Denis Preston

Sydney Denis Preston^[1] (1916 – 1979) was a British record producer and music critic.^[1] He has been described as "Europe's first independent record producer".^[2]

Biography

Preston worked independently;^[2] he was not contracted to a particular record label and would often risk cutting a record before pitching for a deal.^[3]

In the early 1950s, Preston founded Record Supervision Ltd, a production company which licensed recordings to major labels.^[4] The following year, he accepted a licensing deal with Pye Records and produced records for Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Alex Welsh, Sandy Brown and Al Fairweather, Terry Lightfoot, and Kenny Baker.^[4][5] He also produced some of Lonnie Donegan's early skiffle recordings.^[4]

In 1956, he established Lansdowne Studios (and associated label Lansdowne Records) in west London.^[6][7] The same year he produced Humphrey Lyttleton's 1956 record "Bad Penny Blues" with the recording engineer Joe Meek.^[4] When Meek left Lansdowne in 1960, he took inspiration from Preston's independent approach and expanded on this by also producing in his own recording studio.^[8]

During the early 1960s, Preston worked with EMI on their Columbia label. Preston's production branched out from traditional jazz into folk, modern jazz and guitar-based genres (working with artists such as Jack Elliot, Roger Whittaker, Joe Harriott and Stan Tracey) as well as African and Indian-inspired artists (Amancio D'Silva and Kofi Ghanaba).^[4][9]

Preston died in 1979. His Sunday Times obituary described him as "probably the most important figure to emerge from the British jazz business".^[4] He was the cousin of the historian (and jazz critic) Eric Hobsbawm.^[10]

References