Joe Meek

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Joe Meek (April 5, 1929 – February 3, 1967) was a pioneering British record producer and composer who is now acknowledged as one of the world's first independent producers. His most famous work was on The Tornados' hit "Telstar" (1962), which would become the first record by a British group to hit #1 in the US charts. Meek received the Ivor Novello Award for his composition of this "Best-Selling A-Side" 1962.

Robert George Meek was born in Newent, Gloucestershire. A stint in the Royal Air Force as a radar operator, spurred a life-long interest in electronics and outer space. From 1953 he worked for the Midlands Electricity Board. He used the resources of his company to develop his interest in electronics and music production, including acquiring a disc-cutter and producing his first record.

Despite being tone deaf and dyslexic, he displayed a remarkable facility for producing successful commercial recordings and he worked on 245 singles, of which 45 were major hits (top fifty or better). He pioneered studio tools such as the compressor, and effects like echo and reverb, as well as sampling. Unlike other producers, his search was for the 'right' sound rather than for a catchy musical tune, and throughout his brief career he single-mindedly followed his quest to create a unique 'sonic signature' for every record he produced.

He left the electricity board to work as a sound engineer at Radio Luxembourg. He made his breakthrough with his work on Ivy Benson's Music for Lonely Lovers. His technical ingenuity was first shown on the Humphrey Lyttelton jazz single "Bad Penny Blues" (1956). He built his own home studio at 304 Holloway Road, Islington, above a leathergoods store (now a bicycle shop). He then put enormous effort into Denis Preston's Landsdowne studio but tensions between Preston and Meek soon saw Meek forced out.

At a time when studio engineers were still wearing white coats and assiduously trying to maintain clarity and fidelity, Meek was producing everything on the three floors of his "home" studio and was never afraid to distort or manipulate the sound if it created the effect he was seeking. For John Leyton's hit song "Johnny Remember Me" he placed the violins on the stairs, the drummer almost in the bathroom, and the brass section on a different floor entirely.

Meeks was indisputably one of the first producers to grasp and fully exploit the possibilities of the modern recording studio. His innovative techniques -- physically separating instruments, treating instruments and voices with echo and reverb, processing the sound through his fabled home-made electronic devices, the combining of separately-recorded performances and segments into a painstakingly constructed composite recording -- comprised a major breakthrough in sound production.

Up to that time, the standard technique for pop, jazz and classical recordings alike was to record all the performers in one studio, playing together in real time, a legacy of the days before magnetic tape, when performances were literally cut live, directly onto disc. Meek's style was also substantially different from that of his close contemporary Phil Spector, who typically created his famous "Wall Of Sound" productions by making live recordings of large ensembles that used multiples of major instruments like bass, guitar and piano to create the complex sonic backgrounds for his singers.

When his landlords, who lived downstairs, felt that the noise was too much, they would indicate so with a broom on the ceiling. Joe would signal his contempt by placing loudspeakers in the stairwell and turning up the volume.

In January 1960, with the promoter William Barrington-Coupe, Meek founded Triumph Records. Indifferent business results and Meek again proving difficult to work with soon led to Meek leaving. He went on to produce records for Wilfred Alonzo Banks as RGM Sound from his home studio. His first hit from his own studio was John Leyton's "Johnny Remember Me" (1961), produced in collaboration with expatriate Australian entrepreneur Robert Stigwood. This single was cleverly promoted by Stigwood, who managed to get Leyton to perform the song several times in the popular TV soap opera Harpers West One in which he was making a series of guest appearances. Meek's last big success was with The Honeycombs' "Have I The Right" in 1964.

Joe Meek produced in 1960 an "outer space music fantasy" concept album I Hear A New World with a band called The Blue Men, which was shelved for decades except for some EP tracks taken from it.

He passed up the chance to work with David Bowie, The Beatles (the latter he once described as "just another bunch of noise, copying other people's music") and Rod Stewart (he preferred to record instrumentals with the band he sang with - The Moontrekkers).

Meek was obsessed with the occult and the idea of "the other side". He would set up tape machines in graveyards in a vain attempt to record voices from beyond the grave. In particular, he had an obssession with Buddy Holly and other dead rock and roll musicians.

His efforts were often hindered by his paranoia (Meek was convinced that Decca Records would put hidden microphones behind his wallpaper in order to steal his ideas), drug use and attacks of rage or depression. He had been charged with "importuning for immoral purposes" in 1963 and his then illegal homosexuality put him under further pressure.

On February 3, 1967, the eighth anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, Meek killed his landlady and then himself with a shotgun at his Holloway Road home/studio. A blue plaque has since been placed at the location of the studio to commemorate Meek's life and work.

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