Titled in tribute to the author’s favourite album, by quintessential Californian psychedelic group Quicksilver Messenger Service, Happy Trails boasts a cosmic jacket to match and a subtitle that tips you a wink. With all this in mind, UK record industry veteran Andrew Lauder’s memoir is not necessarily one for those who prefer these things to teem with improbable tales of incredible narcotic excess.
A career dating back to the mid-1960s, with Jimi Hendrix, Hawkwind and the Stone Roses enjoying various prominence among dozens of other names, ensures a healthy appreciation for excess prevails – but ultimately, this is a book about the music business that mainly strives to discuss music and business. Lauder, his prose sculpted by seasoned rock biographer Mick Houghton, is a genial host: evidently proud of his work bringing bands to prominence at an arms-length list of labels, but with no indication he considers himself any kind of unusual talent in the A&R field. In fact, to read Happy Trails you would almost think that releasing records by Creedence Clearwater Revival or Elvis Costello or U2 is as perfunctory a vocation as that of any given working stiff.
Lauder’s early years growing up in Hartlepool are evocatively recollected, likewise his impulsive decision to move to London aged 17 with no connections but a zeal for grafting his way up the music biz ladder. The gatekeepers’ willingness to allow him entry, to say nothing of the cost of renting a flat, underlines that such youthful opportunism is an impossible dream in the straitened industry of 2023. The Lauder of today, now in his mid-70s, has been an ex-A&R man for about 15 years, running a deli in France; Happy Trails has a sad coda, too, with the author’s long-term partner Judith passing away just before the book was completed.
Happy Trails: Andrew Lauder’s Charmed Life And High Times In The Record Business, Andrew Lauder & Mick Houghton (White Rabbit)
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words NOEL GARDNER