Hazel O'Connor — Part 1

Push and Shove

Hazel O'Connor — Part 1 (of 3)

Push and Shove

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me, 1982

In 1982, when I was nineteen, I briefly worked at CBS London Studios, in Whitfield Street, as trainee sound engineer. During that time I first met the fabulous Hazel O’Connor, who became a close friend for many years. We shared many adventures. This three-part article recalls just a few.

Hazel, 1982

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For a fuller taste perhaps also read these articles:

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Haz

I haven’t been in contact with Hazel for a while, for some years, we lost touch in maybe 2015. I remember seeing her that year at a friend’s house in Brighton. It was quite often like that with Haz and I. Sometimes I would not see her for four or five years, then zap, like a shot our paths would cross again and it would be like I only saw her yesterday, we’d instantly reconnect.

In January 2022 a mutual friend contacted me to say that Hazel had been hospitalised near her home in southwest France, due to a stroke and had been in a medically induced coma. I immediately got in touch with another mutual friend, one of Hazel's oldest and closest friends, to get an update, to pass on my best wishes for her recovery… and to see if it was possible to go and visit her (the hospital was perhaps two days drive from where I live). At that point in time I was told that visiting wasn’t really an option and that it would be quite some time before Haz would be back at home, capable of, and, more to the point, wishing to receive visitors. More than anything she needed time and space.

Almost two and a half years have now simply flown by, and my life has been (to say the least) full (I have an amazing, quite wild, just over two-and-half-year-old son). And, well, I never made it to France to visit Haz, and I never gave her a phone call either, however, she’s been in my thoughts often.

I’m not thinking of attempting anywhere close to writing a biography of Hazel (although someone should because she is an incredibly strong person with an unbelievably inspiring story). Also, I’m not going to attempt a blow-by-blow account of my friendship with Hazel. I’m just going to recount a handful of memories, as I remember them, without too much focus on accurate dates, and exact locations (although there is a possibility that Brad Kyle of Front Row & Backstage may cherry-pick some parts of my articles and flesh them out a little more, as part of an ongoing collaboration, entitled The Nic of Time). I’m more interested in capturing the flavour and highlighting Hazel’s wonderful positive vivacious character. Don’t get me wrong. Like everyone, Haz had her foibles and her demons. If you are close friends with anyone for long enough, well, you’re sure to glimpse and experience such, as will your close friends witness yours. And that’s all part of the mix, especially on the path of a life-long artist dedicated to her craft, and that’s who Hazel O'Connor is, first and foremost, an accomplished artist. And, apart from being a pal, she’s also one of my heroines.

From what I can make out Hazel is back at home and slowly but surely on the mend. Hopefully, one strand of Hazel’s story will clearly come across herein, and that is that she is and always has been fiercely independent. This meant that quite often she was at loggerheads with record companies, publishers, the press and, let’s call them, the mainstream music business and film industry core, the bread-head business types that quite often leach off the lion’s share of an artist’s profits. Hazel should be an independently wealthy millionaire. However, she quite often led an almost hand-to-mouth existence, in order to be able to do things as an artist her way and make sure all those around her also got paid.

I mention this now, before really getting started because I have seen that there have been and continue to be fan-led fundraisers to raise money for Hazel and her recovery. From knowing Hazel for years, I can well imagine that when she had a stroke in 2022 the majority of her income simply stopped because she made most of her living from being a touring musician. I would guess, she was probably already feeling the pinch due to Covid lockdowns. So not gigging has probably been financially devastating for her.

Here below is a link to what appears to be a still active official fan-led GoFundMe page for Hazel’s recovery (N.B. There is more detail about this, including a special offer for vinyl enthusiasts, at the end of this article):

• Help Hazel get back on the road

Please consider donating.

And here is a link to Hazel’s official Facebook for updates.

And for all you MusicStackers, well, please consider restacking this post, for my pal.

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Breaking Glass, breaking through…

I first heard about Hazel in late 1980. That year, in her mid-twenties, she hit the ground running. I think that year most punks and Punk and New Wave officiandos in the UK heard about her and her starring role in the independent film Breaking Glass (produced by Dodi Fayed) with its eponymous gritty post-punk new wave soundtrack album. To be fair both the film and the album met with mixed reviews, however, let the facts speak for themselves. Three singles from the album charted in the UK during 1981 and 1982, with two in the top ten. The album itself went gold, with more than nine months in the UK album chart, peaking at number 5. Hazel wrote every single song on the album, she basically wrote the film’s soundtrack. The album was produced by Tony Visconti. Hazel toured the UK that year promoting the album and the film, her support act was, the then virtually unknown, Duran Duran.

So, yes Punks and New Wavers (and some embryonic New Romantics) had heard of Hazel O’Connor. The rest of the mainstream UK caught up in 1981. Her Cannes-premiered starring role in Breaking Glass gained her a BAFTA nomination and a Variety award. Then Hazel went on BBC TV primetime pop music chart show ‘Top Of ThePops’ and performed her new single ‘Decadent Days’ (‘D-Days’, a top-ten UK hit) wearing a black bra — this was, back in the day, extraordinary. Female music artists didn’t do this sort of thing on TV. Maybe dance groups (like Pan’s People) may have performed scantily clad, but female singers, on British primetime TV, in 1981, in a black bra, nope, no way… However, Hazel did it (and perhaps this was the first time this had happened on British primetime television), and overnight, Hazel became a household name throughout the UK, she was quite simply a phenomenon.

I think it’s important to note (and please do double check this because I’m doing this all from memory and may be mixing up my memory fragments) that Hazel signed her long-term album recording and publishing deal with Albion Records (she’d already signed a short-term one-off single deal with them because someone at Albion had heard her singing and noticed her look and style) just before getting the lead role in the film Breaking Glass. I think then she was working as a temporary receptionist (for Albion Records!), she’d made some demos for them with her older brother Neil’s band, The Flys, but still had not released a single with them (I think). She (now famously) signed her original deal in return for an advance of £1, yep one whole English pound sterling! After signing the long-term deal Albion then leased Hazel (for much more than one quid) to A&M Records (who owned the soundtrack rights to the film Breaking Glass) for one year so that she could make and promote the film.

The main point here, and I’ll go into this more as Hazel’s story unfolds, is that although Hazel had two top ten UK hits in 1981 (“Eighth Day” and “Will You”), and wrote ALL the songs for the soundtrack album that reached number 5 in the UK album charts, at the time (and for many many years afterwards) she never received a penny in royalties for any of this from Albion Records. To be clear A&M Records did their part, they collected the royalties and paid them out, less A&M’s contractually agreed cut, to Albion Records. However, Albion Records didn’t subsequently pay out to Hazel. This was to dog Hazel for several years, and involved bouts of litigation. In the music industry, there’s a saying: ‘Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ.’ In particular, one of Hazel’s hit songs, “Will You”, would become embroiled in lawsuits. We’ll get to that.

N.B. There is a chapter in a book (from 1986 by Simon Garfield, in the UK titled Expensive Habits: the dark side of the music industry, and in the USA titled Money for nothing: greed and exploitation in the music industry) which covers Hazel and her deal with Albion Records, the “Will You” debacle etc. I don’t know if the book is still in print. I read it years ago (like late 80s) and I remember that Hazel was not 100% in agreement with either how she had been portrayed, nor the ‘facts’ presented by Garfield.

What’s key is that during this formative stage of her career, even without getting paid the substantial royalties she was owed, Hazel continued undaunted. She refined her craft as a songwriter and performing artist, and shrewdly figured out how to make a living as a musician on the road, and in more than just the UK. To be crystal clear about this, when I say ‘Hazel continued undaunted’, the truth is that the music industry, in particular Albion Records and those behind the scenes thereof, nearly crushed and destroyed Hazel, they took her to the brink of financial ruin and pushed her mental health towards its limits. Those close to her witnessed the effects of all this day-to-day. Sometimes being a close friend of Hazel’s could seem like a rollercoaster ride. However the natural inner strength of this woman always eventually shone through, along with her beautiful natural smile, her generosity, kindness, her sense of fun, and her sharp cheeky sense of humour. She was always laughing, even if devastated — by some new writ through the door from Albion, or another massive opportunity missed and blocked by them — she’d been crying only minutes before.

Hazel, circa 1983, visiting for a quick cuppa, wryly and radiantly looking like she’s just about to launch into a story…

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From the inside out

I first met Hazel in 1982 through our mutual friend, the lovely, talented and super-stylish Sally-Anne Cooper.

Sally-Anne Cooper

Sally had become the manager of the band I was in at the time (with Paul Ridgeley and Jaime Petrie). We all became very close very quickly. The truth of it is — and I’m not sure if Haz would agree with this or not — Haz wasn’t a party girl. Sure she went to parties occasionally. For sure she was gregarious. And, yes, she was outrageously flamboyant and vivacious on stage and during performances, however, privately she was more into the countryside than big cities. She wasn’t particularly fond of nightlife and clubbing. She enjoyed long hilly hikes, dog walks on the beach, and sitting in a secluded tearoom sipping a cuppa, devouring a scone and chatting.

At the time I was somewhere in between, I liked both flavours. Inner city life and clubbing suited me, however, I also liked to get back to the Surrey Hills, with its sleepy country pubs and the forested North Downs.

Hazel and I really hit it off, and I used to go walking with her often on Hampstead Heath, with her two dogs at the time, Shelly and Blue, and sit in the tea rooms in Hampstead Village near where she had her flat. Blue was a rescue dog, an Alsatian, with a few anger-management issues and Hazel was actively rehabilitating, training him and experimenting with his diet to get him calm, relaxed and fit. She achieved it. I don’t think I ever saw Hazel without a dog somewhere close by, or where she was not in almost daily contact with her dog-sitter, getting an update or discussing their care. She loved animals.

Whilst we walked, we talked, about anything and everything. Especially about music, and about recording, and songs, and our exs or our currents, or about religion, and philosophy, or politics, about great worthy causes, or travelling, or food, or… anything…

What I remember the most is that Hazel always seemed to have a story to tell. She was an amazingly gifted raconteuse. Over the years (remember I’ve seen Hazel perform probably hundreds of times, and she would very often precede a song with a story) I’ve listened mesmerised to Hazel weaving her spellbinding tales. I loved listening to her.

After a walk, when we hit civilisation again (Hampstead Village) Hazel would be immediately into the health food shop, or the bookshop, or the antique emporium or second-hand clothes shop.

At the time I was working in Maison Rouge Studios. I’d worked on the Wham! Fantastic album, assisting the late/great engineer/producer Steve Brown. As a result, I knew George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley well. Hazel also became very good friends with George. To be honest, I don’t recall if she met him through us (Jaime, Paul and I), or if she met him through some other connection.

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For a fuller taste perhaps also read this article:

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Anyway, from time to time, we’d all be somewhere together. On one such occasion I remember a bunch of us (so Jaime, Paul, and a few others, probably Sally too) being around at Hazel's small flat in (I think) Kilburn. We were all just hanging out, like a very small quite-quiet relaxed early evening house party, nothing manic. During this there was a ring on the doorbell, and in came George. He was proudly clutching a cassette and with his typical huge Cheshire cat-type grin on his face (head tilted slightly to one side and upwards, eyes almost closed and mostly teeth visible) he proudly yet quite shyly announced that on this cassette was the final mix of his new single, just finished that afternoon, and did we want to have a listen, maybe? And of course, we all did!

I can’t swear to this, because honestly, we were all quite high by this time, but if memory serves it was “Careless Whisper”. I do remember George saying he’d produced it himself (which was no surprise) and that it was going to be his first solo single, which we were all surprised to hear because Wham! was huge at that time. So by deduction, it must have been “Careless Whisper”. He asked us to keep the whole thing hush-hush, not to tell anyone.

Anyway, we listened, more than once, George sang along live (which was always incredible), and eventually, we were all singing along too and dancing about. George had something to drink (which was unusual) and he was clearly a little bit tipsy… and then he left.

Not long after we all left too. And when the last of us was out the door, Hazel turned off her doorbell and went to bed.

A day or two later Hazel told us what happened next…

At about 4 or 5 am she was awoken by someone knocking on her window. It was George, and he was asking Hazel to please let him in. He was soaking wet. He’d left his cassette in the deck at Hazel’s and was desperate to get it back. He’d been ringing on the doorbell for a long time, but Hazel had it switched off. So he’d tried a neighbour’s doorbell (at four in the morning!) and they, infuriated, had dumped a bucket of water out of their window and onto George’s head.

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Push and Shove

Jumping ahead a year or two, to 1985, one day I got a call from Sally (my manager) saying that Hazel had asked her if Jaime, Paul and I would sing backing vocals on a single she was planning. Without knowing any details, or even asking Jaime or Paul what they thought, I immediately just said yes, I’m in. And of course, Jaime and Paul felt the same. Eventually, Sally had more details and shared them with us.

Increasingly Hazel, a natural idealist disillusioned with the establishment, was becoming more and more aligned with worthy causes she wanted to support and promote. I don’t like this word, not with its modern connotations, however, Hazel was fast becoming (in the purest and best sense of the word) an activist. She was using her fame and the platform this gave her to attempt to do some good in the world.

My memory of the full details is sketchy, but as I remember it, Greenpeace (who were then not yet part of the climate alarmism movement) was planning to release a fundraising compilation album, released by EMI and Towerbell Records, with contributions from artists like Peter Gabriel, Queen, Kate Bush (just to name a few).

Hazel had been asked to contribute, and in fact, the song that she especially wrote, “Push and Shove” which she performed with Chris Thompson, the vocalist from Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, became the main promotional single from the album.

The album originally started out as a low-key project. However, in mid-1985 Greenpeace’s ship, the Rainbow Warrior (and no, not that kind of rainbow, or warrior, this was 1985, pre-WOKEism), was sunk by a bomb detonated by French DGSE operatives, killing Fernando Pereira, a journalist. In the aftermath support for the project skyrocketed.

Also, at the time, the world was under a real daily threat of nuclear war. We had that as a constant backdrop. Many people just wanted the warmongering politicians and the corporate breadheads from around the world to just fuck off, and let normal people get on with their lives normally, naturally, and to leave the natural world the fuck alone (so, no real change between then and now). Somehow that basic simple idea, to just be a free person and live your life, seemed idealistic, like some kind of quest for an unreachable paradise. But in actual fact it was just a normal aspiration… and I think Hazel’s heartfelt lyric to “Push and Shove” captures this sentiment of the time perfectly. She truly is a very gifted and skilful songwriter and performer.

My signed 7” single cover, unfortunately, the biro has badly faded… it reads ‘To Nic, on our single, love Haz x’

Anyway, one day (or it may have been two or three days, forgive me, this is almost forty years ago, and I was quite often stoned back then), Jaime, Paul and I (then collectively known as ‘Physique’ (yes, I know, whatever, laugh it up, we were like twenty-two and it was 1985 for fuck’s sake) turned up to Abbey Road Studios to record the backing vocals for “Push and Shove” and to shoot the promo video for it.

(From right) Jaime, Paul and me aka Physique (LOL), photo by David Levine

The track was produced by Haydn Bendall, Abbey Road’s stalwart chief engineer, and recorded by the talented audio engineer, Ian Grimble. I don’t remember for sure which studio we were in, but it was big enough for all of us, a few other musicians, and a film crew, so it could have been the now more than famous Studio Two.

As a brief aside, I remember being stunned by a very personal story that Haydn shared with us in the studio control room during the session. What he shared with us was, he said, a big part of the reason he’d agreed to be involved in that Greenpeace recording project. It was the first time I’d heard such a story and it really left an impression on me. Some time, not so long before, Haydn had been diagnosed with cancer (I don’t recall what type, possibly lung cancer), he had been told it was terminal, untreatable, and that he had only a few months maximum to live. Haydn decided not to listen to the doctors and embarked on a one-way all-or-nothing spiritual journey of alternative therapies, herbal remedies, and activities including fasting, detoxing, meditation and visualisation techniques — one of which involved visualising himself as an oak tree, with his roots deep in the ground, sucking up nutrients from the soil, and expunging anything poisonous or toxic from his body. He explained how he became increasingly more ill, lost an immense amount of weight and that one day, a day he thought he would die, he had black fluid coming out of the pores of his skin and was excreating huge amounts of black toxic smelling shit and blood… and then, afterwards, slowly, he recovered. He basically asserted (and this was one of the first times that I‘d been confronted with such an idea) that spirituality and a person’s willpower were more powerful, and more important than any modern medicine. As far as I know, he’s still alive today.

Anyway below is the promo video. It’s very low quality, I couldn't find anything better (if anyone else can please let me know).

I think there must be another slightly longer edit of this video, because I recall that the cellist, Heather McDougall, was also with us filming and that the song had an introduction (and possibly a drop somewhere) that featured her and the cello.

In the video, in the background, you can see Paul, Jaime and I singing backup. This video was also one of the first-ever pop videos to bring horrendous natural world issues, such as the clubbing of baby seals, into the public domain.

As far as I remember (and this most definitely needs to be checked and verified) Greenpeace used a portion of the money raised by this album to help secure a base in Antarctica, which theoretically meant that they gained an important strategic foothold, meaning that in the future Greenpeace could have a political say in what happened in Antarctica. I’m not sure if the next part is myth, legend or true, however, at the time I was told that Greenpeace erected a small monument at their newly acquired Antarctic base, which had a plaque on it with all the names of all the people who contributed to the 1985 Greenpeace album. I was told that our names (so Jaime, Paul and I) were on said plaque next to Hazel’s. I want it to be true, but who knows, I never personally went there to check…

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Role-model

Hazel’s friendship, her passionate idealism, our conversations, her attitude towards songwriting, and her style all really influenced Jaime and me as our songwriting partnership progressed. The head A&R person at our publisher, by then Chaz de Whalley of Warner Chappell Music wanted us to write songs they could either place with other artists or that would get us signed to a major record deal. They wanted us to stock-pile short, to-the-point love songs or something similar that they thought they could place easily. They didn’t want songs with a social conscience or an underlying political message. I found this surprising because Chaz had been instrumental in getting U2 off the ground and on the map. To my detriment, I told Chaz as much, which went down like a lead balloon.

So, in around 1985, when Jaime and I started coming up with songs that had a message in, that we felt (perhaps naively) could make a difference, well, this didn’t go down too well with our publisher. They didn’t care about making a difference, they cared about making money.

One song in particular, with a brilliant (I think) lyric totally written by Jaime (and I wrote the music), was inspired by the life and trials of Martin Luther King Jr. Another that I wrote was about Malesela Benjamin Moloise — who was hanged on Wednesday 21st August 1985 in South Africa. Another (upbeat hopeful) song we co-wrote was about the solidarity of everyday people. Anyway, almost all of these fell on deaf publishing ears and subsequently never saw the light of day — here they are below.

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“Walking With The King” (Lyric and lead vocal by Jaime Petrie, circa 1985, music and arrangement by Nic Briscoe.)

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“Wicked Man” (Lead vocal by Jaime Petrie, lyric and music Nic Briscoe 1985.)

Interestingly, at least for me, in 2000, a recording artist called Keith Jay covered “Wicked Man”, below is his version, which I’m guessing also never saw the light of day…

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“Heart of Gold” (Lead vocal by Jaime Petrie, co-written by Jaime Petrie & Nic Briscoe, circa 1985).

This is a very unrefined experimental demo. Quite often we worked like this, putting all our ideas for bridges and changes into one version, so we could listen to see what worked and what we liked and then afterwards hone it.

Jaime Petrie (right) and me, photo by David Levine

Continued in Part 2

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Help Hazel get back on the road

To remind, Hazel was hospitalised early in 2022 with a severe brain haemorrhage.

Below is a video from last September showing Hazel (left) doing music therapy with some close friends. The first song is Hazel’s hit song “Will You”.

From the video description: “Hazel has begun the next chapter in her recovery by moving back home and is facing up to a new challenge of navigating her way around with her limited but greatly improved mobility, with the fantastic, continued support of her friends. She is approaching the new stage with her usual determination and resilience. She continues with her physiotherapy, speech therapy and most importantly, her music therapy. She really looks forward to her weekly session with Benoît and was so happy to have Sarah and Clare there this last weekend to join in with the singing 🎶❤️ Onwards and upwards Hazel ❤️”

Here below is a link to an official fan-led GoFundMe page for Hazel’s recovery:

• Help Hazel get back on the road

Please consider donating.

Here is the link to Hazel’s official Facebook for updates.

For Vinyl Enthusiasts. I have two collectable signed seven-inch vinyl singles of Hazel’s. One is from 1985 “Push and Shove” (featured and pictured earlier in this article), which has a very faded message and signature (‘To Nic, on our single, love Haz x’); and the other is from 1984, Hazel’s single “Don’t Touch Me” produced by the late-great Martin Rushent and Hazel’s brother, Neil O’Connor, at Martin’s Genetic Studios (I was there during part of the recording). The cover photography is by our friend, the great photographer, David Levine, and the promo video featured a cameo appearance by George Michael.

The signing reads:

‘To Nick - “the serious” Physique love, luck and a naughty kiss Haz x’

In return for a direct donation to Help Hazel get back on the road, I will gladly give away these singles. The minimum suggested donation per single is £250. If you’re interested you can contact me directly about this via the substack app or email: nicbriscoe@substack.com

And, again, for all MusicStackers, please consider restacking this post, for my pal, Haz.

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Please note: I have another infotainment channel on Substack, called Unleashed & Unlimited, where I post podcasts, articles and content unrelated to music.🖋🎥🎙