Liverpool tributes to Tony Wilson

Aug 11 2007 by Jessica Shaughnessy, Liverpool Daily Post

HEAVYWEIGHTS of Liverpool’s music scene have paid tribute to charismatic record label owner and broadcaster Tony Wilson who died in hospital on Friday.

The former owner of the Hacienda nightclub who put Manchester on the music map and was considered a friend of Merseyside had been suffering from cancer since last year.

The 57-year-old, who founded Factory Records and introduced bands such as Joy Division, Happy Mondays, and New Order, was surrounded by family when he passed away at the Christie Hospital.

Mr Wilson, who worked at the Liverpool Daily Post for a short time in the seventies, famously broke the news of legendary Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly’s resignation to disbelieving fans on television.

Former Factory cohort Phil Saxe, who now runs the arts, music and entertainment management degree at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), said: “Part of me, part of Manchester, part of modern British music has died tonight.

“He was a genius basically.”

Mr Wilson was made an official companion of LIPA and would regularly make visits to hold talks with the students.

Speaking from Tuscany where he was holidaying when he heard the news of his friend’s death, Mr Saxe said: “Tony wasn't just Mr Manchester, he was Mr North West. He loved the fact that scousers loved to hate him, but he had a great affection for Liverpool and its people really and vice versa.”

Mr Wilson became renowned in Liverpool when he bought New Order to the city in 1986 to play at a gig called “From Manchester With Love”.

Proceeds from the event went to support surcharged Militant councillors.

More recently, he organised the famous In the City music festival in Manchester, a launch pad for unsigned bands.

Mr Wilson was diagnosed with cancer last year.

After chemotherapy failed to alter the course of the disease doctors pointed him in the direction of the drug Sudent, a £3,500 per month programme that the NHS refused to bankroll.

Funds to pay for the treatment were raised by bands that Wilson had helped over the years, such as The Happy Mondays.

Phil Hayes, from Liverpool’s The Picket, said Tony Wilson had contributed funding to help the Picket recording studios get established in the 1980s.

He said: “He was appreciative of what we were trying to do here, and supported us.

“He came to see bands at the club and told me ‘this is what Manchester needs.’

“He used his own imagination to create interesting projects, I really liked his regionalism.”

Peter Hooton, lead singer in The Farm, described Mr Wilson as “the perfect gentleman’’ and said he had loved Liverpool.

He added: “He did so much for North West music and championed great bands like The Pistols, but he didn’t care where you came from.

“If Liverpool had Tony Wilson, the bar wouldn’t be falling off the Capital of Culture like it is at the moment.

“He didn’t take himself too seriously, I would often wind him up about the way he was dressed.

“I met him on numerous occasions, I knew he was ill, but I didn’t know it had got this bad.

“It’s a great loss and a sad day for the North West.”

Liverpool author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce based his hit film 24 Hour Party People on the rise of the “Madchester” music scene, with Steve Coogan playing Tony Wilson.

Mr Cottrell-Boyce said: “He was recklessly generous; endlessly unstintingly generous to the detriment of his business enterprises. He described himself as a fan not content to be a spectator. He loved what he did. He kept every ticket from every gig he had ever been to. He had boxes and boxes filled with them.

“To call him Mr Manchester was underestimating him. He was so well known in Los Angeles, New York, France, everywhere. When we made the film, people told us no one outside the North West would be interested, but we still get calls about it from all over the world.”

jessicashaughnessy@dailypost.co.uk