Harvey Lisberg

Harvey Brian Lisberg (born 2 March 1940) is an English talent manager and impresario, best known for discovering Herman's Hermits in 1963.

His father joined the British Army at the beginning of World War II, and served in North Africa and Italy until 1945.

Mother and son evacuated to Blackpool for the duration of the war, and Lisberg was five years old when he first spoke with his father.

Reunited, they returned to Manchester, and young Lisberg was sent to Jewish Day School, before transferring to Carmel College in Oxfordshire, where he was the youngest boarder at school.

He ran away three times, once getting as far as London on a penny platform ticket, and struck a deal with headmaster, Kopul Rosen, who let him off as long as he did not run away again.

In the 1960s, he managed Fred Pickering, when he played for both Everton F.C. and the England national football team.

The British Invasion of the 1960s (Herman's Hermits and Graham Gouldman)

In the mid-1960s he joined forces with Danny Betesh and took a 50 per cent stake in Kennedy Street Enterprises, who had promoted The Beatles' first tour.

At age eleven, Lisberg attended Salford Grammar School, graduating in July 1962 as a Bachelor of Arts in Commerce from the University of Manchester.

Lisberg was always interested in sport, particularly football.

In 1963, Lisberg was a trainee at accountants Binder Hamlyn (now known as BDO International) when he discovered Herman's Hermits at a church hall in Davyhulme.

By early 1964, he was their co-manager, and approached E.M.I.'s Derek Everett, who suggested producer Mickie Most, who in turn agreed to work with the band after seeing them perform in Bolton on a prepaid return air ticket from Lisberg.

Soon signed to EMI, their first single was the Gerry Goffin and Carole King composition, I'm into Something Good (with B-side Your Hand in Mine, co-written by Lisberg), which went to Number 1 in the UK charts in September/October 1964.

As George Tremlett put it in his book The 10cc Story:

And so began the career of Herman's Hermits, with Harvey Lisberg as their manager and Mickie Most, their producer.

"It was a three-way relationship that lasted nine or ten years", said Harvey.

During their years together in the Sixties the group's success was little short of phenomenal, and initially not far behind that of The Beatles.

In Britain, Herman's Hermits had fifteen hit singles.

In the United States alone, they sold over 40,000,000 records – with one single, "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter", staying at number one for [three] weeks and grossing sales of over 3,000,000 copies.

Of their six LPs, five were awarded Gold Discs.

Herman also appeared in three film musicals.

In autumn 1964, Lisberg enlisted Graham Gouldman, to write songs at his office for a modest weekly retainer.

The first endeavour, "For Your Love", was rejected as a Herman's Hermits single by Mickie Most.

Lisberg then tried to get the song heard by The Beatles when they were playing the Hammersmith Odeon, and via Ronnie Beck was introduced to the support act's manager, Giorgio Gomelsky who placed it with his band The Yardbirds.

In 1965, he signed songwriter Graham Gouldman, a founder member of 10cc, who Lisberg also managed, along with Godley & Creme, Tony Christie, Barclay James Harvest, Gordon Giltrap, Sad Café, Wax and others.

Harvey Lisberg was a war baby, born in Manchester, UK, to Violet (née Sternberg) and Judah Lisberg, into a Jewish family.

Peaking in February 1965 at No. 3 in the UK charts and reaching No. 6 in the US Billboard Hot 100, the song literally broke The Yardbirds, since it also signaled the departure of lead guitarist, Eric Clapton.

In 1965, Gouldman penned two more hit songs for The Yardbirds, namely "Heart Full of Soul", whose title was conceived by Lisberg, and "Evil Hearted You".

Between April and May 1965, a hat-trick of Manchester-based acts, all Kennedy Street artistes, enjoyed an unprecedented consecutive six week spell at No. 1 on the US Hot 100, with Freddie and the Dreamers spending two weeks at the top with "I'm Telling You Now" (10–24 April), Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders one week with "Game of Love" (24 April-1 May), and then Herman's Hermits a further three weeks with "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" (1–22 May).

Lisberg spent much of his early career globe-trotting with Herman's Hermits, who capitalized on a string of hits in the US and later in the UK, but he also represented acts such as Little Frankie, The Herd, The Measles, Eric Woolfson, The Mockingbirds, John Paul Joans and Julie Driscoll.

Always particularly interested in the song, he signed up an array of singer/songwriters such as Harvey Andrews, Peter Cowap, Barry Greenfield, Mark T. Jordan, Ramases and notably Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.

In the 1970s, he managed England Under-21 player, Gary Owen, negotiating his transfer from Manchester City F.C. to West Bromwich Albion F.C. with Ron Atkinson, for what was then a substantial fee.

Lisberg oversaw the production of several football-related songs, some recorded at Strawberry Studios, and performed and/or written by future members of 10cc, e.g. Boys in Blue (1972), For Ever Everton (1972), and Willie Morgan on the Wing (1974).

In 1981, Lisberg ventured into the snooker world; by signing Jimmy White, who he helped mould into the people's champion.

Lisberg arranged a complete makeover for White: with a new permed hairstyle, French designer clothes, and a photo session with Patrick Lichfield.

About his move into snooker, Lisberg said "Snooker just had a magic at the time I came into it, around '81. I got more publicity in six weeks representing Jimmy White than in twenty years representing world superstars. Snooker was like the pop music of the 'sixties, and the players were stars in their own right".

Within months, he had added White's good friend and idol, Alex Higgins, to a stable of players that would later include Tony Knowles, John Virgo, David Taylor and Willie Thorne, but by 1985, Lisberg decided to abandon his snooker interests after White defected to another manager in breach of contract.

Under Lisberg's wing Gouldman's output proliferated with a string of hit singles for various artistes such as "Look Through Any Window" and "Bus Stop" for The Hollies, "Pamela Pamela" for Wayne Fontana, and before long even Mickie Most capitulated by releasing a total of three Gouldman-written hit singles for Herman's Hermits namely "Listen People", "No Milk Today" and "East West", which was later covered (with new lyrics inserted in the third verse) by Morrissey in 1989.

The stellar successes of Herman's Hermits and Gouldman seduced Lisberg into making music management his full-time job.

More recent football songs are Shearer Shearer (1996), and United City Calypso (2011), featuring Lisberg himself as the artist parodying Lord Kitchener's classic 'City and United 1956 – The Manchester Football Double', to celebrate the next Manchester football double in 2011, when Manchester United F.C. and Manchester City F.C. won the Premier League and the FA Cup respectively.