Cecilia, they're breaking your heart

Cecilia, they're breaking your heart

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norman lebrecht

February 27, 2009

Let me share with you a memo from a Promotions Executive at Universal Music Group:

 

Hi

I have had a request from Int Tune (Radio 3) to have Tutula Bartley on the show today to discuss Christopher Ravens sad departure and to speak of her memories of him. I don’t suppose she is around and in the UK

x

 

I have withheld the names of the parties to this correspondence and reprinted the document verbatim. At first sight, I thought it must be someone on the pop side of Universal who had never heard of Ms Bartoli and Mr Raeburn. But no: the person who wrote this missive actually works as an executive for the classical side of Universal.

She knows not Cecilia Bartoli, fancy that. What of Luciano Epiglottis, Joan Scuttlebutt and George Shorty?  Are there no limits to Universal ignorance?

Chris Roberts, head of the UCJ division, insists that Decca is still functioning and that its artists are valued assets. This memo, and much else, gives the lie to that. I must get some of those Tutula Bartley records.

Today is the funeral of Jimmy Lock, the last defender of the Decca Sound. May he rest with the immortals.

 

 

 

 

Comments

  • Jenny says:

    Unbelievable!!

  • Angus says:

    Your blog was shamelessly copied around cyberspace, and (via an unusually primitive spellcheck) ended up mentioning “Cecilia Barstool” and “Joan Lutheran”, amongst others. Perhaps Decca is now run by robots? After all, its own website lists, consecutively, Morrissey, Donny Osmond and Russell Watson among its artists. Hard to find much synergy there, I’d have thought.

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