Paul McCartney donates £15,000 to the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre

From Club Sandwich N°47/48, Spring 1988:

Two days after its release on 5th November last, All the Best became significant as well as hugely popular. In a highly imaginative move, Paul and EMI agreed to give 12 1/2 pence each to the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre for every copy of AW The Best sold on 7th November, the first Saturday it was on sale. Happily, 60,000 copies were sold that day, so the Centre benefited to the tune of £15,000. The Centre is in London’s Kentish Town and was founded in 1974 by Doctors Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins, both Americans. Dr. Nordoff unfortunately died the following year, but the Centre’s reputation and influence have grown steadily since, so that therapists bearing the City University’s Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Diploma teach in schools both in Britain and abroad and in various London hospitals. The aim of the Centre is to treat children with all kinds of handicap through the medium of music and to train musicians to become music therapists. Up to ten post-graduates per year study to obtain the diploma and the record industry has long been active in fund-raising. The Complete Works promotions agency arranges functions for the Centre on an expenses-only basis.

Mike McCraith of the agency told me more. “We make up programmes for various functions, for instance banger racing at Wimbledon Stadium last Sunday (27th March), which raised £30,000. It was organized by Dave Dee, who does a hell of a lot of work for the Centre. I’m on the committee of the inaugural Music Therapy May Day Golf Classic at Silvermere in Surrey and the record industry’s June lunch has been going for eleven or twelve years. The lunch is the main fundraiser: it usually raises about £100,000“. As Bob Geldofsaid after Live Aid, it’s not enough to make one grand gesture: the effort must be sustained. So we are delighted to report that Paul’s contribution with All The Best inaugurated Record Retailing Day, an annual event to be, marked by similar donations. Millions find Paul McCartney’s music positive and uplifting, so it is fitting to find him promoting the nourishing properties of music through the Nordoff-Robbins Centre as well. As our picture shows, he certainly enjoyed his meeting with three year-old Ruby Hodin-Brown, a patient at the Centre.

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