The art of it is that there is no art

During our impromptu festive phone call yesterday, in passing the Rust’s editor and I touched briefly upon the number of business journalists, marketing and branding experts, friends and acquaintances who still express themselves baffled by our astonishing global commercial success.

Actually, to be fair and strictly accurate, their puzzlement is not so much directed at the phenomenal success itself – arguably, most punters that in the lottery of life, luck can be as important a factor as planning, ingenuity, hard work or anything else – but the complete absence of any discernible strategy or goal, a fact which flies in the face of the received wisdom expounded in every marketing textbook known to Man.

Incongruously perhaps, I can best explain things by reference to talented and charismatic American P.J. Proby, one of the B-list pop stars of the Sixties.

Blessed with a truly magnificent voice he first came to notice whilst working for Elvis Presley, recording songs being considered by the Pelvis for his own repertoire.

For an inadequate example of Proby’s performing abilities, please follow this link to his early (1966) solo version of Maria from West Side Story, courtesy of – YOUTUBE

Later he came to Britain and had a number of Top Ten hits before his self-destructive nature – not least a devotion to the bottle – and a controversial propensity to split his trousers on stage caused his career to nose-dive back to obscurity.

In his brilliant review of the world of pop Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom – The Golden Age of Rock (1969) Nik Cohn devoted a chapter to Proby, describing how, well beyond his glory years, he end up recording a ‘middle of the road’ album with a 40-piece orchestra in Italy.

After one session, in which Proby had stunned the assembled gathering with the extraordinary range and power of his voice, the musical director came running out of the control room to exclaim “Mr Proby! Mr Proby – that was sensational! Your voice – you could sing opera! Tell me, how do you do it?”

The laconic Proby replied “Maestro, I don’t do anything … I am!”

The tale sums it up for me.

Those behind this organ don’t work to any ‘scheme’ or strategy. We just follow our noses and do whatever we feel like doing.

Our secret – difficult perhaps for some to understand – is that there is no secret.