the times | Wednesday April 8 2020 1GM 21
News
Sir Cliff Richard is worried
that his fans are dying off
He is still churning out new tunes at the
age of 79, but Sir Cliff Richard thinks
the modern music industry is not giving
his records a fair shake.
The singer is the third biggest-selling
artist in UK singles history, behind only
the Beatles and Elvis Presley. His
recent releases, however, are rarely
heard on the airwaves.
Richard is now demanding that radio
stations give established acts like him
preferential treatment so that younger
generations can discover them.
In a rare interview, he said that music
streaming services were “unbelievably
bad” for songwriters because of their
low payment rates, accusing the likes
of Spotify and Apple Music of profit-
eering. He admitted that his live tours
were not as lucrative as before,
because older fans are dying off.
“Those of us who have proven
ourselves over and over and
over again should be given a
priority chance [on radio],
even if it’s to say ‘We are going
to play this record once a day
for two weeks’ ,” he told the
Greatest Music of All Time
podcast. “Without radio,
there is nothing we can do
other than go on tour, which is
not only tiring, it gets less effi-
cient as time goes by, the audi-
Radio play isn’t just
for the young ones,
complains Cliff
ences get smaller.” He added: “We are
all dying. Long-term fans may not be
with us any more.”
Richard has sold 250 million records
around the world and scored 14 UK No
1 singles, including Mistletoe & Wine,
Summer Holiday and 1999’s The Millen-
nium Prayer.
His wealth has been estimated above
£52 million, although he claims to have
been left substantially out of pocket
from his successful privacy action
against the BBC over its coverage of a
police raid on his home in 2014.
Sir Cliff’s most recent album Rise Up
reached No 4 in the UK charts in De-
cember 2018 despite being shunned by
most mainstream radio stations.
He told his interviewer, Tom
Cridland, that BBC stations
“narrowcast” to niche audiences
rather than introducing listeners
to a broad range of tracks.
“Why are they going to
download a Cliff Richard
record when they don’t
know it’s out?” he asked.
He cited figures showing
that acts receive as little
as 0.008 US cents
(0.006p) per Spotify play.
Sir Cliff is due to embark
on a UK tour in September
to mark his 80th birthday.
The Greatest Music of
All Time video podcast al-
so features interviews
with Johnny Marr and
Smokey Robinson.Matthew Moore Media Correspondent
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A
portrait of the
young woman
said to have
inspired the
bad girl ofJane Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice has been
acquired by the museum
at the novelist’s cottage
(Mark Bridge writes).
The 3½in painting on
ivory depicts Mary
Pearson who was briefly
engaged to Jane’s brother,
Henry Austen, in 1796.
“As a pretty girl who
jumped into a short-lived
engagement with a
dashing young soldier,
Mary is said to have
inspired the character of
Lydia Bennet — the
officer-obsessed teenager
who eloped with the
notorious Mr Wickham,”
Sophie Reynolds, of the
Jane Austen’s House
Museum in Chawton,
Hampshire, said.
Mary was the daughter
of the naval officer Sir
Richard Pearson. After
she became engaged to
Henry, a militia officer,The real Lydia
Bennet? Tiny
portrait has
a big secret
at the age of 22, she
met Austen at
Rowling in Kent,
where another
sibling, Edward,
lived. After breaking
things off, Henry
married his cousin,
Eliza Hancock, in
- Mary didn’t
marry till almost 20
years later. Eliza wrote
at the time of Mary’s
engagement that her rival
was an “intolerable flirt”
who gave herself “great
airs”. “She is a pretty
wicked looking girl, with
bright black eyes,” she
said. But Austen wrote to
her sister Cassandra: “If
Miss Pearson should
return with me, pray be
careful not to expect too
much Beauty.”
Austen began writing
Pride and Prejudice in
about 1796, fuelling
suspicion that Henry and
Mary were the basis for
Wickham and Lydia. The
novelist observed that
women like Lydia “could
talk of nothing but
officers”. The portrait
was bought from the art
dealer Philip Mould.Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth
and Julia Sawalha as Lydia
Bennet in the BBC’s 1995
Pride and Prejudice. Lydia
is said to have been based
on Mary Pearson, leftBBC; JANE AUSTEN’S HOUSE MUSEUM