A fundraising campaign has launched to make the archives of late Manchester dance music scene icon Tony Wilson available to the public.
The Kickstarter campaign was launched by the Tony Wilson Archive (TWA) and Manchester design studio DR.ME with the aim of sharing the art, memorabilia and music of The Haçienda and Factory Records cofounder with the public. It is aiming to raise £5,000.
TWA emphasises the significance of Wilson’s work to Manchester and the UK’s enduring musical legacy, but also as a journalist and presenter for the BBC, Channel 4 and Granada Television, and a champion of local acts including A Certain Ratio, Joy Division and Durutti Column. His reputation for promoting those artists led him to be known as Mr Manchester.
TWA has previously been at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and is currently in John Rylands Library’s British Pop Archive. All profits will be reinvested in Manchester’s music scene and emerging artists from the area.
The initial TWA collections include flyers Wilson designed for Factory Records, documents from his time there, screenprint posters of key artists like Durutti Column, photographs and more.
Wilson died in August 2007 from kidney cancer at the age of 57. Paying tribute to him at the time of his death, New Order drummer Stephen Morris said: “When it started out, everyone knew Tony because he was on telly, reading the news.
“He was the hippy guy who was kind of on your wavelength, and he did the What’s On programme. He was obviously listening to the same kind of music that we did. And then at a concert one night Bernard (Sumner) spotted him. Ian (Curtis) harangued him mercilessly for not putting us on television, because he’d had the Buzzcocks on, and I remember Ian really laying into him going ‘You’re a right twat Wilson, you are,’ and I think that impressed Tony more than anything.
“We gave him a copy of ‘An Ideal For Living’ (the band’s debut EP as Warsaw) and he played it on ’What’s On’. And the next thing you know… you can trace It all back to that one chaotic gig at Rafters. That was where it all started.”
He continued: “We definitely wouldn’t have become what we did, definitely not,” he declared. “I can tell you that without a shadow of a doubt. So many other things wouldn’t have become what they are. Manchester wouldn’t have become what it is without him. Things would have been so different.”
Wilson was also portrayed by Steve Coogan in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, which chronicled Manchester’s music scene between the ’70s and ’90s with a particular focus on Factory Records.
