Barbara Charone, and I have to smile when he praises it for capturing her “unmistakable voice”. Charone worked at WEA Records for nearly 20 years, before setting up the independent PR company MBC – still active today – with Moira Bellas; along the way representing Madonna, REM, Guns N’ Roses, Foo Fighters, Rufus Wainwright, Rod Stewart and many more.
As for the voice, most who’ve worked in the music industry (I was on NME for a while) will be acquainted with Charone’s signature booming rasp, and how – warm, friendly, but also formidable – she protects her starry clients like Cerberus at the gates of Hades.
However, as detailed in this entertaining memoir, there is more to her than that. This is the woman whom the Financial Times dubbed “the closest thing the music industry has to Alastair Campbell”.
As recounted here, pre-Pet Shop Boys Neil Tennant gave her the nickname “BC”, back when he was deputy editor of Smash Hits. Wainwright, whom she once managed, wrote the song Barbara about her.
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