Gary Glitter
Paul Francis Gadd, better known by his stage name Gary Glitter, is a British former singer who achieved fame and success during the 1970s and 1980s. His career ended after his 1999 conviction of downloading child pornography. He was also convicted of child sexual abuse in 2006 and a series of sexual offences in 2015.
After performing under the name Paul Raven during the 1960s, Gadd changed his stage name to Gary Glitter in the early 1970s and had a sustained solo career with his hits "Rock and Roll ", "Do You Wanna Touch Me", "I Love You Love Me Love", "I'm the Leader of the Gang ", and "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again". He became known for his energetic live performances and glam rock persona of glitter suits, make-up, and platform boots. He has sold over 20 million records and had 26 hit singles, which spent a total of 180 weeks in the UK Singles Chart, with 12 reaching the top 10 and three of those charting at number one. Touch Me is Glitter's best-selling album, peaking at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart. As of 2001, he was listed in the top 100 most successful UK chart acts. His popularity waned during the late 1970s, and was followed by a successful comeback as a solo artist in the 1980s; his 1984 song "Another Rock and Roll Christmas" was one of the most played Christmas songs of all time. In 1998, his recording of "Rock and Roll" was listed as one of the top 1,001 songs in music history. He also released seven studio albums and at least 15 albums of compilations and live performances.
BBC News described Gadd's fall from grace as "dramatic" and "spectacular". He was arrested in 1997 and convicted and imprisoned in 1999 for downloading thousands of child pornography images and videos. He was acquitted of a charge of sexual activity with an underage girl in the 1970s. He later faced criminal charges and deportation from several countries in connection with both actual and suspected child sexual abuse. He was deported from Cambodia on suspected child sexual abuse charges in 2002 and settled in Vietnam, where a court found him guilty of obscene acts with minors in 2006. After serving his sentence, he was deported to the UK and was placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for life. After the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal, Gadd was arrested again in 2012, as part of Operation Yewtree. He was released on bail, and was charged in 2014 with historical child sex offences. In 2015, he was found guilty of one count of attempted rape, one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 13, and four counts of indecent assault; he was sentenced to 16 years in prison. He was released on licence in February 2023 after serving half of his sentence in prison, but recalled to prison in March of the same year after breaching the conditions of his licence. His parole bid was denied in June 2025. In 2015, Gadd was described by music journalist Alexis Petridis as a "public hate figure". Episodes of the music show Top of the Pops featuring his performances are no longer repeated.
Early life
Paul Francis Gadd was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, on 8 May 1944. He never knew his father, while his mother worked as a cleaner and was unmarried; she initially brought him up with the help of her mother. He was hard to control and was taken into local authority care at the age of 10, along with his brother. Although nominally a Protestant, he was educated at a Catholic school. He frequently ran away to London, visiting the nightclubs where he would later launch his career.Career
Early work as Paul Raven
By the time he was 16, Gadd was already performing at London clubs. His career grew as he appeared at such venues as the Two I's in Soho, and the Laconda and Safari Clubs. His repertoire consisted of early rock and roll standards and gentle ballads. Gadd gained his first break when film producer Robert Hartford-Davis discovered him and financed a recording session for Decca Records. In January 1960, at 15, under the stage name Paul Raven, he released his first single, "Alone in the Night".A year later, with a new manager, Vic Billings, he signed a new recording contract with Parlophone and worked with record producer George Martin, before Martin's association with the Beatles. Martin produced two singles, "Walk on Boy" and "Tower of Strength", but neither sold very well, and Gadd's recording career as Paul Raven stalled. By 1964, he was reduced to working as an assistant, and playing the warm-up for the British music television programme Ready Steady Go! He did numerous television commercials and film auditions, and in the course of those activities met arranger and record producer Mike Leander, who eventually helped revive his career. He auditioned for the role of the protagonist in the film Privilege, which was written and directed by Peter Watkins, known for the television drama The War Game.
Still using the name Paul Raven, Gadd joined the Mike Leander Show Band in early 1965. He was then deputised to produce a few recording sessions by such artists as Thane Russell and a Scottish freakbeat band, the Poets. After Leander's group disbanded, he formed Boston International with saxophonist John Rossall, and spent the following five years touring the UK and West Germany, recording occasionally. From 1968 to 1970, several singles including "Musical Man", "Goodbye Seattle" and a cover version of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" were released, his name briefly changed to Paul Monday. He sang the role of a priest in the original 1970 concept album of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Gary Glitter
As the glam movement took off in 1971, Gadd adopted the new stage name Gary Glitter, which he devised by playing alliteratively with letters of the alphabet, working backwards from Z. Other options included Terry Tinsel, Stanley Sparkle and Vicky Vomit.The song that made Gary Glitter's name began as a 15-minute jam session; whittled down to a pair of three-minute extracts it was released in 1972 as the A-side and B-side of a single called "Rock and Roll, Parts 1 and 2". Part 2 proved to be the more popular side in many countries, although it took about six months before it made its full impact, going to No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart and reaching the Top Ten in the United States, one of the few British glam rock records to do so. "Rock and Roll Part 1" was also a hit: in France it made number-one, and in the UK both sides were listed together on the charts.
Mainstream success
"Rock and Roll" was followed by other successes over the next three years. Glitter, backed by the Glittermen/the Glitter Band on stage, competed with David Bowie, Elton John, Sweet, Slade and T. Rex for domination of the charts. To reinforce his image, he reportedly owned 30 glitter suits and fifty pairs of silver platform boots. He also released several singles which became UK Top 10 hits, with "I'm the Leader of the Gang " being his first single to reach the number-one position in the summer of 1973, and "I Love You Love Me Love", its follow-up, his second. Even an atypical ballad, "Remember Me This Way", went to No. 3. He had eleven consecutive Top 10 singles, from "Rock and Roll, Parts 1 and 2" in 1972 to "Doing Alright with the Boys" in the summer of 1975. "Rock and Roll " caught on as a popular sports anthem in North America.Despite his success in the UK, Glitter never made the same impact in America where, at best, glam rock was seen as a curiosity. Glitter had one more entry on the US charts with "I Didn't Know I Loved You "; after that, the closest chart success for Glitter was a cover recording of "I'm the Leader of the Gang " by Brownsville Station.
After "Doing Alright with the Boys", Glitter won the award for Best Male Artist at the Saturday Scene music awards hosted by LWT. His next release was a cover of the Rivingtons' novelty nonsensical doo-wop song "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow", but it got no higher than No. 38 on the British charts. After subsequent releases stalled in similar fashion, Glitter announced his retirement from the music industry to start a family life with his new partner in early 1976. That same year, his first hits package, simply titled Greatest Hits, was released. It entered the UK Top 40 best-seller charts. A similar budget album, entitled I Love You Love Me Love, was issued by Hallmark Entertainment the following year.
Comeback and business interests
In 1976, Glitter faced declining record sales. He took a two-year-long exile, living in France and Australia, before returning to the UK, and beginning his comeback.Glitter's career took a downturn towards the end of the 1970s, leading him to declare bankruptcy in 1977, though he later blamed the high tax rate in the UK at the time. He entered bankruptcy a second time over unpaid tax in the 1990s. Under financial pressure, not even a pair of Top 40 hit singles could lift him all the way back. It took the post-punk audience, and some of its artists who still respected Glitter's work, to do that; he had been an influence on post-punk, new wave, Britpop and glam metal, as well as early punk rock itself. Around this time, Glitter settled into being a performer with a niche following that continued until his conviction for downloading child pornography in 1999. This helped provide the opportunity for Glitter to cut a dance medley of his greatest hits, "All That Glitters", which charted in 1981. Within three years he was playing 80 shows a year at colleges and nightclubs, and had chart hits "Dance Me Up" and "Another Rock and Roll Christmas".
Glitter's comeback was boosted in the 1980s by various guest spots and collaborations. In 1982, he appeared on the British Electric Foundation album Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One along with fellow pop/rock luminaries Sandie Shaw and Tina Turner. In 1988, the Timelords' "Doctoring the Tardis", a Doctor Who tribute that sampled "Rock and Roll ", reached the number-one spot. In due course, Glitter re-cut "Rock and Roll" with producer Trevor Horn and also "I'm the Leader of the Gang " with Girlschool. In the late 1980s, his hit singles were used to compile the Telstar-released C'mon... C'mon – The Gary Glitter Party Album. In 1989, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers put a large sample of "Another Rock and Roll Christmas" on their number-one UK hit "Let's Party". In 1987 Glitter received a ten-year driving ban and narrowly escaped imprisonment after a third conviction for drink-driving.
During the 1980s Glitter became a Buddhist and a vegetarian. He opened a restaurant near Leicester Square in 1991, with Gary's Glitter Bar being promoted under the slogan "Leader of the Snack", but the restaurant closed a few years later. Glitter also launched his own record label in the early 1990s, Attitude Records, after he lost his deal with Virgin Records. He had signed to Virgin after leaving Arista Records in 1984 after twelve years with the label. Attitude Records was merged into Machmain Ltd later in the 1990s, a music company owned by Glitter.
Glitter spent the next decade mostly as an in-demand live performer, and his back catalogue of recordings proved durable enough for several compilations to be successfully released. He appeared in billboard and poster advertisements for British Rail, in one of which he was shown attempting to look younger to obtain a Young Person's Railcard. He also released a new studio album, Leader II, in 1991.
The Leader, his best-selling autobiography, was published in 1991. He was the subject of an episode of This is Your Life in 1992. During the episode, Glitter's friend Tessa Dahl said: "Gary actually came to live in my house when he was between jobs ... My sister Lucy turned it into quite a successful venture because she used to pack the train full of her adolescent school friends in school uniforms and then skive school. And she'd bring them up to the house and charge them five pounds a head to come and gaze at Glitter." Glitter can be seen putting his fingers to his lips and telling Dahl to "shush" as Dahl begins to talk about the adolescent girls.
He was a surprise hit at the 1994 FIFA World Cup concert in Chicago, which was telecast live to forty-six countries. He played the Godfather in the 1996 revival tour of the Who's Quadrophenia. He also released a new single, a cover version of "The House of the Rising Sun". The English rock band Oasis interpolated a line from Glitter's 1973 chart hit "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again" on "Hello", the first track on their 1995 multi-million-selling album Morning Glory?; this meant he was legally credited as a co-writer.