Creative Music Production: Joe Meek's Bold Techniques

by Barry Cleveland

Legendary British producer and technical innovator Joe Meek–the man behind the hits "Telstar" and "Have I the Right?"–has become a cult figure since his death in 1967, with fan clubs, CD collections, and retrospectives growing in popularity every day. Although much attention has been paid to his unusual life story and tragic passing, "Creative Music Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques" is the first book that gives the details on the methods that led to Meek’s influential hits. Written by veteran music journalist Barry Cleveland, this book takes an industry perspective on Meek’s life. It explores his 12-year professional career in great depth, with special attention paid to the equipment he used and the effect that his work had on the people around him. Also included is an audio CD containing Meek’s "I Hear a New World" album, not available in its original form since 1961!

Genres: Music

263 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

To enter the world of Joe Meek is like swimming in a pool of liquid but not sure what is in the mixture. Still, one needs to dive into the deep pool and keep both ears wide open. To be an admirer of Joe Meek's recordings always leads one to an obsession. I know very few people who dipped their toes into Meek's work, and not leave without being obsessed with the sounds and odd narrative of Joe's life. "Joe Meek's Bold Techniques" is a beautiful obsession but tightly controlled by its author Barry Cleveland. For one, the book's primary focus is on Meek's recordings and his techniques in getting these strange outer world sounds on his records. It goes into detail the nature of his home studio in North London, as well as the equipment he had, or made/invented for his singular sound. A total sound/studio geek book, but Cleveland's writing never loses the human behind the machines, and therefore an excellent biography on Joe Meek.

The other book on Meek is the essential biography "The Legendary Joe Meek: The Telstar Man" by John Repsch is an extremely well-researched book on its subject matter, but what is missing is the narrative skills of the writer. I feel Cleveland's book is a better narrative piece, even though it has tons of material on equipment, microphones, tapes, and so forth, it's still an overall amazing document on Joe Meek and his life. Also includes a track-by-track analysis on Meek's legendary and amazing album "I Hear A New World," which the second edition of this book includes the CD version of the album. Also has a pretty fantastic Discography that is much needed. The Joe Meek world still needs a lot of work with respect to discography and research. I'm hoping that there will be a full overall biography of Meek and his times, as well as the upcoming documentary A LIFE IN THE DEATH OF JOE MEEK, which promises to be extremely interesting.

[Mark Law · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book takes a fascinating deep dive into the recording methods of Joe Meek. If you remember the late '50s or early '60s the most extraordinary sounds to come out of a radio were records like 'Johnny Remember Me' and 'Telstar'. Joe Meek pioneered a collection of recording techniques which delivered these unique audio experiences. I spent many happy hours trying (in vain) to figure out how he did it. This book explains many of the methods he used, most of which are really difficult / impossible to reproduce convincingly on modern computer recording equipment such as Logic Pro X.

Joe Meek was a deeply troubled individual who had a number of international No 1 hits, yet he left only around £300 after all his debts were cleared following his murder of his landlady and suicide by 12 bore shotgun. Most of his fortune went into recording several hundred duff tracks. The best of his work was magic and this excellent book explains how much of it was done. A really interesting book for sound designers, recording engineers and composer / songwriters.

[Julian McBrowne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting only if you're an audio geek, but lots of details about audio engineering techniques and attitudes in pre-English Invasion UK studios. Not terribly well written, but it must be difficult to write about the sound of a record . . .