Peter Harrison

When I opened my office in Archer Street, Piccadilly London business was very slow. I then started booking all the beat clubs and coffee bars in Soho. But the business only became a success when I focused my efforts on Colleges & Universities. I then formed College Entertainments Ltd. I was managing director until 1972 when I married the love of my life. That is when I sold the company after enjoying twelve hectic years of rock music success. That period from 1960 until the early '70's was an exciting explosive crazy roller coaster ride. It was a frantic time. The start of unadulterated Rock Music. I started out with nothing. I was broke and lived on Tulse Hill estate in Brixton. Homeless people have been known to refuse accommodation on that notorious estate..... I go into detail about my rock music adventures later. But here are some tasty INTRO tit bits. Some rock h'orderves to keep you going before I introduce the main menu... LED ZEPPELIN: Back in 1968 their manager, Peter Grant, phoned me and said that as I had been one of the best agents for The Yardbirds I could be the first agent to book new incarnation, LED ZEPPELIN. Within the hour of Peter Grant's call I had booked them for their very first gig at Surrey University. And the fee was just a few hundred pounds. They became an iconic rock band and Led Zeppelin will live for evermore. Much of it is down to their tough shrewd manager. And to think the young Peter Grant, in the late 1950's, was the doorman at the 2i's coffee bar in Old Compton Street. Before I started my rock music agency I was a young representative for Jukebox Distributors Ltd in Wardour Street. Because I was a crazy teenager crazy about pop rock music, they let me select all the records for that big famous Jukebox in the 2i's, I seem to remember it was a Wurlitzer. I used to see the large, menacing figure of Peter Grant on many occasions at that coffee bar. Nobody would take him on. Peter Grant was also a wrestler. I remember meeting Mickie Most, Gene Vincent and many other legends at that popular coffee bar hang out in London's Soho. Old Compton Street is now a very different place. It is now the hub of London's gay community network. Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard and his Drifters (Later the Shadows) started out by singing at the famous 2i's. Out of little acorns grow... All these other super groups also started as musical acorns. PINK FLOYD: I feel proud and privileged to have booked the original Pink Floyd for all those regular resident gigs at the Royal College of Art Students Union, Kensington Gore.