Robert Stigwood - Joe Meek and John Leyton

Joe Meek and John Leyton

Stigwood found a job in an institution for "backward teenage boys" in East Anglia after his arrival in England. He worked primarily on nightshifts, overseeing the dormitories and "preventing any flow of traffic after lights out". However he found it an "unsympathetic and frustrating job" and left. He worked briefly for Hector Ross at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, Hampshire on the south coast before Ross left and the theatre closed. During this time he met the young Paul Jones who would later front the Manfred Mann pop group.

Not long after his period in Portsmouth, he met businessman Stephen Komlosy, who became a friend. The two men set up a small theatrical agency and build up a roster of actors. Among their clients was a young actor and singer called John Leyton, whose unexpected success as a recording artist made both Stigwood and his then associate Joe Meek into Britain's first independent record producers.

Before the advent of mavericks such as Stigwood and Meek, the British pop music industry was highly stratified. Managers managed artists' careers, agents only booked artists into venues, publishers only published music and sold songs to artists and recording companies, and recording companies recorded, manufactured, sold and promoted the products. It was rare for a manager to also be involved in publishing or agency work and it was almost unheard of for managers, agents or publishers to be directly involved in record production.

This situation was typified in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the three dominant figures of British pop: publisher and manager Larry Parnes (one of the first people to combine publishing with artist management), composer Lionel Bart and the managing director of EMI, Sir Joseph Lockwood (1904–91). Typically, Parnes would discover new talent – as he did with Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde and Billy Fury – and then sign them to a management contract. Lionel Bart, under contract to Parnes' publishing company, would write or co-write songs to be recorded and then Parnes would 'sell' the artist to Lockwood and EMI who would sign them to a recording contract, and then record, press and market the records.

The brief partnership between Robert Stigwood and Joe Meek is claimed to have changed the British recording industry to a great extent. Meek is credited as the first producer in the UK who had the knowledge to undertake every stage of the record production chain himself. He then usually offered a completed tape product to an established record company to manufacture and distribute. A poor business decision had meant that Angela Jones by Michael Cox, released on his own Triumph label, could not be manufactured in sufficient quantities to meet demand after Cox performed the song on a popular TV music show. While the record did make an appearance in the Top Ten, it proved that Meek needed the support of a major record company.

John Leyton was taken on by Robert Stigwood when he was building up his new theatrical agency. Leyton's first major booking was a role in the TV series Biggles, but better roles were difficult to find for him. Stigwood asked Leyton if he could also sing, leading to a series of auditions with various recording companies; he was turned down by all of their A&R representatives, but Joe Meek, unfazed by Leyton's initial lack of singing experience, was impressed by the young actor's good looks.

Simon Napier-Bell's account confirms that it was Meek who gave Stigwood the idea of making records independently, then getting the record company to distribute for them in return for a percentage of the selling price. It was, as Napier-Bell observes, "the music business equivalent of the independent film production that had changed the face of Hollywood". Excited by the idea, Stigwood gave Meek £100 to make Leyton's first record, but when it was completed Meek was reluctant to hawk the tape to the record companies himself, so Stigwood took on the task.

Meek's first single with John Leyton, a cover of Ray Peterson's U.S. hit "Tell Laura I Love Her", was recorded in late 1960. Originally intended for release on Meek's Triumph label, that label had by now folded and the recording was instead leased to the Top Rank label, owned by the Rank Organisation. Another British version by Ricky Valance though, was more successful. A follow-up single, "Girl On The Floor Above" (October 1960) was ignored.

Although Leyton rapidly improved as singer, his chances of a pop career looked slim, but Stigwood's perseverance paid off in mid-1961 when Leyton was cast in the role of pop star Johnny St. Cyr ("sincere") in a new nationally-broadcast TV series, Harpers West One. Crucially, Stigwood was able to arrange for Leyton's character to perform a song on the show.

Meek's associate, songwriter Geoff Goddard (whose only previous recorded composition was The Flee-Rekkers' "Lone Rider") was hurriedly drafted in to write a song for Leyton to perform on the programme. The hastily written result was the now-classic "Johnny Remember Me", an echo-drenched melodrama in the form of a lover's plea from beyond the grave. The song was featured three times during the course of Leyton's appearance in the series and record shops were soon deluged with orders.

Meek had leased the recording to the Top Rank label (now owned by EMI) and by the time of Leyton's final TV appearance the team had a big hit on their hands. The single went to #1 and remained at the top of the British charts for fifteen weeks, as well as charting in Europe. It was this success that led Stigwood into record production and management. He became Leyton's personal manager as well as his agent and then began looking around for other people to join his roster.

"Johnny Remember Me" was the first of a string of British hit recordings from the Meek/Stigwood/Leyton team, and their success set a new pattern for the industry: according to Simon Napier-Bell, within a couple of years, over half the hits in the UK were independent productions. Leyton's next single, "Wild Wind" (September 1961) went to #2, and he scored seven more Top 50 hits over the next two years. But his later chart placings were erratic: his third single, "Son, This Is She", only made #14; and his fourth, a cover of Goddard's "Lone Rider", barely scraped into the chart at #40.

Leyton's next two singles "Lonely City" (April 1962, #14) and "Down The River Nile" (July 1962, #42) were the last to have any significant input from Joe Meek. Stigwood was evidently becoming dissatified with Meek's eccentric recording style and insisted that "Lonely City" be recorded at a commercial studio. According to Tony Kent (Meek's personal assistant at the time), the session took place at London's IBC studios; largely at Meek's suggestion, and at which Meek was present but with Stigwood assuming the rôle of dominant co-producer. By the time Leyton's seventh single was released Meek was out of the picture entirely and all subsequent John Leyton recordings credit Stigwood as sole producer. From this point Stigwood recorded Leyton at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, but while the audio quality improved, the crucial ingredient — the excitement of the 'Joe Meek sound' – was lost. Leyton's pop career petered out in late 1964, but by then his movie career had taken off.