Jack Fishman: How The Sting Got Stung
- Place – De Lane Lea
- Time – 1973
- Song Writer – Jack Fishman
As a songwriter, Jack Fishman was a real wordsmith and wrote the lyrics to many of the hits from the late forties until the mid seventies.
He was also credited with exposing Kim Philby, the most notorious spy of the Cold War era.
British libel laws prevented the story from being published in Britain, so, with the aid of two of Fishman’s friends on the New York Daily News, the story was broken in America.”
He would search for a really good melody usually from a foreign land, then approach the publisher of the tune for permission to write an English lyric.
Fishman’s lyrics can be heard in songs like If Paradise Is Half As Nice by Amen Corner, Just Help Yourself by Tom Jones and If I Only Had Time John Rowles.”
Petula Clark’s Thank You”, one of Jacks’, appeared in school hymn books across the UK.
I once asked Jack where he got the inspiration for the lyric to Thank You, he told me
“Sitting on the toilet one morning, looking up through a window at the blue sky.”
The lyric for Help Yourself, came to Jack as he watched Tom Jones dancing and singing It’s Not Unusual on TV, basing the lyric on Tom Jones the legend, rather than the real man.
Like most successful people Jack Fishman had a very tough business streak, always maximising his percentage in each and every deal.
The movie the Sting.
I remember when he returned from America in 1973 he was raving about a movie he had just seen called The Sting, the movie famously features a song called the Entertainer by Scott Joplin
Jack spent a short time trying to buy the music rights for Europe but was unsuccessful.
Jack then decided to book the studio and invited the composer Roy Budd to play and record a cover version of the Marvin Hamlisch recording of The Entertainer.
Roy, a film composer that Jack managed at the time, for some reason did not want his name to appear on the single so Jack came up with a name instead – The Ragtimers.
Jack then proceeded to sell the track and obtain a rush release on Pye records.
Scott Joplin, the original writer, had been dead for over 50 years so the title was out of copyright and available for anybody to use.
On Jack’s version of the recording the writing credits read, Joplin and Fishman, not Joplin and Hamlisch, as on the USA version.
He then published the work with Leeds music, this appeared a little strange as he actually had his with his own publishing company.
Jack’s version of the record was released and before very long raced up the charts.
A very unhappy publishing company.
The American company who were waiting to release their Marvin Hamlisch version along with the movie, were horrified to see Jack had entered the chart with his version and had claimed a share of the writing with no mention of Hamlisch anywhere.
They were absolutely furious and immediately started legal action against Jack.
Unfortunately for them they were suing Leeds music, a publishing company they themselves owned, something they obviously didn’t want to do.
They had no other option but to pay Jack his royalties in full.
Jack went on to complete a full album of Joplin instrumentals that were featured in the movie.
Pye released the album which was a roaring success.
Some months later Jack wrote lyrics for the whole instrumental album, he added some singers on to the same recordings he had already sold to Pye and then sold them the same album once again. – now that’s a sting!
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