When Billy Connolly couldn't get paid £50 for a gig
Jasper Carrott has told of how he thought Billy Connolly had ruined his career when he suddenly doubled his fee from £25 to £50 a gig – and the bookings dried up.
The Brummie comic recalled how he used to book the Big Yin through a folk music agency he ran in the Midlands the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Carrott told The Sun: ‘I used to run a company called Fingimigig and I brought down loads of Scottish folk acts including Archie Fisher, Barbara Dickson, Isla St Clair and, of course, a young Billy Connolly.
‘I would get Bill a tour where he would be in Walsall on Saturday night, then on Monday in Nottingham, Tuesday in Liverpool, Wednesday in Sheffield
‘I ended up doing about three tours for him until he suddenly announced he was putting his fee up from £25 to £50 and no one would pay it — seriously.
‘He had started to get a bit of notoriety in Scotland, but in the Midlands they just weren’t going to shelve out double the money for him.’
However when Connolly appeared on Michael Parkinson’s chat show in 1975, he became a household name overnight, and the days of £50 gigs were long gone.
‘After Parky he went up to £6,000 a night so I never got him any more bookings after that,’ Carrott recalled.’
Published: 8 Mar 2019