John Kennedy sparred with the Swedes over Mamma Mia! and took on the Rolling Stones for Richard Ashcroft – he tells us why he’s still arguing with Bob Geldof after 40 years
Music legal professionals are sometimes mandated to be much much less thrilling than the artists they symbolize, but John Kennedy might give most hotel-trashing stars a run for their cash. Once I converse to him, he’s lately finished up “the worst argument ever” with Bob Geldof, with whom he has labored intently with for 4 many years on Band Help. “Our arguments get worse every month. But that’s because he’s so intense and still so passionate. He is unbelievably sensible.”
Forty years since he was employed, Kennedy nonetheless does 25 hours of legal work a month for the Band Assist Charitable Trust, all voluntary. His newly revealed memoir, Only for One Hour: Moments I Pinched Myself in the Music Business, takes its title from Geldof’s initial insistence that an hour of legal advice was all it might take. It snowballed from there, by way of Stay Help, multiple re-recordings of Do They Know It’s Christmas? (with a 40th anniversary version mooted for this yr), the Band Help Charitable Belief and Reside 8.
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