I was desperate to work with Billy Bragg,” is the simple answer Martin Goldschmidt gives when asked about the inspiration behind what he believes was the UK’s first artist services deal, pioneered by his Cooking Vinyl label in 1993.

“We claim to be the first to have done it and nobody’s tried to correct us,” he adds with a smile.
The actual architect of the deal, Goldschmidt says, was Bragg’s manager Peter Jenner, who outlined the services structure that has ...