page_title: Jonathan King
section_title: Move to New York
hierarchical_section_title: Jonathan King / Career / Move to New York
caption_attribution_description: Jonathan King, English record producer
context_page_description: Jonathan King is an English singer-songwriter, record producer, music entrepreneur, and former television and radio presenter.
  King first came to prominence in 1965 when "Everyone's Gone to the Moon", a song that he wrote and sang while still an undergraduate, achieved chart success. The Guardian reported in 2002 that he had sold over 40 million records in his career. As an independent producer, he discovered and named Genesis in 1967, producing their first album From Genesis to Revelation. He founded his own label, UK Records in 1972. He released and produced songs for 10cc and the Bay City Rollers. In the 1970s King became known for hits that he performed and/or produced under different names, including "Johnny Reggae", "Loop di Love", "Sugar, Sugar", "It Only Takes a Minute", "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Una Paloma Blanca"; between September 1971 and 1972 alone he produced 10 top 30 singles in the UK. Rod Liddle described him as someone who could "storm the pop charts at will, under a hundred different disguises".
  While living in New York in the 1980s, King appeared on radio and television in the UK, including on the BBC's Top of the Pops and Entertainment USA.
context_section_description: In April 1978 King stood for parliament as an independent in the Epsom and Ewell by-election, calling himself the Royalist party. He gained 2,350 votes. A year later he decided to leave the music industry and closed UK Records. He wrote to the charts committee of the British Phonographic Industry in August 1979 alleging that the lower levels of the charts reflected "clever promotion and marketing rather than good records", and suggesting that only information about the top 30 should be made available. The idea was that this would force programmers to base their airplay decisions on something other than the lower charts.
  The UK Records New York office on 57th Street was turned into an apartment, and King set about building a new career in writing and broadcasting. He was given a weekly five-minute slot on BBC Radio 1 called "A King in New York", a "Postcard from America" slot in Radio 4, and he reported for Radio 1 on the 1980 presidential election. In December 1980, watching television in bed, he heard there had been a shooting outside the Dakota Apartments. He called and woke up BBC producer Tom Brook, who was living in New York; Brook became the first to announce to the UK that John Lennon had died.
  Throughout 1980 and 1981 King presented a radio talk show on New York's WMCA from 10–12 weekday mornings, and regularly reported from the United States on Top of the Pops. He devised and hosted a spinoff series, Entertainment USA, broadcast on BBC 2, which was nominated for a BAFTA in 1987. He also created and produced No Limits, a youth programme.
  His first novel, Bible Two, was published in 1982. It tells the story of a window dresser in "Selfishes" who inherits his family's millions. He was also hired by Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun, to write a weekly column, "Bizarre USA", which began in February 1985 and continued for eight years. He continued with several music projects, including with the hard-rock supergroup Gogmagog, which released an EP, I Will Be There (1985).
caption: King in 1982
exif: {}