The whole thing was about outrage, to get in the papers. I was on the front page. It was The Sketch or The Mirror newspapers. So that was his pathway to fame. I think he was strange in the way he went to bat, because he used to promote wrestling matches and all that.” Steve Gibbons’ relationship ended with Tony Secunda selling his contract to Bill Curbishley, the manager of The Who. “When Bill Curbishley confronted Secunda, because we had this meeting about me leaving and getting out of the contract. Tony gave Bill Curbishley a quote of how much he wanted to release me. It was one wheeler dealer against another. Bill was a big figure. So, I remember with Bill and his final words when this meeting came to an end. He turns to Secunda and says. “Right, there’s your fucking money, now just piss off!”
The stormy and controversial relationship between Secunda and The Move is outlined in great detail in this book. After The Move period, observers talked of Tony’s venture into the realms of dealing cocaine. One (who wished to remain anonymous) person said they believed he was (allegedly) responsible for most of the cocaine moving around London at the time. (This was in tandem with his then wife Chelita Secunda). He hadn’t left the arena of rock management he was still very involved. In 1971 Secunda became the manager of Marc Bolan and T. Rex. He helped Marc Bolan to set up his own record label – the T. Rex Wax Company through Electric and Music Industries (EMI). Marc Bolan desperately wanted to move on. It was time for the ambitious pixie to reinvent himself. To uproot his folksy but ambitious music from the clutches of David Platz. At that time, allegedly ranked among the biggest sharks in the industry. Bolan turned to the one fish (the species as known as piranha) who could have eaten Señor Platz and all his pals for breakfast. Secunda had then taken the management of T. Rex away from Mark Fenwick. Before this Marc Bolan had called in mover and fixer Tony Secunda, who had the required ‘nous’ to be able to get Bolan a new US record deal. As well as setting up the ‘T. Rex Wax Company’. Bolan and Tony also parted company in a very abrupt and snide manner. Through the ongoing ego-riven and unpleasant machinations of Mr Bolan.
Tony was becoming notorious for the amount of cocaine he was now consuming. He was also ‘famous’ for supplying cocaine to the artists he managed. Whether this was a control mechanism on Tony’s part, which sounds probably likely. There’s nothing like a drug addled and drug dependent client, to whom you can supply the necessary medicine. To enable a full blown, dysfunctional manager and artist relationship to develop. Tony certainly made an impact on Marc or certainly (Tony and) cocaine did.
Marc wrote a song for Tony Secunda. The clue is in the initial letters of Tony’s name (TS) and the initial letters of the song ‘Telegram Sam’. Tony Secunda even signed himself ‘Telegram Sam’ on the liner notes, on the Steve Took album that was released posthumously. T. Rex leader Bolan wrote this as an ode to his manager Tony Secunda. “Telegram Sam” was Bolan’s affectionate nickname for Secunda. Other people who show up in the song: ‘Jungle-Face Jake’ was Sid Walker, Secunda’s black assistant and ‘Bobby’ is Bob Dylan. Bolan also referred to Secunda as his ‘Main Man’ which entered the lexicon of daily speak around then. ‘Golden Nose Slim – I know’s where you’ve bin.’ ‘Nose’ was snorting coke through the nose, one method method of taking cocaine, “knowing where he’s been.” was code for the white powder residue around the nostrils, which can be often seen in coke use.
Throughout his life Secunda held on to a feeling of great affection for The Move. It feels they were his favourite of the artists of the many artists he had dalliances with. Dave Thompson remembered, “He would be rude about Roy Wood but there was definitely a lot of affection and respect there. I got the feeling that he thought Ace Kefford was the star in the band. Trevor Burton was a good friend, Steve Gibbons, too. I think Tony was genuinely surprised (and disappointed) that Balls turned out like it did. He played me tapes one night – of one of their rehearsals and they sounded so good. “
Tony saw The Move blow most rival bands offstage and felt they had very little competition – if any? Secunda also saw The Move potential greater success in a unique light. David Thompson who has managed as a writer by Secunda remember Tony’s remarks on The Move’s brilliance. “Everyone!! They only had to take the stage and in Tony’s eyes — everyone else was an also ran. Hendrix, Floyd… Who did they open for at the Paris Olympia? They blew them off stage as well?” (Author: The Rolling Stones).
As for what Tony saw in them – great songs, amazing stage presence, good ideas, not bad looking…he saw The Move as the bridge between pop superstars and “serious” rock! But without the complications of being better known, for one or the other. They were also very hard working, which Tony always looked for in people, because that’s how he was.
According to Don Arden, who replaced Secunda as The Move’s manager. Secunda was furious when The Move dispensed with his services. Secunda took it personally and told everyone how he was going to ‘do’ Arden. Don Arden claimed that Secunda was ‘totally wrecked on drugs the whole time’ and “ultimately died by his own hand?” (The first part of Arden’s statement is partially true in some aspects, but not the second). Although his memoirs appear to be the only source for this last statement. This does not tally with the facts, plus — several remarks Dave Thompson has made to me. One startling point was made, although it can’t be accurately verified. Was that Secunda wanted to take a ‘hit’ out on Don Arden and have Arden shot.
As well as becoming manager of Bolan and T.Rex in 1971 Secunda helped Marc Bolan to set up his own record label, T. Rex Wax Co, through EMI. Secunda went onto manage Steve Peregrine Took, Bolan’s former slighted, musical partner. He upped the ante and visibility of Steeleye Span. He spent time with Lemmy’s Motörhead and Marianne Faithfull. Dealing with Marianne, was a short time run. This arrangement ended with Faithfull paying him off. It appears his in – your – face style wasn’t exactly suited to her more delicate and introverted approach. Although Secunda did put a book deal in place for Faithfull later on. Getting the writer Timothy Dalton to help with her first autobiography. Secunda discovered the pre-Pretenders Chrissie Hynde and placed her on a retainer. He saw her songwriting potential until her abrasive personality, pissed him off on the phone one day. He put the phone down on Hynde and never spoke to her again. Even found time to do a bit of a creative partnership with Mike Batt of The Wombles for him, during his Steeleye Span days.
In the mid 1980s, Secunda moved to San Anselmo, California, where he remained active in music publishing and promotion, and developed an interest in the ecology and green issues.
Piers Secunda got to know his father in a convoluted manner. He remembers the last years in which she communicated with Tony. Which are dealt with more comprehensively in the Move book. “After he was married to my mum, he moved to California in the 80s and he married Frankie – last name Papai. She was a San Franciscan and her father was a cartoonist and he invented Mr Magoo. She wrote cookbooks and she had an amazing singing voice. For a little while, she wanted to be a singer but got commercial success by writing cookbooks. One of them is called ‘The Turkey Cookbook.’ Tony used to joke that they’d eaten so much turkey for about two years, that they reverted to eating anything except turkey for Christmas. They ate venison for Christmas, because he wanted to have ‘Bambi’ for lunch. If you want to know what Tony was like, watch (the film) Austin Powers. He sounded like the character, that Mike Myers plays in Austin Powers.”
Piers continues, “Tony was also an art collector. He was a collector as opposed to a hoarder. Because a hoarder never gets rid of anything. He collected things and when I saw his house I was astonished, because there were things in there which he had very clearly gathered over the course of time. Frankie showed me there was a sort of Chinese daybed set into a recess, in the wall underneath. It was a huge box, and she pulled it out and opened it, saying take a look at this…because I was really interested in psychedelic music posters. She opened it and there was a block, a stack, about four inches high of 1960s psychedelic music posters. There were sheets of tissue paper in between each poster, which is really the way that an art conservator would take care of stuff…I was learning all about the 60s and Tony and the whole thing and he was telling me stories on the phone. Again, I had to hide all the drawings so that my mum would never see them, and she’d only see the respectable looking drawings, you know. I leafed through them all, and Frankie said, “I’d like you to have one.” “I was quite emotional about that when she said that. Anyway, I never got it because she ended up in a relationship with Rock Scully, who was definitely a dangerous – a real piece of shit.”
“Tony collected graphic art from the 60s – not just related to the music posters. There were early designs for Pink Floyd logos and The Move logo and the drawings and sketches He called Move, the ‘Pacman’ logo. The one with the wedges, cut out of the circles. I really liked that logo. He loved the work of Stanley Mouse, a well-known psychedelic illustrator artist. He cherished those things and his awards discs, which were displayed on one wall in his house.
A whole field of them across one wall. He got into The Band a lot and liked that kind of Americana Folk thing. That they may have been responsible for reviving. That’s partly why he was so enraptured with the folk band Steeleye Span, that he ended up managing in the 70s.”
“My father did have grudges. Oh yeah! Marc Bolan had fucked him after he had made him a shitload of money? He had a real problem with it. It was 20 years later, he basically told me that Marc Bolan, (Actually, he told me a bit of a fib) he told me Bolan fell over on stage on tour in the USA – he was wasted – which is true! Tony said this guy’s out of control, I can’t manage him anymore.” He got an airplane and went to Rio. He did get on a plane and go to Rio – but the reason was, because Bolan had fired him! He didn’t want to tell me he was upset and very pissed off about it. He had a problem with this right up until the very end – because he had made Bolan a very significant fortune. Then other people came in and took over the corporate side of the management. They set up trusts in the Bahamas and hid all the money. Then it was all stolen!”
And of course the amazing and fated Move. “We talked about the whole ‘Flowers In The Rain’ thing. He really loved the whole experience of working with them and when the Harold Wilson thing happened. It upset him a lot when they said, “We can’t work with you anymore” I’m sure it angered him as well but retrospectively. He felt that although some things had gone badly and they got sued. He also said – the spotlight of the entire world was on The Move and that was the BIG opportunity for them. To become probably the biggest band that there was!
A lot of people have said that to me! Justin De Villeneuve (who managed and was in a relationship with Twiggy) told me it was the dumbest thing The Move ever did, to dump Tony at that moment. If they had stuck with Tony they would have gone on. The next stage would have been something else…They would have gone on a world tour you know…
Alas and alack, both The Move and Secunda have slipped through the cracks in the history of charted musical time. If there was any justice, they both would be given mucho more props and Secunda would be seen as a real rock ‘n’ roll manager. An utterly renegade spirit and an outlaw, somebody who truly lived on the edge. With a unique skill in dreaming up outrageous publicity stunts that were unique, insane and perilous. These stunts were also very funny and hugely anti-establishment.
Which is what rock ‘n’ roll was supposed to be all about?
Wasn’t it?
Jim McCarthy
December 2025
Further information
Flowers In The Rain: The Untold Story of The Move – Wymer
Flowers In The Rain: The Untold Story of The Move – Amazon
Robert Davidson Move Blog on Book
See also on The Strange Brew:
