Denis Preston

Denis Preston
Birth name	Sydney Denis Preston
Born	1916
Origin	London, England
Died	1979 (aged 62–63)
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Record producer, critic
Instruments	Recording studio
Labels	Lansdowne Records

Sydney Denis Preston (16 November 1916 – 1979) was a British record producer and music critic. Preston worked independently; he was not contracted to a particular record label and would often risk cutting a record before pitching for a deal. He has been described as "Europe's first independent record producer".

Biography

He was born Sidney Denis Prechner on 16 November 1916 in Stoke Newington, London.

In the early 1950s, Preston founded Record Supervision Ltd, a production company which licensed recordings to major labels. In 1955, he accepted a licensing deal with Pye Records and produced records for Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Alex Welsh, Frank Holder, Sandy Brown and Al Fairweather, Terry Lightfoot, and Kenny Baker. He also produced some of Lonnie Donegan's early skiffle recordings.

In 1956, he established Lansdowne Studios (and associated label Lansdowne Records) in west London. The same year he produced Humphrey Lyttelton's 1956 record "Bad Penny Blues" with the recording engineer Joe Meek. 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.

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).

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