12/09/2024
"Baby, Now That I've Found You" is a song written by Tony Macaulay and John Macleod, and performed by the Foundations. Part of the song was written in the same bar of a Soho tavern where Karl Marx is supposed to have written Das Kapital. The lyrics are a plea that an unnamed subject not break up with the singer.
According to Roy Delo of the group, The Ways and Means who were managed by Ron Fairway, they were offered the chance to record "Baby Now That I've Found You". They already had some success with their single, "Sea of Faces". One day Tony Macaulay came around and got out a guitar. They heard the song and said "yeh, it’s a nice catchy song, but it's not the sort of song for us", and to their later regret, turned it down. So the song was given to The Foundations.
Ron Fairway is the man who is credited with first discovering The Foundations. He became co-manager of the group. Barry Class was the man with the money while Fairway was the man with the connections, whose job was to find gigs for the band.
Issues
Following the success of the single there would be issues involving two men formerly associated with the band, Ron Fairway and Raymond Morrison.
Rock historian Roger Dopson described what took place between Ron Fairway and Barry Class as a behind the scenes struggle. Fairway was allegedly pushed out, leaving Class as the sole manager. Fairway made an attempt to sue the band, alleging that he was wrongfully dismissed as the group's co-manager. The band claimed he had resigned of his own accord. The December 2 issue of New Musical Express wrote that it was likely to be several months before the case would be heard. According to the 8 November issue of Melody Maker, Class stated that it was a friction of personalities which had been going on for about four months.
Raymond Morrison founded The Ramong Sound which evolved into The Foundations. As per the July 27 issue of Melody Maker, Raymond (Ray) Morrison had taken out legal action against The Foundations. During the court hearing that took three hours, Morrison claimed that he had discovered the talent of the group. He was unsuccessful in his bid to put freeze on a portion of the group's earnings. Morrison had served a six month sentence and had been released in July 1967. The case was heard by Judge Stamp who said in reference to the song, "Baby, Now That I've Found You", "I cannot understand how it can be suggested that a song which came into existence after Mr. Morrison had severed his connection with the group can be one in which he can have any share or interest". He also dismissed a similar motion against the Pye label.
Original recording and the Foundations
On 25 August, 1967 the Foundations released the song as their debut single. It was a sleeper, and for ten weeks it wasn't doing anything. Unlike The Ways and Means' single, "Sea of Faces" which was played on and became a hit on pirate radio stations, Radio City and Radio Caroline, "Baby, Now that I've Found You" wasn't played on them. Luckily for The Foundations, their song wasn't being played on the pirate stations at that stage. The newly launched BBC Radio 1 was avoiding those singles that were being played on the pirate stations.
Chart performance and success
After receiving airplay on BBC Radio 1, it met with great success. Having moved up from the previous week's no. 2 spot, "Baby, Now That I've Found You" replaced The Bee Gees' single, "Massachusetts" in the no. 1 spot of the Melody Maker Pop 30 chart. The Foundations now had their picture on the front page of the November 11 issue of Melody Maker. It was still at no. 1 the following week, confirming the two weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart status. It was also noted in the Melody Maker magazine that week that Ron Fairway was no longer director of Class Management. This left Barry Class in sole charge of things.
The 25 November 1967 issue of Disc and Music Echo wrote that The Foundations had qualified for the Silver Disc award for British sales of the disc reaching 250,000.
The record would become a number 11 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. [30] The song also reached number 1 on the Canadian RPM magazine charts on 10 February 1968.[citation needed]
The B side "Come On Back to Me" made the Record World, One Stop Top Ten chart in the Consolidated One Stop Detroit, Michigan section. It was no. 5 on the week of February 10, 1968.
The 10 February 1968 issue of Billboard ran a picture of three of the band members and Louis Benjamin, head of Pye Records presenting a gold record to them. This was to mark the million sales of their debut single. Also in the picture was the group's manager Barry Class
