Terry Slater, the first manager of Norwegian pop group a-ha, has died at the age of 85. Slater was instrumental in launching the band's career, which saw them achieve international fame with their 1985 hit Take On Me.
Took a chance on three unknowns
a-ha was formed in 1982 by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, Magne Furuholmen and Morten Harket. Slater, who had been a board member at EMI, took a chance on the then-unknown trio in 1983. He managed them for 12 years after they signed with Warner Brothers Records.
'The singularly most important person'
In a tribute posted on July 29, Furuholmen remembered Slater as the man who "took a chance on three scruffy, hopeful Norwegians living in London squalor with a burning ambition and some degree of talent." Slater also helped launch the careers of Queen, Sex Pistols, Kate Bush and Duran Duran.
Furuholmen credited Slater with pioneering the first Norwegian artists to find global success with major hits topping charts around the world. "[We can] eventually now look back on a more than 40-year international career in music as Norway's still biggest ever international act," he said.
"Terry is the singularly most important person in A-ha's music career," Furuholmen declared, later calling him a "kind of father figure and good friend".
'Thank you, dear Terry'
Furuholmen went on to say: "He is without a doubt the person with the greatest impact on our professional lives and, I dare say, the lives of all our families."
He concluded: "Thank you, dear Terry – for everything. I hope you are inimitably chuckling away in some other dimension – playing bass and goofing off with your friends Phil and Don and all the other music greats who are no longer gracing us with their talent – most of whom you knew and who knew and appreciated you."
In the 1960s, Slater joined Arrow.
