From the Beatles to Eva Cassidy: Tony Bramwell (1941-2024)

June 2024, Tony Bramwell, one the most important people behind the success of Eva Cassidy’s Songbird album died. Tony’s last post on X (@BeatlesFriend) was not about the Beatles but about Eva Cassidy’s last gig at Jillian’s Sports Bar in Annapolis: ‘When Eva’s final notes evaporated the barman sighed and mumbled: “Truly, this was a voice from heaven!”’

Tony Bramwell, born in 1941 in Liverpool, began his career in the music business as an assistant to The Beatles. Back in 1959 his old schoolmate George Harrison had just returned from Hamburg with bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Tony decided he would go to a Beatles’ gig in their hometown and offered to carry Harrison’s guitar to get in for free. This auspicious start led to him becoming an aide to Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, and a long-standing associate of the group. After The Beatles split, Bramwell joined Polydor Records as a record promoter, and he went on to receive an MTV award for his pioneering work on early pop videos. Following a period as a freelance record plugger Bramwell became disillusioned with a pop industry that had taken to prioritising looks and image over talent and took early retirement.

A young Tony Bramwell

The Eva Cassidy fan club interviewed Tony on several occasions. He was always happy to answer our questions. How did your promotional activities for the Songbird album start? 

I was just retired when I received a phone call from a friend of mine whom I used to work with at Warner Brothers. He asked me if I might be able to do anything for a new, unknown label Hot Records. I listened to Eva Cassidy’s Songbird album and I loved it, Eva’s versions of the songs were in most cases better than the originals. I was convinced that I could help them to promote it. I played a track to a few people like Paul Walters who was the producer of Terry Wogan’s BBC Radio 2 morning shows. He said: ‘I love it, I shall play a track tomorrow and see how it goes.’ He played ‘Autumn Leaves’. The reaction of the people who listened was just tremendous. Hot Records was a pretty non-existent record label here, they hadn’t had any success of any sort. They didn’t have any distribution network setup or anything like that.

Sir Terry Wogan

Why was Eva Cassidy so successful in the UK and not in the US?

The time was right, the place was right and it was the right programme. I don’t think anyone in America tried to get it played anyway. Blix Street Records was another virtually non-existant record company in America and they didn’t know anything about marketing. The BBC picked it up and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. It took about a year and it just kept selling nice amounts and then the videotape was shown on television.

Was it your idea to promote this video clip?

Eva

Yes. I said immediately: ‘Show this video on Top of the Pops, which is the biggest television show in England, this will make the success of the Songbird album even bigger.’ I was right, they sold million records the following week. They showed the clip in December 2000 and by January 2001 the album was number one. The video became one of the most popular clips ever being shown on Top of the Pops. They showed it again and again.

Were you surprised by the impact of this video clip?

Not at all, because I had seen how much people loved it. They wanted to see something simple after all those extravagant videos that were seen in those days like Michael Jackson and Madonna. People needed to see the connection between what they’d been hearing on the radio over a period of about a year and the girl singing on television.

How did you discover that tape?

The record company had sent it to me, they had bought it from someone in the audience. I did the promotional work on my own, because there was nobody else to do it. The other people from Hot Records were on holiday in Australia at the time. In fact I did all the marketing for Eva, the appearing on television, talking about her very much at shows and in the press and everything.

Tony Bramwell

You had disappointedly turned your back on the music industry when they asked you to promote Eva Cassidy. Was her success able to take away your disappointment?

It would have been nice to get something out of my efforts. No proper arrangements were made beforehand about it, because no one, except me, had expected Eva to be so successful. I should have known better!

Over The Rainbow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rd8VktT8xY