John Leckie

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This article is about the British music producer. For Jock Leckie, see John Leckie (Australian politician).
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John Leckie is a British music producer, notable for producing many high-profile albums such as The Stone Roses's debut (The Stone Roses) and Radiohead's The Bends. Leckie has received several awards for his work including the prestigious “Producer of the Year” award by Jimmy Page at the Music Managers Forum in 2001.

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[edit] Early career

Leckie began work at Abbey Road Studios on 15 February 1970 as a Tape-Operator, later graduating to Balance Engineer.[1] During this early career he worked with artists such as John Lennon (Plastic Ono Band), George Harrison, (All Things Must Pass),[1] Syd Barrett (Barrett) and Pink Floyd (Meddle and Wish You Were Here). With Paul McCartney's Wings Leckie worked on Red Rose Speedway and the then-controversial single Hi, Hi, Hi. He also produced and mixed Be-Bop Deluxe's albums Axe Victim, Sunburst Finish, Modern Music, Live In The Air Age and Drastic Plastic.

Leckie left Abbey Road in 1978 and produced albums for Simple Minds (Life in A Day, Real To Real Cacophony and Empires & Dance) and Magazine (Real Life). Leckie produced the debut single, Public Image for the post-Sex Pistols formation Public Image Ltd. while singer John Lydon was still technically with the Pistols. Leckie's work with XTC included 3D-EP, as well as the band's later albums: White Music,[1] Go 2, 25 O'Clock and Psonic Psunspot which XTC issued under the pseudonym The Dukes of Stratosphear.

[edit] 1980s work

High profile album productions in the 1980s included work with The Fall, Brix Smith's post-Fall project The Adult Net, The Lucy Show, The Doctor's Children, Gene Loves Jezebel, The Posies, The Dukes of Stratosphear, and Let's Active. For some of his work with The Dukes, The Adult Net and The Doctor's Children, all bands that had strong 1960's psychedelic overtones, Leckie adopted the pseudonym 'Swami Anand Nagara'.

However, a landmark in Leckie's career came in 1989 when he produced The Stone Roses' debut album The Stone Roses.[2] The album was voted the best record of all time on a music poll taken by BBC 6 and features as Number 1 on the Observer Music Monthly’s June 2004 “100 Greatest British Albums”.

[edit] 1990s

Throughout the 1990s Leckie's work continued to garner awards being named Best Producer by Music Week (1995) and at the Q Awards (1996) and Brit Awards (1997), the latter accolade arriving almost exactly 27 years to the day after he first started at Abbey Road Studios.[1]

With Madchester and Britpop dominating British popular music of the early and mid 1990s nineties, Leckie's talents were in constant demand. Notable production credits from this era include Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians' 1991 album Respect, the Stone Roses' album Second Coming, The Lilac Time's And Love For All, Ride's 1993 (Carnival of Light), Elastica's 1994 eponymous debut album, Cast's albums All Change (1995) and Mother Nature Calls (1997), Kula Shaker's debut K (1996), and The Verve's A Storm in Heaven.

However, Leckie's work during the 1990s widened considerably to include the work of Dr John (Anutha Zone) and the Cowboy Junkies (Miles From Our Home) along with a series of world musicians. During the Real World Recording Weeks he worked with Papa Wemba, Shivkumar Sharma, Gopal Shankar and Rizwan Qualli. In 2000, John produced the album Missing You for Palm Pictures' African artist Baaba Maal. The music was recorded in challenging insect-plagued conditions, mostly after dark in Baaba Maal's house in rural Senegal. As the house had no electricity everything was powered from a Honda generator. Despite heat, biting insects and the sounds of cicadas sometimes so intense that the microphones had to be turned off, the album earned rave reviews.

[edit] Recent career

Leckie's career took another important forward step in 1999 when producing the debut album Showbiz for Taste Media’s then new signings Muse. This went platinum on the heels of the band's breakthrough 2001 second album Origin of Symmetry, also produced by Leckie, which reached No. 3 in the UK album Chart.

In 2002, Leckie produced a single for Suede (Positivity from the album New Morning), and the eleventh album of Latin superstars and three time Grammy winners Los Lobos (Good Morning Atztlan), for Mammoth Records at CGR Studio’s in California. The latter album entered the Billboard 100 at number 82.

In 2003, he oversaw the remastering of the The Stone Roses compilation on Silvertone and produced the One Minute Silence album “One Lie Fits All” for Taste Media. At this time Leckie also did a stereo mix of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum from the original four-track tape for vinyl release only. The track was mixed on an Edwardian houseboat called "Astoria” which belongs to David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. Leckie also produced a solo LP for John Power (from The La's and Cast) for Eagle Rock and shared in producing The Blockheads album 'Where's The Party"

In 2004, he produced tracks for New Order, "Waiting For The Siren's Call" and highly acclaimed My Computer No CV. Working in the USA he produced an album for Longwave “There’s A Fire” with RCA.

In 2005, Leckie produced the highly critically lauded 4th album for My Morning Jacket entitled “Z”, also for RCA, recorded at Allaire Studios in upstate New York and mixed at infamous Sunset Sound in Hollywood. Later that year, he produced a self-titled album for Mexican duo Rodrigo y Gabriela for Irish label Rubyworks. This album, after initially going straight to number one in Ireland, continued gaining ground across the world and was No.1 in the American 'Heat Seekers' chart and also a regular No.1 in the Billboard World Music charts for many months.

In 2006, he produced the debut album by newcomers Tiny Dancers entitled 'Free School Milk' for Parlophone, the EP 'Fast', and the track 'Back To The Start' for Razorlight for Vertigo / Mercury.

2007 saw a union of two household names around Manchester, John Leckie and Doves. Leckie produced 3 tracks for the new album between Rockfield and Mickie Most’s RAK Studios. John also traveled to LA to produce further tracks by Rodrigo y Gabriela and was reunited with Baaba Maal (this time in a London studio) to produce the album Televison He also recorded what became known as The John Leckie String Quartet Sessions for Scott Matthews

In 2008, Leckie produced a debut album for new signing to Mercury, Sergeant, and travelled to India, as part of a British Council led project to produce for local Indian Rock acts at Yash Raj Studios in Mumbai: Medusa, Swarathma, Indigo Children and Advaita.

In 2009 he travelled to Mexico to work again with Rodrigo y Gabriela on tracks for the album 11:11. Leckie then returned to Abbey Road to record and produce the jazz sounds of Portico Quartet and was also called in to remaster the Anniversary Edition Box Set of The Stone Roses eponymous first LP complete with John's videos of the sessions and some long lost demos. Leckie also appeared in TV's Classic Album Series playing and commenting on tapes from Plastic Ono Band sessions he had worked on some 40 years previous at Abbey Road Studios

In 2010, Leckie produced The Coral's much acclaimed 6th studio album, Butterfly House. Back at Abbey Road this time to record live the album Hedonism for the award winning 11 piece folk big band Bellowhead. He also gave a masterclass talk on his work at British Music Experience at O2 in London.

[edit] Awards

  • 1995 — Music Week award for Best Producer
  • 1996 — Q Award for Best Producer
  • 1997 — Brit Award
  • 2001 — UK Music Managers Forum for Best Producer

[edit] Notable album credits as producer

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d "True brit: John Leckie", Sound on Sound, May 1997, retrieved 2010-11-07
  2. ^ Devlin, Louise (2009) "John Leckie: Producing the Goods", The Skinny, 19 May 2009, retrieved 2010-11-07

[edit] External links

[edit] Video links

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