Rob Dickins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rob Dickins CBE (born July 1950, East Ham, London) is a British music industry executive, who currently holds a number of trustee and consultant positions in music and the arts in the United Kingdom. Dickins began his music industry career at Warner Music UK.
Dickins grew up in East Ham and in the surrounding suburbs. His father Percy was a saxophonist and pianist and one of the founders of the NME, who started the first British Record Charts at the paper in November 1952. He attended Ilford County High School for Boys, before going on to Loughborough University, graduating with an undergraduate degree in Politics, Sociology, and Russian. While at university, Dickins was chair of the Folk Club, the Film Society, and the Entertainments Committee. He also served as Social Secretary of the Students Union.
Career
Warner
After graduating in 1971, Dickins joined Warner Bros Music Publishing and was appointed Managing Director in 1974, and International Vice President of the company in 1979. His UK signings included Prince, Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards (Chic), Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell, and his signings for the World company included Vangelis, Sex Pistols, Whitesnake and Madness.
In 1983, Dickins became the Chairman of Warner Music UK (a division of Warner Music Group), and remained in that role until December 1998. During his time there, the company became one of the most profitable in the UK.[1]
His first signing, Howard Jones, sold 4 million records, whilst US artists such as Prince, Foreigner, ZZ Top, and Madonna also contributed to the Warner recovery. Artists such as Tracy Chapman, Paul Simon's Graceland, R.E.M. and Alanis Morissette broke first in the UK,[citation needed] resulting in multi-million albums. He brought Seal, Simply Red, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Enya, and Cher to the UK label, and in 1997-98 Warner added Mark Morrison, Shola Ama, Catatonia, and Cleopatra to the UK roster. Dickins also acquired the recording catalogues of The Smiths and The Pogues for Warners.
Dickins worked closely with Enya, and was involved in the studio recording process. He worked on art direction for five album sleeves and most of her music videos. He is mentioned in the lyrics of Enya's hit "Orinoco Flow": "We can steer we can near with Rob Dickins at the wheel." He signed William Orbit as an artist, introducing him to Madonna with a re-mix of "Justify My Love" in the early 1990s. Orbit went on to produce and co-write the Madonna album Ray of Light.
Dickins constructed Cher's song "Believe" with six songwriters (who never actually met each other until the award ceremonies that followed), leading to a front cover article about him in The New York Times Arts and Living section.
Dickins also worked with other Warner acts such as Rod Stewart, on singles such as "Downtown Train" and Rhythm of My Heart", and The Corrs on their album Talk on Corners.
Dickins oversaw the creation of a classical record division, with a repertoire of works by composers such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Daniel Barenboim and José Carreras. He was also behind the William Orbit classical crossover album, Pieces in a Modern Style. The label had crossover success with Górecki's Third Symphony, The Three Tenors in Los Angeles, and Agnus Dei (The Choir of New College, Oxford).
Instant Karma and Dharma Music
In 1999, Dickins set up his own entertainment company with Sony Music, Instant Karma, based in the West End of London. The company's first album release was How to Steal the World by Helicopter Girl in 2000, and the label also had chart successes with I Monster and The Alice Band in the UK and Addis Black Widow in Scandinavia. In September 2002, Instant Karma became an independent label, and achieved a Top 5 single in January 2003 with "Mundian To Bach Ke" by Panjabi MC.
Dharma Music, his independent music publishing company, released hit singles by Cher, Rod Stewart, Girls Aloud, I Monster, Amici Forever, and Hear'Say's 1.5 million selling UK No. 1, Pure and Simple. Dharma copyrights have been used in major advertising campaigns and TV and movie soundtracks, such as the title music for Shaun of the Dead.
