Take That – Now and Then: Inside the Biggest Comeback in British Pop History. Martin Roach
and colour.’
Korda had his own thoughts about where the band’s vocals could go: ‘Robbie was a cheeky chappy naturally, but there was something about him. He was always one of the strongest voices and I remember saying to Ian that we shouldn’t just focus on Gary, we should try and bring some of the others out. It was evident that Robbie could actually sing. Mark could sing too. They could all sing backing vocals and hold a tune, but they weren’t great singers at that point because they hadn’t had any experience of learning how to sing properly in a studio. I signed them because they were great dancers, had good complexions and a couple of hit songs and I thought I could work the vocals out.’
While Gary Barlow was the creative hub of Take That, Ian Levine saw something in Robbie that he wanted to explore. ‘They were messing around in the studio and I heard Robbie’s voice and I said, “Robbie, you should be singing some lead.” He just said, “Don’t be daft.” At that point he saw himself as the clown in the group, just dancing around and mucking about, having fun. I thought his voice was better than Gary’s, to be honest.
‘They were all very wet behind the ears but Robbie was the most inexperienced. I wanted him to sing lead regardless. He had a fantastic-sounding voice, he just hadn’t learned how to sing in the studio. He could sing a song perfectly with no music playing, but when the music came on he couldn’t pitch in tune and would end up singing in a different key. But I took a lot of care because I thought he was worth nurturing, I thought he was a raw talent. He was very appreciative of that. Months later, we had a press conference for the launch of the album Take That and Party, and were upstairs in the private bar. Robbie was quite near me and one of the newspapermen who was in my earshot asked Robbie what made him start singing lead. He put his arm around me and said, “Come here, big fella,” then said, “I owe it all to this guy, Ian Levine. He’s the one who persuaded me to sing lead.” He was actually very acknowledging of the fact publicly to the press in 1992.
‘I am proud of picking him out at that raw level when he couldn’t even sing in tune—that vindicates certain things to me. Sometimes, if you ever doubt your own abilities, which you do when you have a bad period, things like that help. How many people can do that? It’s like picking The X Factor winner out of 75,000 people.’
One controversial choice for the album was a cover of the song made famous by Barry Manilow, called ‘Could It Be Magic?’. There’s a fine balance between the camp chic of Manilow and the undoubted quality and professionalism of his song writing, and covering his music is a high-risk business. Interestingly though, Ian Levine was coming from an altogether different angle for this idea: ‘I’d never heard Barry Manilow’s original, I only knew of the 1976 disco version by Donna Summer, which big gay clubs in America treated as an anthem. When I was working at Heaven as a DJ, we would always put that record on at the big party nights. It was revered by everyone, it was a godlike record.’
Nick recalls that ‘Korda recognised that there was a need to have one absolute dead-certain record that was going to nail it.’ Korda recalls the tension this suggestion created: ‘I like to sign an act if they’ve got the songs. I make a big deal of that. So when I said we are going to do a Barry Manilow cover, some people at RCA looked at me as if to say, “What the fuck are you talking about?”’
‘I cut the original Take That version,’ explains Ian, ‘and the first mix was directly influenced by the Donna Summer arrangement.’ With Ian’s brilliant high-energy disco-style version on the vinyl album, Nick Raymonde also contacted the Italian producers the Rapino Brothers about remixing a version as a club promo. ‘They had recently done “Love Me the Right Way” for Kym Mazelle and that had been a big hit.’
‘What I wanted to do,’ Nick told me, ‘was bend the perception of Take That a little, from being a pop group into being a band that had maybe something else attached to them. Even later, when they were having hits, still radio wouldn’t play them so we had to say, “Look, they’re not crap, they’re actually quite cool, they’ve got an Italian hardcore house remix and look at the video, it’s quite cool…” We were constantly trying to invent new ways of presenting the group.’
Speaking to me from their Italian studio in early 2006, Charlie of the Rapino Brothers revealed more: ‘We were having problems finding the right way forward, we were struggling for about four days. We were always fighting, shouting in Italian and the band would just sit there on the sofa watching this Italian comedy. Then Marco fell asleep for half an hour and then said “Let’s do it like Freedom by Wham!, so it sounds like that.”’
Marco remembers the record label’s reaction. ‘When we delivered it we were told they said, “I can’t believe those two Italian bastards have delivered a worldwide smash!”’ This track was originally planned as a club promo entitled ‘The Rapino Brothers featuring Take That’ but then it was made into a seven-inch and people loved it. Charlie says, ‘Gary Barlow was on tour when he heard it and he said when he heard the mix, he went nuts!’ This was eventually the version of the song that won the Brits’ Best Single of 1992 with the production credit of the Rapino Brothers/I. Levine/Billy Griffin. (Oddly, the band was not invited to perform at the ceremony that year, quite a snub given their profile.)
Stephen Budd, who manages the two Italians, remembers those times with relish: ‘I got this call from Nigel Martin-Smith and he said, “What have you done? I’ve got them in the studio with those Italians and they’ve got soft-core mags! Tell them not to bring those magazines into the studio ever again!” Also, what was amazing was that when they were working with us there were these code words. We were issued a list of code words to tell us which day and which studio they would be at and we were not supposed to talk to each other unless we used these code words—the problem being that if the fans found out about it there’d be two thousand girls outside the studio. Robbie used to go to the Rapinos’ house but they were always well-behaved in front of Nigel. The only scandals were with the Rapino Brothers themselves.’
Charlie agrees: ‘The band turned up with bodyguards at the studio some days when there were no fans around and we were like, “What do you need bodyguards for?” and we later realised it was probably to protect Take That from us!’
Stephen Budd loved the result: ‘We were in the Roundhouse for the seven-inch version of “Could it Be Magic” and Nick Raymonde came in and listened to it and we all had that moment when you know without a shadow of a doubt we had a monster smash record—that very rarely happens, it was a big moment. Nothing was going to stop it being a huge hit, clear as daylight.’
The fans weren’t the only ones who loved the song: ‘We then took a call from Barry Manilow,’ recalls Stephen Budd, ‘he said, “I’ve heard this arrangement and it’s the best I have heard of one of my songs that I didn’t do, so could you come over and meet us at Wembley Arena?” So we did and met him and he did the actual arrangement live on stage, which was a nice moment.’
The use of two versions of the song did cause controversy behind the scenes, but Ian Levine’s scintillating mix was available on the vinyl while the Rapino version was on the CD format. For Take That fans interested in seeing one song treated in equally fascinating ways, both tracks are vital.
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As far as the public were concerned, Take That was still a fledgling boy band with only one chart hit to their name and no album to speak of. After the disastrous chart placing for ‘Once You’ve Tasted Love’ there was enormous pressure on the next single—the band’s fourth. In the post-millennial climate, a boy band with a seven-figure investment behind them would probably not reach their fourth single with statistics as poor as Take That’s were at this stage. Korda Marshall and Nick Raymonde’s belief in the band remained strong, but the lack of a chart success was heaping pressure on the balance sheets at RCA. Ultimately, it cost Korda his job.
‘After those first two RCA singles had stiffed,’ says Korda, ‘there was a lot of pressure on me because of the lack of success and the un-recouped debit balance that was on my head. If you included the spiralling album costs, RCA had spent a million quid on Take That and they weren’t even going in the Top Forty. To make matters worse, I’d also signed a