Jonathan King (born Kenneth George King; 6 December 1944) is an English singer, songwriter and record producer. He 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. King's career in the music industry was effectively ended in 2001 when he was convicted of sexually abusing five teenage boys.
King discovered and named the rock band 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", "Hooked on a Feeling", "Una Paloma Blanca" and "It Only Takes a Minute"; between September 1971 and 1972 he produced 6 top 30 singles in the UK.
In the 1980s, King appeared on radio and television in the UK, including on the BBC's Top of the Pops and Entertainment USA. In 1990–91 he produced the Brit Awards and in 1997 he selected and produced the winning British entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, "Love Shine a Light" by Katrina and the Waves.
In September 2001, King was convicted of child sexual abuse and sentenced to seven years in prison for having sexually assaulted five boys, aged 14 and 15, in the 1980s. In November 2001, he was acquitted of 22 similar charges. He was released on parole in March 2005. A further trial for sexual offences against teenage boys resulted in several not guilty verdicts and the trial being abandoned in June 2018.
King was born in a nursing home in Bentinck Street, Marylebone, London, the first child of George Frederick John "Jimmy" King, managing director at Tootal, a tie manufacturer, and his wife, Ailsa Linley Leon (1916–2007), a former actress. Originally from New Jersey, Jimmy King had moved to England when he was 14. He attended Oundle School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining the American Field Service during World War II and later Tootal Ties and Shirts as managing director.
King's birth was a forceps delivery and a muscle on his upper lip was affected during it, giving him his slightly crooked smile. After he was born, the family lived in Gloucester Place, Marylebone, then moved to Surrey, where King and his younger brothers, James and Anthony, were raised in one of multiple properties that constitute Brookhurst Grange, near Ewhurst.
King was sent to boarding school, first as a weekly boarder to pre-prep school in Hindhead, Surrey, then, when he was eight, to Stoke House Preparatory School in Seaford, East Sussex. A year later, in 1954, after his father died from a heart attack, Brookhurst Grange was sold and the family moved to Cobbetts, a cottage in nearby Forest Green.
Music became his passion around this time. King would save his allowance for train trips to London to watch My Fair Lady, The King and I, Irma la Douce, Salad Days, Damn Yankees and Kismet from the cheap seats in the balcony. He also discovered pop music and bought his first single, Guy Mitchell's "Singing the Blues" (1956).
In 1958, King became a boarder at Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey. He wrote that he "loved Charterhouse immediately", with its history and "every possible area of encouragement from sport to intellectual pursuits." Unlike at Stoke House, there were other boys there who appreciated pop music. He bought a transistor radio and earphones and joined the "under the bedclothes" club, listening to Tony Hall, Jimmy Savile, Don Moss and Pete Murray on Radio Luxembourg, and keeping track of the New Musical Express charts. The music, particularly Buddy Holly, Adam Faith, Roy Orbison and Gene Pitney, made him "ache with desire":
Since "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" swept me off my feet, I had become a raving pop addict, desperate for a fix every few seconds. I kept thick notebooks packed with copies of the weekly charts, adverts for new products, pages of predictions of future hits, reviews and comments about current artistes. Looking at them now, there was no way I could ever have avoided a future in the music industry.
King left Charterhouse in 1962 to attend Davies's, a London crammer, for his A levels. With his wages from a job stacking shelves in a supermarket, he made a demo of himself the following year singing "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" and "Fool's Paradise" Eden Kane song with the Ted Taylor Trio, a professional group in Rickmansworth. Wearing a pinstripe suit and trainers, he approached John Schroeder of Oriole Records and told him he could make a hit record. "I have been studying the music industry for the last three years and it is one big joke," Schroeder reported him as saying. "Anyone can make it if they're clever and can fool a few people." After hearing King's demo, Schroeder booked a studio session with an orchestra but suspected that King could not sing in tune.
King also joined a local band in Cranleigh, the Bumblies, as manager/producer and occasional singer, sometimes wearing thigh-length boots and long black gloves, during the band's appearances at birthday parties and similar.
King failed the scholarship exam for Trinity College, Cambridge, but he was offered a place in 1963 after an interview. He accepted, but first took a gap year and spent six months travelling with a round-the-world ticket from his mother. Staying mostly in youth hostels, he visited Greece, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and the United States, including Hawaii, where, in June 1964, he met the manager of the Beatles, Brian Epstein. In October that year King began to study for his degree in English literature at Cambridge, lodging in Jesus Lane.
Around the time King began at Cambridge, the Bumblies (featuring Terry Ward) recorded a song he had written and produced, "Gotta Tell", which King persuaded Fontana Records to release. It appeared in April 1965 and "rightly sank without trace", King writes, but the experience of taking it from label to label, and then trying to find people to play it, taught him how to promote a record. He called DJs and television producers to ask them to listen to it and, because it was Easter, delivered hundreds of vinyl singles to music critics complete with Easter eggs he had painted himself. King and the Bumblies recorded another of his songs, "All You've Gotta Do", with producer Joe Meek, but nothing came of it.
Keen to break into the music business, King contacted Tony Hall of Decca Records, who put him in touch with The Zombies' producers Ken Jones and Joe Roncoroni. King played them one of his songs, "Green is the Grass", and they asked him to write a B side. He offered them six songs, including "Everyone's Gone to the Moon", which became the A side. They also suggested he change his name.
Decca released "Everyone's Gone to the Moon" in August 1965. Relying on the contacts he had made while promoting "Gotta Tell", King plugged it relentlessly to radio stations to get it on their playlists. DJ Tony Windsor of Radio London, a pirate station broadcast from the MV Galaxy, was the first to play it, not only once, but three times in a row. (Windsor later said he did this only because of a problem with his other turntable.) It sold 26,000 copies the next day.
When the song made number 18 in the charts, King was invited onto the BBC's Top of the Pops. The following day it sold 35,000 copies. It peaked at number four in the UK (the Beatles were at number one with "Help!") and 17 in the US, and was awarded a gold disc. Nina Simone, Bette Midler, and Marlene Dietrich all covered it. Dietrich sang "Everyone's Gone to the Moon" and its B side, "Summer's Coming", at the Golders Green Hippodrome in October 1966, with an arrangement by Burt Bacharach. The single reached No. 17 in the US Billboard Hot 100 and was one of the songs carried on the Apollo 11 Moon mission. In 2019, the track was included in the soundtrack of the Hollywood film In The Shadow of the Moon over the closing credits.