Don’t idolise Joe Meek, he was a killer, says pop star
PLANS TO unveil a bust of controversial record producer Joe Meek in his Gloucestershire hometown have been slammed by one of his top recording artists. John Leyton became an international pop star in the early 1960s thanks to best-selling singles like Johnny Remember Me and Wild Wind, which were produced by eccentric Meek.
Meek remains revered for his experimental pop, which spawned hits for a host of famous singers.
But on February 3, 1967, aged just 37, he shot dead his landlady Violet Shenton then used the gun to kill himself.
Now 86, Leyton believes the murder makes Meek unworthy of idolisation by his fans, who already have a society, a website and a Facebook page devoted to him.
On Saturday a bust will be unveiled in Newent where he was born (on April 5, 1929) and is buried. There are already two commemorative plaques in the town as well as one on his London home.
Leyton reveals in an exclusive interview: “I don’t feel comfortable with that because he took somebody’s life. It’s bizarre they’re prepared to do this.
“People speak very fondly about how wonderful Joe Meek was, what a talent and genius he was, but they forget he killed somebody. Had he not turned the gun on himself he would have served a long time in prison for murder.
“Yes, he forged a way as an independent record producer and had three No.1 hits.
“As the years have gone by he has become a cult figure in popular music. He’s better known now than when he was alive and working. But he obviously wasn’t a particularly nice man, and for goodness sake, he actually murdered somebody.
“OK, he then blew his head off – but it doesn’t alter the fact he murdered someone, a woman. I think it’s time to lay Joe Meek to rest and forget about him.”
Leyton – also a successful actor from movies like The Great Escape and Von Ryan’s Express – played a small role in the 2008 British film Telstar: The Joe Meek Story. But he refuses to watch it.
He says: “I’ve never seen it. I heard so much about it and I wasn’t happy with the way I heard they were portraying me. I think it was quite inaccurate.”
However, Leyton adds of the notoriously volatile record producer: “Joe had a reputation for being quite difficult, but I got on very well with him. I always enjoyed recording at Joe Meek’s funny studio.
“They were happy times for me. We used to laugh and joke. He never gave me any problems at all. I was told he had a terrible temper, but I never experienced it – whereas it seems everybody else did.”
Handsome heartthrob Leyton had been introduced to Meek in 1960 by his manager Robert Stigwood, a Uk-based Australian impresario.
“It’s general knowledge Joe Meek and Robert Stigwood were gay, along with a lot of other pop management in those days. I don’t have a problem with that, but I’m not gay – and at some stages with Stigwood it got difficult because there was a predatory element to it and I had to fight him off. I imagine there was a kind of male castingcouch but I never went anywhere near it.
“Joe Meek never made any sort of move (on me) at all. He was in a world of his own and didn’t seem quite ‘there’. He was a troubled man.
“A lot of young boys would knock on Joe’s door hoping he would record them.
“But I was already semi-established as an actor in a TV series [Biggles] at the time and I had a manager. So maybe that’s what made him stand off a bit. Other artists he produced have told various stories.
“Mike Berry told me how Joe Meek once put his hand on his thigh and started rubbing it and asked, ‘Mike, do you like watching wrestling?’ Mike said, ‘Not particularly!’
“But I had trouble with Stigwood. I was not what he wanted me to be.
“It was quite difficult at times. He made passes at me and I pushed him off and told him to forget it.at times he would threaten me. My wife Diana, to whom I’ve been married since 1965 and have two children with, was my girlfriend at the time and he got very jealous of her.
“I had a sports car then and once parked it in Sloane Square and went to see Diana.
“Stigwood, who had been looking for me, scratched on the car’s side window, ‘Leyton sacrifices his career for a troll’.
“I left Stigwood in 1964, though not necessarily because of the trouble he was giving me.there were a lot of drugs around and a lot of alcohol as well. I never really got involved with them.
“Drugs became far more prevalent once groups like the Rolling Stones came along.
“And after the Beatles, from about 1963, there was an avalanche of bands and groups, and at that stage solo artists like myself, Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and Billy Fury were pushed into the background.
“That was all right with me because I’d already done The Great Escape in 1962 – and in 1964 I went back to acting which was my first love anyway.”
LEYTON was living and working as an actor in America in 1967 when he heard that Joe Meek had committed murder and suicide. “I was absolutely shocked and amazed,” he recalls. “I couldn’t believe it because, as I said, I never had any problems with him.
“Meek worked in his maisonette over a leather shop in the Holloway Road.
“The lady who owned the shop and the building was continually complaining about the noise he was making.
“It was her who Meek had an argument with and shot dead, before killing himself.”
Leyton sees comparisons between Meek and the innovative temperamental American record producer Phil Spector who, after a highly successful career, shot dead an actress in 2003. He died last year at 81, while serving a prison sentence for murder.
“There’s a lot to compare.they were both geniuses in terms of what they did and achieved in recording studios, they were both ahead of their time, and they were both barmy.”
Robert Stigwood, who went on to manage Cream and the Bee Gees and produced the blockbuster movies Saturday Night Fever and Grease, died in 2016, aged 81.
John Leyton quit singing aged 79 with hearing problems. He is enjoying retirement in Suffolk with his wife Diana.