Life has been a song for Leslie!

LESLIE ABBOTT, Head of Contracts and Copyrights arrived at Gt Cumberland Place via a stockbroker’s office, Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.

For as many years as most people remember the name of Abbott has been associated with music publishing and when Leslie, dissatisfied with working in the City, joined the firm of Francis Day and Hunter he was following a family tradition.

After a year in Denmark Street he went to America to work for Irving Berlin, his main object being to gain experience, because in those days American songs were sweeping the world.

Leslie started song plugging. It meant working until three or four o’clock in the morning visiting the clubs and hotels where artistes were appearing making sure that the song he was plugging was on their minds — and lips. He was the only Englishman in the organization and had to take a good deal of ribbing. Paul Whiteman used to stop whatever his band was playing when Leslie arrived and start up with “Here Come the British”, a popular number at the time.

Show Friends

Back from America, Leslie joined Chappells and continued plugging songs, but with all the experience he had got from mastering the American method. When Radio Luxembourg opened up he joined the organization in charge of copyright.

The war started and into the RAF went Leslie and he was fortunate enough to be posted to Blackpool where he met up with many of his friends in show business.

He was in England a year and then went overseas to South Africa. At the end of the war he was the Adjutant at the Headquarters, RAF, S. Africa at Pretoria.

Demobbed, Leslie went straight back into music again rejoining his first firm Francis Day and Hunter in an administrative capacity. Eventually he became a director of the company but resigned in 1952 to become managing director of the Southern Music Company.

Three years later commercial television appeared on the horizon and he joined what was then ABDC [Associated Broadcasting Development Company – Ed], the forerunner of ATV, on April 4 1955 to look after contracts and copyright. Or at least that was what was written on his contract. Actually it turned out to be much more. In those early days everyone joined in setting up a TV organization that would work and he found himself hiring rehearsal rooms, reading scripts, negotiating with the Musicians’ Union and making arrangements with the Performing Rights Society in addition to a hundred and one other jobs. The Personnel Dept came under his wing for some time.

Lucky Escape

Those early days were interesting, absorbing and at times not without risk. He recalls the occasion when he was at Wood Green when the dressing room roof was being removed. As he walked through the stage door half a ton of concrete fell immediately behind him, missing him by inches. “You really shouldn’t have come through here” explained the foreman.

Leslie didn’t wait to explain that he very nearly didn’t.

Nowadays life is full of copyrights, contracts, and agreements and there is not much time for song. But Leslie Abbott still has a great affection for the world of music.

He believes that despite the near-monopolization of the “pop” world by the Americans, Britain has still a good deal to sing about. Our composers are far ahead of any in the world when it comes to writing light music of the type that gets played again and again for several years, as distinct from the “overnight” successes and failures in the Hit Parade.

His Favourites

At 50, Leslie Abbott can look back on a life full of music and entertainment. He is a friend of hundreds of stars. Married in 1938, he now has a 19-year-old son who is an assistant TV time buyer with a big company. His home is at Brookman’s Park.

Leslie has one passion in his spare time — motor racing, and he goes to most of the big meetings. Naturally, he likes to listen to music, and if asked to choose his favourite numbers he would probably plump for some of Gilbert and Sullivan’s works. He has one pet aversion — parodies of good music.