Pete Waterman

Dave [Robinson of Stiff Records], who'd by now moved offices to Bayham Street in Camden, started to employ us more and more. I think he saw Peter Collins and me as cheap-rate version of Langer and Winstanley, production team he had for Madness. One of people he threw our way was Tracey Ullman. He told me he had a singer whom he wanted to cover a called Breakaway, which I knew as an old Franklyn B-side, a real old R'n'B favourite. Now I hadn't watched Tracey on her Three Of A Kind series where she'd got a reputation as an impressionist comedienne. I never watched TV. She could been anybody.

We went down to the studio and asked me who I wanted her to do the song as, which I thought was a bit odd. Then she did it as Lulu, Diana Ross, all these different people. I was falling about with laughter and said to the people in the studio that she ought to be a comedienne. They thought I was taking the piss, but I genuinely didn't know who she was. That song was a massive success and brought out one of Stiffs real strengths, the fabulous stable of girl singers that the label had. One of the best singers and songwriters, not just on the label, but that Britain has ever produced, was Kirsty MacColl. She wrote a song called They Don't Know About Us, she'd demo'ed it and I took it to Tracey.

Tracey, Pete Collins and Kirsty worked on that, so it was very personal to me. It really was my favourite sort of record, a "girl group" sort of record. That was the first time I think I'd ever really made a record that I wanted to make for me. It was a 1960s pastiche record, very much what I wanted to do - fitted the era beautifully and was one of the first records that I can actually say worked. Dave had me polishing it off at the studio in the middle of the night, with me getting Kirsty and Dave's wife Rosemary to add Shangri La-type backing vocals. It was the best song Tracey ever recorded and Dave gave me something like £30 for doing it.

The day after I'd first played it to him, I went into Dave's office and he said he'd decided not to release it because it didn't 'swing along'. I explained that everything didn't have to 'swing along' and that housewives everywhere would be singing along to it when they were doing the ironing. It went on to be Tracey's biggest hit and the record that broke her in America, a place that has completely taken her to their heart. Now she's a big star over there, and I sent Dave an ironing board painted gold when it got to Number Two.

Kirsty wrote this little song which I still think is one of the classic records with her about this guy down the chip shop who thinks he's Elvis. I put the money up for that and we produced it - a lot of great fun. It got Kirsty started, really brought her out. I think she met her husband, Stephen, because of it. [more usually attributed to the Simple Minds session for Sparkle in the Rain - FW] So that was great, but it was, fragmentary. It wasn't permanent. My partner was making so much money but income tax was still 18 shillings in the pound so we decided to go to California because a lot of bands were becoming tax exiles. Its great, California, if you work for two days, maybe you can push it to three. But three months - thank you very much - you've gone nuts.

The Pete Waterman connection continues because he produced Denise Gyngell's version of Kirsty's You Broke My Heart In 17 Places - without doubt one of the greatest pop records ever made. Source: TH

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Pete Waterman

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