Denis Preston

British jazz critic, broadcaster and record producer.
Born November 16, 1916 in Stoke Newington, London.
Died October 21, 1979.
A former violinist, he was a broadcaster on music for the BBC from 1940. In New York in 1948, he assisted English Decca in establishing London Records, and on his return to the UK, supervised the country's first calypso session on January 30, 1950 led by [a2046390] at Abbey Road Studios, other record dates with [a478646] and persuaded Parlophone to record [a53143]. He began to record Caribbean musicians for Melodisc in June while continuing his association with Parlophone. In 1952, via the [a6048946], Preston merged the New Orleans inspired jazz of [a148132] with a rhythm section led by [a2046391] and other musicians from the West Indies. He advanced the career of Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan (leading to the emergence of skiffle), produced Lyttelton's "Bad Penny Blues" (engineered by Joe Meek) in 1956 and Acker Bilk's "Stranger of the Shore" in 1961, both recordings reached the pop chars, the latter was the first British single to reach No. 1 in the US.

Often described as "Europe's first independent record producer", in 1953 he founded Lansdowne Productions (later Record Supervision/Record Supervision Ltd.) and established Lansdowne Studios in West London in 1956. Following a brief association with Polygon, Preston licensed recordings to Pye Records (the [l290164], 1955-59), later releases were via EMI's Columbia label (whose parent company was Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd., from 1965 the label was part of The Gramophone Co. Ltd.). Usually the discs have a "Record Supervision" credit. He was the cousin of the historian and occasional jazz critic Eric Hobsbawm.