Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley’s long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson.

As well as raising money for this fund, the secondary aim of Manchester With Love is to demonstrate, celebrate and share the diversity and unity which continues to permeate from the city’s streets via its music. In our opinion, there’s no better metaphor and Hammo’s unique artwork sums this up perfectly. Yes, and that was in the air in the 1970s, I think. Some characters showed you what you could get up to. It’s difficult to put your finger on what it is. Technology perhaps gets in the way now. Then, there was a weird freedom. You were plotting things using phone boxes, or visiting people in ad hoc ways, and that created these instant micro-societies in ways that don’t happen now. You belonged to this sect, and within that the rules were encouraging you to try things out. You realise now, with someone like Wilson, a large amount of this was rooted in how he learnt, how he had these experiences and started to create who he was, and construct a purpose in life. In one hand that was quite formal, and had a career trajectory as a broadcaster, but on the other hand was quite formless. There was no real precedent for doing that. In the classic dismal, dark 1970s, that was inspirational, it was an opening up of possibilities. You could fight against how you were appeared to have been being manipulated by banal forces. And you were prepared to be manipulated by other forces, that were much more exciting.There’s probably no better person to write a biography of “TV talking head, pop culture conceptualist, entrepreneur and bullshitter” Tony Wilson than Paul Morley, a man who formed an esoteric writing career in his Manchester orbit. Still, Morley immediately understands the pitfalls of this enterprise: he calls Wilson “beautiful, foolish, dogmatic, charming. Impossible.” This moving portrait of Manchester from the late 1970s onwards is richer, more complicated and thoughtful than mere biography; a history, of sorts, of a city long since passed into memory.

Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book.The compilation pairs internationally known artists with local heroes and underground wonders. All are from Manchester. Artists will be announced over the next week. It took ten years for you to complete this book, but really its genesis is about thirty years prior to that, with you being to some extent groomed by Tony Wilson over the years to write about his life. Like the man, From Manchester with Love is astute, discursive, unconventional, passionate, intelligent, wide ranging, interesting, questioning, insightful, and fun.... and ten years well spent. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North.

Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Hacienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. That’s what was intriguing to me about Wilson when I was becoming a writer in the 1970s, that intellectual ambition and what they call pretension, which is being condescending about the idea of learning and that you would want to tell other people about your learning. That’s never been very fashionable or accepted in this country. But that was a great part of Tony’s nature, especially coming out of Manchester where you are expected to be pinned down to a certain kind of character. Morley is great at capturing the almost incomprehensible power of a single gig, of how, six weeks later, when the Pistols play again, the audience have all cut their hair, tightened their trousers, altered their attitude. He understands how punk changed Wilson’s life, diverted him from becoming, as he says, “an amiable mainstream national figure, even a treasure”; how it “rekindled the radical teenage rebel inside him, and it never really let him go”. He’s also fantastic at evoking the atmosphere of a time (especially the grim 1970s) and how a city’s history affects all those who live there. He has a way with a list, and starts each chapter with one that describes Wilson at that moment. He writes as only he can, in long, descriptive, flowery sentences, each a mind map in itself.

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It took Morley 10 years to complete this book and there’s a lot in it. Fifty-one chapters, three sections: the central, shortest part is, cleverly, about the Sex Pistols’ 1976 gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, the one attended by around 40 people, whose lives were changed because of it. Morley was there. Wilson said he was there, too, though Morley doesn’t remember him. It doesn’t matter. Morley has a way with a list, and starts each chapter with one that describes Wilson at that moment Alan Moore’s first short story collection covers 35 years of what The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s author calls his “ludicrous imaginings”. Across these nine stories, some of which can barely be called short, there’s a wonderful commitment to fantastical events in mundane towns. His old comic fans might enjoy What We Can Know About Thunderman the most, a spectacular tirade against a superhero industry corrupted from such lofty, inventive beginnings. The World: A Family History Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley's long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson. I had no idea that Wilson had been taught by Raymond Williams at Cambridge, and you make quite a lot of the significance of that. Funds raised by this compilation will go directly to We Love Manchester emergency fund, run by the British Red Cross in tandem with Manchester City Council.