Musical Career
Building a record collection through rare US imports, his DJ work began to take him across the UK, entertaining bigger crowds with a blend of rhythm and blues and soul music tunes he had sourced. Given a residency with the Mecca Leisure Group, he developed new initiatives including matinée discos for under 18s at Coventry’s Locarno club, which gave him a valuable insight into what music interested a younger audience. Waterman noticed that the younger dancers preferred records with high beats per minutes and this influenced his later work. It was at the Locarno that Waterman first met Neville Staple, later to be a vocalist for The Specials - a band that Waterman would manage for a brief period. In early 2009, Waterman wrote the foreword to Neville's biography "Original Rude Boy", which was published by Aurum Press in May 2009.
Waterman took up a job as an A&R man, and worked in the Philadelphia scene, which included introducing the Three Degrees to the UK. He then moved to Jamaica working with Peter Tosh and Lee Perry, and producing Susan Cadogan’s reggae-crossover hit Hurts So Good.
In 1979, Waterman set up Loose Ends with Peter Collins, the first coming under the name 14-18 with a single inspired by World War I, "Good-Bye-Ee," and hits with artists like Musical Youth and Nik Kershaw. He then set up his own company PWL (Pete Waterman Limited) in 1984, quickly signing producers Matt Aitken and Mike Stock, who produced the song "Whatever I Do" for Hazell Dean. Stock Aitken Waterman became one of the most successful musical production teams of the 1980s.
To date, Waterman has scored a total of twenty two UK number one singles with his various acts (including Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley, Bananarama, Steps, Mel and Kim, Donna Summer, Sinitta, Cliff Richard, Dutch girl-band the Dolly Dots and Jason Donovan) and he claims upwards of 500 million sales worldwide (inclusive of singles, albums, compilation inclusions, downloads, etc.). Waterman has also appeared in the Steps video "Tragedy".
In the late-1990s, production company Celador hired Waterman to compose a song for their new quiz show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The company felt the song unsuitable, and instead approached Keith Strachan.
Waterman wrote and produced the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest entry for the United Kingdom, which finished in last place with 10 points.
Waterman is worth £30 million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
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