
DC Editor Adam writes…
Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Joe Meek, legendary independent record producer and composer of Telstar who worked out of his flat at 304 Holloway Road.
By 3rd February 1967 Meek was haunted
variously by a bogus plagiarism lawsuit, blackmail cases relating to his outing
as a gay man, fiscal woes and the seemingly terminal waning of his reputation
as a hitmaker. Taking a shotgun Meek murdered his landlady Violet Shenton
before, in that most chilling of news clichés, turning the gun on himself.
Joe Meek's most famous record
remains 1962's Telstar, which he wrote and produced for the Tornados. They took
it to the top of the British and US charts – the first British group to have a
number one record on the Billboard chart.
One of the record's many oddities
is that the player of the lead instrument – Geoff Goddard* on the Clavioline – was
not even a regular member of the band.
(*See the playlist below for Geoff
Goddard's own stab at pop stardom.)
The clavioline – but not ol' Geoff
Goddard – can bee seen in one of the Tornados’ early publicity shots, sitting
on the shoulder of Roger Lavern, the quintet’s keyboard player…
The clavioline was a forerunner of
the analog synthesiser. A small instrument – a three-octave keyboard – with a
separate amp, it was invented in 1947 by a Frenchman called Constant Martin. In
its day, it was considered to offer a fairly realistic recreation of up to 30
brass and string instruments – as well as, according to the publicity material,
“the beautiful natural voice of the instrument”.
It was sold with a set of metal
brackets to attach it to the underside of a piano keyboard, or with optional
tripod. The clavioline later made it onto a Beatles track, with John Lennon at
the keys on 1967’s Baby You’re a Rich Man. Outside of Telstar, its most famous
appearance is on the skipping, descending scale of Del Shannon’s Runaway.
Back in '62 its then futuristic,
spacey sound captured the imagination of the questing Meek, and a hit was born.
Joe Meek was born in
Gloucestershire in 1929. As a child he was obsessed with electronics and
during his national service he was a radar technician in the RAF. A tempestuous
character, Meek was the first British independent record producer, recording
his own masters and licensing them to the major labels from his north London
flat. His legend is based on his meticulous love of sound recording, his
unorthodox and ingenious recording methods (recording the drum kit in the bathroom to add echo, for example) and his technical acumen.
Meek was a rare beast, a hybrid of
boffin and impresario – part scientist, part song and dance man. And it was the
showbiz aspect of this split personality that sent him in pursuit of a gimmick
– a USP for each record and act.
On Johnny Remember Me*, the
haunting echo and wailing wind effect is memorable; with The Honeycombs* Meek
made the female drummer Honey Lantree the focus of the publicity; the novelty
Eddie Cochran tribute from his protégé and sometime Tornados bass player Heinz,
Just Like Eddie* is another good example.
(*See playlist below)
Meek’s genius on Telstar was to
give us not just one gimmick, but three minutes and twenty seconds of gimmick.
Every second counts in this landmark production.
The title of the song is taken
from the AT&T communications satellite, the first of its kind, launched on
10 July 1962. It is said that, on the morning after the news of the satellite's
successful deployment, Meek fell out of bed with the tune already fully formed
in his head.
Famously unable to play an
instrument or write a note of formal music – Meek was the harbinger of the
egalitarian spirit that would suffuse the pop decade ahead – the melody was
committed to tape with Meek la-la-ing in his notoriously tone deaf way.
The aforementioned Geoff Goddard –
the vital collaborator for many of Meek’s biggest hits – played the melody on
the battery-powered clavioline. On the recording, he also adds the piano with
drawing pins inserted into the hammers for the special trebly effect.
When musicians and music
aficionados remember Joe Meek, it is almost always in a visionary context. He
set the benchmark for independent record producers in this country – Andrew
Loog Oldham followed in his wake with the Stones. His studio experiments paved
the way for the sonic invention that typified the late sixties oeuvre of such
luminaries as The Beatles. He even dabbled in an early rock’n’roll concept album (I Hear a New World, released posthumously*). Perhaps above all, he is considered to be the
founding father of electronica.
(* See the playlist)
There is an excellent movie of his
life and work – Telstar – made in 2009 and starring Con O'Neill's towering
portrayal of Meek. Here's the trailer…
The denouement of the movie,
towards which the narrative hurtles with all the grim momentum of a satellite
plunging to earth, takes place on the 3rd February 1967, the day of his
death.
I'll be paying tribute to Meek on
today's Rock & Roll London walk.
My playlist – 304 Holloway Road: A
Beginner's Guide To Joe Meek – has all the tracks named above* with the addition
of an early Tom Jones recording and Jack the Ripper by Screaming Lord Sutch
& the Savages (see earlier post HERE). The Tornados last hit Is That A
Ship I Hear (1966) is also included. The last two tracks are from his concept
album, unreleased in his lifetime, I Hear A New World: An Outer Space Music Fantasy.
Meek is also the subject of an
earlier London Walks Podcast. Here's the excerpt…
…
















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