The details of how Carol Wilson signed Sting\u2019s publishing well before the Police had formed are instructive for illuminating her leverage \u2014 what Mike Howlett half-jokingly called her \u201cdowry\u201d \u2014 within the Virgin group. They also illuminate the nature of the publishing contract that Dindisc and Virgin regularly offered their recording artists. In 1976, Wilson and Howlett drove up to Newcastle to check out Last Exit, a band that had sent Virgin a demo. As Howlett recalls:<\/p>\n
I go up with her and we hear them playing in a room up above a pub. There\u2019s Sting on vocals, and the band is very good. I thought they sounded like Weather Report with Stevie Wonder on vocals, is what I said. [chuckles] She could see he was also cute and signed him for publishing and tried to persuade them all to come move to London and do some gigs around London because no way in hell people wanted to go up to Newcastle in those days. They wouldn’t, but Sting would. So, we helped him. He actually was married, too, by that time to Frances Tomelty, who’s a very fine Irish actress, who ended up doing quite a bit of TV stuff and West End acting, but she never got into film\u2026 And they had a baby, as well, young Joe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Last Exit\u2019s struggles to get signed in the era of punk\u2019s ascent as well the members\u2019 indecision over moving to London are described at great length in Sting\u2019s memoir, Broken Music<\/i>. He recalls Wilson\u2019s entrance in his career:<\/p>\n
In this new climate it is difficult to get very much interest in our music, which the record companies seem to consider too sophisticated for the current taste. They are polite and appreciative, but it is clear that we are not what they are looking for. The only company to show a genuine interest is Virgin Publishing, part of Richard Branson\u2019s burgeoning empire. Virgin\u2019s publishing director, a petite blonde named Carol Wilson, loves \u201cI Burn for You,\u201d the delicate waltz I had written for Frances that has proved so popular with the audience at the [Newcastle] Gosforth Hotel. The song is tender and romantic and may as well be a madrigal played on a lute, so distant is it from the current fashion for raucous anthems of disaffection. Despite this, Carol still wants us to come to London and record some songs with a view to signing us to a publishing deal, hopefully as a first step to securing the band a recording deal.<\/p>\n
Needless to say we are over the moon. An expenses-paid trip to London, recording in a big studio, and just the simple compliment of being taken seriously by one more person in the big city is enough to set our heads spinning\u2026<\/p>\n
The next day is one of mixed fortune. Carol, despite the sketchy nature of the demos, can hear the value in the songs, and she offers us a publishing deal. It is a fifty-fifty deal, wherein the publisher takes half of whatever royalties the songs generate. For example, when a record is sold, the royalty earned is split down the middle between the artist and the songwriter. The publisher then takes half the writer\u2019s share. As we don\u2019t have a recording deal at the time it all seems academic to us. We just want someone to help us out, and if it means signing away fifty percent of an improbable future, then so be it. We are told this is a standard contract, and as none of us has ever seen a publishing contract before, we look suitably grateful, hoping this is a significant step toward realizing our dream (Sting 2003: 184-185).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n