Joe Meek Archive The Original Joe Meek Master Tapes

Joe Meek Archive The entire collection of Joe Meek's personal master tape recordings, comprising of approximately 1850 tapes containing some of the the earliest, and in some cases, first recordings of major stars. Each reel of tape contains a number of tracks and so total track recordings are approximately 5000. Joe Meek became one of the true pioneers of British recording history in the fifties and sixties by challenging the established recording industry with his experimental and eccentric techniques, some of which are now standard within the profession. Born in 1929, he was fascinated by electronics and after serving in the Royal air force as a radar technician Meek set up a recording career as an engineer for Lansdowne Recording studios, recording the likes of Anne Shelton amongst others including many of the UK's top Jazz musicians, using his own distinctive techniques. Meek subsequently created his own studio in his flat above a leather shop in Holloway Road London. It was at this flat that nearly all the collection of tapes were made, much of it on equipment that Meek himself had invented. He achieved much sought after acclaim in 1962 with an Ivor Novello award for his self composed hit 'Telstar' named as the best selling A-side of 1962. It also became the first UK single by a group to go to number 1 in the US charts. Joe Meek set about building a stable of young performers and would sign the acts himself and then lease the recordings to the major record companies, an unorthodox method at the time but this was fuelled by Meek's paranoia that the record industry was both spying on him and stealing ideas from him. He soon ran into money problems and with a contested copyright action against 'Telstar' all royalties were put on hold. With the Tornados now disbanded an increasingly unstable Meek tried to put together a new band and drafted in Mitch Mitchell (later of Jimi Hendrix experience) to play the drums, Mitch's wild playing did not go down well with Meek and after repeated warnings Meek eventually picked up a shotgun, put it to Mitchell's head and said " If you don't do it properly I'll blow your f****g head off'. His erratic behaviour and constant money worries culminated in a fatal row over non payment of rent with his landlady, sadly resulting in both their deaths on February 3rd 1967. The recordings included in the sale contain such British stars as David Bowie as singer and sax player with the Konrads Gene Vincent, Denny Laine, Billy Fury Tom Jones, Jimmy Page Mike Berry, John Leyton Ritchie Blackmore, Jess Conrad, Mitch Mitchell and Screaming Lord Sutch. The tapes also contain many examples of Joe Meek composing songs and experimental sound techniques. Tape 418 has Meek composing songs for the film' Live it up' .This archive is an amazing piece of British Recording History Estimate GBP250,000-300,000 USD500,000-600,000