Carole Broughton

In 1961, when career counselors arrived at 14-year-old Carole Broughton‘s U.K. school, she aspired to work in the fashion business. But the counselors dissuaded her from that path — and, after Broughton said her uncle worked in book publishing, steered her to song publishing instead. Afterward, her mother accompanied her to a job interview at Mills Music in London, which became her entry into a six-decade career in the music business, during which she worked with acts including ABBA, The Zombies, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Barry Manilow and British crooners Adam Faith and Anthony Newley.

“Growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, parents would [say to their daughters], ‘What do you want a career for? You’re only going to get married and have kids.’ You’d go on a short typing course and become a secretary,” Broughton says. “I just liked to get my teeth stuck into something and see it through.”

In her quiet, methodical way, Broughton was a pioneering female executive in the music business, solving technical problems like logging songwriting data into early computer systems. She started at a time when men ran just about everything, but over the years grew into a formidable executive. By the ’70s, she began to encounter more women at conferences like MIDEM in Cannes, France, but women who ran companies were rare. “I do remember one incident where somebody said they’d like to speak to a director of the company, and I said, ‘I am the director,’ and they said, ‘Well, I don’t like to speak to a female,’” she recalls. “That actually happened once!”

“Obviously, there were a few issues,” she adds.

Today, Broughton, 77, is MD of Bocu, a British independent label and publishing group that has had stakes in early Genesis masters and ABBA’s catalog, among many others. She recently sold The Zombies their master recording catalog, including classic hits such as “She’s Not There” and “Time of the Season,” after managing it for 59 years. “I wouldn’t say [the business] has changed for the better, but it’s obviously more lucrative,” she says.

Broughton was 15 when she began shopping sheet music for hits like Nat King Cole‘s “A Blossom Fell” to local bandleaders. At the time, she found herself at the center of Swinging London and the British Invasion. “Elton John was the tea boy,” Broughton says of her time on Denmark Street, the capital of Music Row, a pub-filled neighborhood where The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and Small Faces made early recordings. “David Bowie used to travel in on the same train. He’d have his ballet shoes in his bag.”

Broughton’s early days in the music business were “a magical time,” she says, when the denizens of Denmark Street piled into pubs and cafes and made lifelong contacts. Back then, she befriended Robert Wise, who printed her companies’ sheet music and in 2020 bought The Zombies’ publishing catalog from Broughton’s Marquis Enterprises.

“Just fun days, really,” Broughton recalls of ’60s London. “You’d have a meal out in the evening, and you’d get home, and my parents would have another meal sitting in the oven.”

In her spare time, Broughton, an Elvis Presley fan, traveled the United Kingdom with her then-husband, who served as bassist in a group called The Four that was opening for British rock star Billy Fury. (The Four supported The Rolling Stones, too, but Broughton and her husband didn’t interact with Mick and company.) “If you traveled in a van — say you had a husband or a boyfriend in a band — you always had to keep the curtain shut. They didn’t want the fans to know you had wives or girlfriends,” she recalls. “Billy Fury wanted to have screaming fans — we’d have to run up to the stage and try to grab hold of the artists. Then the bouncers would come and throw you off the stage. A lot of that was planned.”

At work, Broughton learned the nuances of copyright and realized “publishing had more longevity.” Contemporary hits might come and go, but memorable songs made money forever, covered by bandleaders, recorded by other artists, licensed to movies and TV shows and more. When she was 17, a friend at Essex Music, a publishing company down the street, called Broughton to say she was leaving to get married and recommended her for the job. Soon, another employee who worked for publisher Joe Roncoroni and producer Ken Jones left their company, Marquis Enterprises, which evolved from commercial jingles to production.

As the company’s signees, from The Zombies to Jonathan King — who had a hit with 1965’s “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” — became successful, Marquis expanded, working with stars from Hedgehoppers Anonymous to Genesis. Broughton took on more responsibilities as the company grew into an umbrella organization encompassing as many as seven publishing and production entities — and when Roncoroni and Jones died, she took more control. “When Joe died, we bought the shares from various people — Joe’s widow, and the boys [The Zombies] were happy to sell their shares at the time. They probably were short a few bob.”

Banding with another veteran publisher, John Spalding, Broughton became co-director of the company, renamed Bocu Music. (Spalding had looked after the publishing for the Fantasy and Prestige labels for years, including the Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog as well as those of jazz giants such as Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis.) Bocu published the B-side of ABBA’s first single, 1974 Eurovision winner “Waterloo,” and, within a few years, Broughton and Spalding became the Swedish supergroup’s co-agent and sub-publisher, developing a close relationship with the band (until Universal Music Group took over the rights in 2016).

“It started getting really busy,” Broughton says.

Broughton toured with ABBA in 1977, “helping backstage with the ironing of the outfits,” she recalls. Over time, she used the contacts she made with ABBA to help her old friends from the ’60s, The Zombies. Soon, she was working in the early synch business, pitching songs to studios and advertisers by sending out tapes. The Zombies were often beneficiaries, landing “Time of the Season” in the 1990 film Awakenings and “She’s Not There” in a Chanel spot in 2015.

When Spalding died in 2011, Broughton took over Bocu. Now that The Zombies own their masters, she looks after 700 remaining copyrights, including Kid Creole and the Coconuts‘ “There But for the Grace of God Go I,” Johnny Logan’s 1980 Eurovision winner “What’s Another Year” and, as ever, King’s “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon.”

Broughton’s career-long focus on publishing, as opposed to working at record labels, served her well in the early 2000s when mp3s, Napster and online piracy threatened to destroy the album sales business. Licensing copyrights for films, TV shows and advertisements kept Bocu afloat. “We still had great copyrights and masters that were in demand,” she says. When YouTube and Spotify kicked in, she noticed that new fans were discovering her clients’ music — particularly The Zombies — more than they ever had.

There were issues with streaming licenses and how to pay artists and songwriters at first, but eventually performance rights organizations such as the United Kingdom’s PRS for Music sorted out the details. Although Broughton’s company has expanded beyond the music business in recent years — it owns a fish restaurant in Essex and a portfolio of rental properties run by her 33-year-old son — she remains active in Bocu. “I should probably have long since retired,” she says. “But this business gets in your blood, doesn’t it?”

The best advice I’ve received is… When I was first starting out, a secretary I took over from always used to say, “Listen and learn, even if it’s behind closed doors.” If your boss was in a meeting, always have an ear out, so you’d be one step ahead. If someone wanted a file on something, you were already there. She retired and I stepped in as secretary and I was still only about 17. I had staff under me. I just was always determined to make the best of a situation. I’d be there with the tea or the coffee, or the file.

My big break was… Just coming into this industry.

Something most people don’t understand is… The complexities of how copyright works. When you start explaining how money is collected, people outside the industry are always quite astounded by how complex it all can be.

Dealing with musicians is… My two main ones have been ABBA and The Zombies, and you couldn’t have worked with nicer people. I know there used to be a saying in the industry — “All artists are ‘dot-dot-dot,’” and not a very nice word — but I only had good experiences. You take them under your wing. I always called The Zombies “my boys.”