Profile of Joe Meek on Famous Like Me

Joe Meek (April 5, 1929–February 3, 1967) was a pioneering British record producer and composer who is now acknowedged as one of the world's first independent producers. His most famous work was on the Tornados hit Telstar (1962).

Despite being tone deaf and dyslexic, he displayed a remarkable facility for producing successful commercial recording 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, amd throughout his brief career he single-mindedly followed his quest to create a unique 'sonic signature' for every record he produced.

Robert George Meek was born in Newent, Gloucestershire. 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.

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 (where a blue plaque commemorating Joe's work is now proudly displayed). 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 the 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 a popular TV soap opera 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.

He passed up the chance to work with both David Bowie and The Beatles (the latter he described as "just another bunch of noise, copying other people's music").

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 at his Holloway Road home/studio and then himself with a shotgun.

Books

• John Repsch: The Legendary Joe Meek (1989)
• Barry Cleveland: Creative Music Production - Joe Meek's BOLD Techniques (2001)

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