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The great thing about Ben, as a music publisher, was not only that he
entered wholeheartedly into supporting the activities of Deep Purple
and its individual members but also that he made sure that his own
promotional teams both in the UK and internationally were enthused and
solidly behind them.
He was a Box and Cox man, a music publisher to the core and he
understood and loved his world.
To Ben it was always "THE Deep Purple"---how that intrusive definite
article irked me, more especially when in later years, no longer
Managing Director of Feldman's, he would complain in that Scots accent
of his-- "ye nivver gave me anything of tha' Deep Purple"
Not that it was mine to give and, it would seem, he was unprepared to
be mindful of the hard, though in those far-off days quite
conventional deals that he had struck on behalf of his corporate
owners.
Without Ben, who batted not an eyelid at my telling him that inspired
by a chance remark and working from the seat of my pants I had booked
the Albert Hall for a mooted Concerto yet to be composed by Jon Lord,
we would have had to work much harder to find a Malcolm Arnold. And it
was he who introduced me to the Boulting Brothers, so paving the way
for that September evening in 1969 to be preserved for posterity by
what was then their TV production company. It was so fitting that
Ben, together with his wife Jean, could be my guests some thirty years
later at the Anniversary performance of Jon's work.
In 2003 Penguin named the "White Horses" theme music, co-written by
Ben Nisbet and Michael Carr as the greatest in TV history. Children
the world over have loved and will continue to love the words, music
and imagery of those magnificent Lipizzaner steeds. They provide a
continuing and worthy epitaph for a fine music man.
Tony Edwards
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