No concept of how big Kylie was - Pete Waterman

Music legend Pete Waterman has said that he had no idea who Kylie Minogue was when he agreed to produce her first three albums.

The Coventry-born producer features in the Netflix documentary series Kylie, about the Australian singer's rise from the soap Neighbours to global stardom.

Waterman said it started with the Australian distributor of Stock, Aitken and Waterman records asking for help to produce her first efforts in the music business in the late 1980s, before her role as Charlene Mitchell in Neighbours made her a star in the UK.

"She turns up at the studio, we knocked together I Should Be So Lucky, and she was at the airport by 4 o'clock, to fly back to Australia for Neighbours.

I Should Be So Lucky was the second hit Stock, Aitken & Waterman produced for Kylie - the first was a re-mixed version of The Loco-Motion which had already been a number one in Australia.

Waterman said that his first impressions of Minogue were that she was very quiet, but determined.

"I remember Matt [Aitken] telling me 'this kid's got an amazing voice and is a great learner of a song'. We taught her the song once, she'd remembered it straight away. Because she's an actress, of course," he said.

However, Waterman said he did not have time to reflect on how the success of Neighbours, the Australian soap that made Minogue a household name in the UK, would affect her record sales.

"This sounds ridiculous [but] we had no concept of how big Kylie was."

"So here we are, Kylie's selling 2.5 million albums every time we put an album out and suddenly we're negotiating for a third album. And you're dealing with lawyers who are basically Madonna's lawyers. So you've gone from a little girl in Neighbours to the hottest lawyer on the planet who's looking for millions of pounds in his pocket."

Stock, Aitken and Waterman went on to produce four albums for Minogue, between 1988 and 1991.

He said that when she approached him to be in the documentary about her life and career, it was a simple decision.

"It wasn't a thought, it was - yeah, where do you want me to be?

"This is Kylie from the four men in her life. What an amazing honour that is, from Stoke Heath to world domination! My God, what a place to be!"

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