Denis Preston

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Sydney Denis Preston ( 1916 - 1979 ) was a British music producer and jazz critic . He is considered "Europe's first independent record producer".

Live and act

Preston worked as a jazz critic, presenter for the BBC and journalist in the 1940s ; In 1945 he sponsored a ragtime concert at Toynbee Hall, London. In 1948 he founded the sub-label London Records for Decca Records in New York . In 1950 he conducted an interview with Sidney Bechet and in the early 1950s produced recordings of calypso musicians such as Lord Kitchener , Lord Beginner and Freddy Grant for parlophones and melotones . In 1954 he founded Record Supervision Ltd , which produced licensed recordings for major labels. In the following year he signed a license agreement with Pye Records and produced for this label until 1959 records by Chris Barber , Acker Bilk , Alex Welsh , Sandy Brown , Al Fairweather , Terry Lightfoot and Kenny Baker . He also produced Lonnie Donegan's early skiffle recordings.

In 1956 he founded the Lansdowne Studios in London (including the affiliated label Lansdowne Records ). In the same year he produced with the sound engineer Joe Meek Humphrey Lytteltons record Bad Penny Blues for the label Parlophone . After Meek left Lansdowne Studios in 1960, Preston founded his own recording studio.

In the early 1960s Preston worked for EMI in its Columbia label. In addition to most of the aforementioned musicians, he now also produced Ken Colyer and Mike Cotton . Preston's productions were not limited to traditional jazz , but ranged from folk to modern jazz to flamenco music . He produced Neil Ardley , Jack Elliott , Roger Whittaker , Cleo Laine , Joe Harriott and Stan Tracey as well as Kofi Ghanaba and Amancio D'Silva, who were influenced by African and Indian music .

After his death in 1979, the Sunday Times, in its obituary, recognized Preston as "perhaps the greatest person to emerge from the British jazz business". He was the cousin of the historian (and jazz critic) Eric Hobsbawm .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.oxforddnb.com  
  2. ^ The Joe Meek Page
  3. ↑ John Cowley: London is the Place: Caribbean Music in the Context of the Empire 1900-60 (PDF; 297 kB)
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Paul Adams: Denis Preston and the Record Supervision story . In: Sing Song Entertainment Publicity ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.singsongpr.biz
  5. ^ Pye Launches Spoken Albums in Billboard (magazine) , May 1, 1961, p. 3.
  6. ↑ Elaine Delmar
  7. ^ Spencer Leigh: Telstar - The Joe Meek Story, New Ambassadors Theater, London (2005) in The Independent
  8. ↑ Kofi Ghanaba: Ghanaian drummer and bandleader in The Times
  9. ↑ Eric Hobsbawm "Diary" , London Review of Books , 32:10, 27 May 2010, p.41
personal data
SURNAME Preston, Denis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British music producer and music critic
DATE OF BIRTH 1916
DATE OF DEATH 1979