Born 16 December 1963 (Late December back in ’63 as in the song).  I was born into a house with two brothers, two sisters, grandma and mum and dad, a budgerigar, two dogs and an old Bentley piano. My dad was a keen opera and Mario Lanza fan.  My mum was a B movie actress in world war two, and appeared in the chorus line to several stage shows.  My brothers and sisters were all into the Beatles and Stones and sixties girl groups like The Shangri-Las and the Three Degrees.  Two of my siblings also studied the classical piano and often played local concerts at school. 

So, my immediate background was one of a wide variety of musical influence with rich, varied styles.  I don’t remember learning to play the piano but I could play simple tunes before I could even walk.  I sat at my piano for hours every day from the age of about three (1966).  My first memory is watching the Beatles on Top of the Pops and thinking “I want a drum kit.”  I never got one thank god.  I think they were singing ‘I Feel Fine’.

1968:  I came home from school on the first day and exclaimed, “Hey mummy the other kids at school can’t play the piano.”  I thought everyone could. 

1970:  When I was seven I was on holiday in Wales fishing crabs from rock pools on Black Rock Sands.  I slipped and banged the back of my head several times on the rock as I slid down into the water.  I was unconscious and my brothers dragged me out and revived me in the car.  I was concussed and remained delirious for several days.  Everyone was very worried about me.  I stopped eating and had to go to hospital on a drip.  I had various weird visions and hallucinations and scared everyone because I thought I could see the world from out of space.  After a few weeks when I had finally recovered my personality had changed completely.  I became very outspoken and cocky and I wrote my first song, ‘Baby Give me Love’.  My brothers and sisters received the brunt of my arrogance and abuse and always said, “For god’s sake give him another bang on the head,” hoping it would change me back to the placid, quiet child I had been.  I never changed back! 

1973:  When I was ten, my mum bought me a tin light blue guitar from Woolworths.  It had nylon strings and I mistakenly learnt to play it left-handed (I was left-handed then).  I was so obsessed with this guitar that at Christmas my parents bought me a proper guitar and also a tape recorder to record my many songs. 

In the following few years I wrote over 100 songs all about my family, my life, my dog and anything else I could think of.  They were sort of sub-Beatlesque two and a half minute ditties.  I still have most of them on tape from them.  Some of them are pretty good too.  I entertained aunties, uncles, cousins and neighbours with my talent and my granddad gave me a harmonica and harmonica holder that I wore around my neck Bob Dylan style.  I wore this every day to school and even played along with school hymns.  The best song I ever wrote in my youth was called ‘Jillian’ about a girl that I fell in love with at school.  Everyone in my family still remembers this song. 

1976: I became a punk very influenced by the Clash and the Sex Pistols.  I was expelled from school for causing too much trouble so with time on my hands I formed my first band.  It was called ‘The Wailing Cocks’.  We made three singles on Bird’s Nest Records and were recorded on John Peel’s programme twice and on Radio 2 Live in Concert 1978.

1978: I didn’t know what I was doing I was just full of madness.  We made a good impression on a local agent and his name was Roy Williams and he told me there was a band in the charts looking for a good young Keyboard player called Dexys Midnight Runners.  I went to an audition and was immediately recruited by them.  I rehearsed with them in The Lafayette for a few weeks, then we started gigging and our first single ‘Dance Stance’ made its way up to number 40 in the UK charts.

1979: It was quite exciting.  I had grown up at school with my best friend, a drummer, who also became the drummer in ‘The Wailing Cocks’.  So after a while in Dexys I suggested they give him a try.  Kevin Rowland was not too keen on him and thought his drumming was too stiff but they took him on, encouraged by me and he grew into the role. 

1980: We recorded various versions of different songs and finally decided that the next single could be ‘Geno’, backed on the B side by ‘Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache’, which was quite good for me as I had an organ solo on it and you could hear my backing vocals on both tracks. 

I became great friends with Kevin Rowland and Al Archer, the kingpins of the band, and I travelled around the country with Kevin to stop being stuck in the van on tour.  We had a lot in common and I was enjoying every minute. 

Little did I know a mutiny was developing in the other members over a row about money.  Only three people received royalties while the others received wages of £5 a day.  Pitiful!  Because I was great friends with Kevin and wouldn’t join the revolt, I was victimised by the other members.  None more than my ex-school friend on drums, Andrew Growcott.  He physically attacked me on three separate occasions and on the final time really beat me up quite badly.  He was much bigger than me and I was only ten stone at this point.

I had to leave the tour and the band when the record was just about to get to number one.  I tried to explain why to the band but they were all so high on the success unfolding that they pooh-poohed my explanations and took on the hard keyboard player Pete Saunders and I never went back.  Although they asked me on five separate occasions, they didn’t want to get rid of “Stoker” the drummer as it was hard work to replace a drummer half way through the tour. 

I was quite glad to be out of Dexys actually because being a keyboard player in someone else’s band was hardly ideal for me, all things considered.  I still genuinely wish them well, but the owner of Bird’s Nest Records, Clive Selwood came to me saying he had a deal with Beggars Banquet for me to release ‘Move On (In Your Maserati)’.  It wasn’t about Dexys, as people assumed as I’d written and recorded it way before ‘The Wailing Cocks’.  Anyway, I went along with the release because it was so welcome to be promoting my own material.  Unfortunately it looked like I was cashing in on Dexys fame and I spoke to both Kevin Rowland and Al Archer and explained what was happening and I think they understood.  But it was early days in their career and they didn’t like anything distracting from their own group.  But what was I supposed to do?  Disappear for their convenience? 

After ‘Move On (In Your Maserati)’ and ‘Rubin Decides,’ the double A side did little in the charts and I spent my time forming a new band and writing songs.  Stiff Records came to see me and offered me a record deal, but my manager then refused it because there wasn’t enough money, she said.  That was when I first met Paul Conroy who was later to work on ‘Say Something’.  The base player in this new band was Baz Ketley who kept writing songs and showing them to me to be used for the band.  We became great friends and had a mutual respect.  I told him we couldn’t do his songs in my band because I had too many songs myself already.  So I encouraged him to form his own band, which he did, despite his lack of confidence. That band turned out to be The Charlatans who eclipsed both Dexys success and mine. Well done Baz. 

I had started spending more and more time with my girlfriend in Glasgow and eventually decided to move there permanently.  I’d given up on music completely.  I wanted to forget about everything.  I had no money and spent my days hanging round with my friends from ‘The Wailing Cocks’ who were both Scottish and lived up there.  I didn’t realise the tremendous potential I had and wasted about a year or so doing nothing.  Then Al Archer called me and told me he had left Dexys too and was starting a new band playing folk music.  I’d always got on well with him and was willing to try something new again. 

I re-met Kevin Archer (previously Al Archer) in the summer of 1981.  He was rehearsing his new songs, as I remember just a guitarist and his girlfriend Yasmin on a melodica and vocals.  I came down from Scotland about twice a month to rehearse with them.  At this point the group had no name and the songs were still developing.  I quickly became very into the group and even adopted the strange image they had, folky loose tops and furry boots, plus many other strange extras.  Yasmin cut my hair in their style which I loved and she became like a sister to me.  Yasmin and Kevin were fantastic and I really admired their partnership. 

We became closer friends than we ever were in Dexys.  The expanding group became like a family which I was touched to be a part of. The Dexys experience had left us scarred and bruised and we needed a new safe haven to enjoy our talents in.  A whole philosophy developed around the group and it became a big influence on me and though I still had hopes for my solo career, I was much happier in the Blue Ox Babes than any group I’d ever been in.

 We rehearsed above a barbers shop in Dudley and soon consisted of drums, bass, keyboards, melodica, guitar and vocal.  The most inspiring thing about the group was the new songs and Kevin’s vocals.  He adopted a sort of Mark Bolanish approach which suited him and our voices really did sound great together.  There was an enthusiasm and power building in the group which was really amazing.  We were so completely different to anything else around. 

One day, Kevin suggested we went to Birmingham Conservatoire and advertise for a violinist.  He found Helen there, who later changed her name to O’Hara when she became part of Dexys.  When we first played with her she knew nothing of folk music having been entirely classically trained and it became my job to interpret Kevin’s ideas to her and teach her the solos and riffs as I had been through all the classical music school stuff as a child and spoke her language.  She very soon got totally into it though and although she was from another musical world her talents and happiness of being a part of the group were obvious. 

We recorded at Phil Savage’s Studios our first four tracks that are now on the ‘Apples and Oranges’ CD.  I played a really old piano and a harmonium which was new to me that Kevin had found in a pawn shop.  I had to pump it with my feet as I played which gave a breathing type affect which you can hear on the track, ‘Four Golden Tongues’.  I also started playing harmonica on a couple of tracks and sang harmonies.  I felt more than ever part of something that was going to be unique and popular.  We had a lot of ace cards on our side, great music, being so different and the ex-Dexys double act of me and Kevin.  We were filled with hope that summer there was a kind of family love between the band. 

One day Kevin Archer came to me saying he had just met Kevin Rowland again and had shown him the tapes of our first recordings.  He had also told him about and shown him all the clothes that we wear, and the idea for a folk pop group that wore dungarees with a girl on violin.  Exactly how he had the heart to destroy someone who had been his best friend by stealing all of these ideas I will never know but it’s pop history now that Kevin Rowland stole the ideas for ‘Come on Eileen’ and the ‘Too Rye Ay’ album from The Blue Ox Babes which he freely admits.

I later told this whole story on the BBC’s ‘Young Guns Go For It’ and Kevin Rowland also admitted it in Q Magazine.  He later apologised to Kevin Archer and I believe gave him some royalties from the ‘Too Rye Ay’ album.  But by this time the royalties were small and The Blue Ox Babes time had come and gone.  And also, what about me?  I had the something precious taken away from me too, and not for the first time I received no compensation or apology. 

I moved back to Glasgow with my girlfriend and felt more depressed than ever.  Then something magical happened.  Steve Webbin called me at my friend’s house as I didn’t even have a phone number in Glasgow.  My mother had sent Beggars Banquet collection of my songs on tape and they loved it.  Steve offered me a recording contract and I was over the moon at last having a chance to do something good and show everyone who I really was.  I called Brad Davis The Wailing Cocks producer and asked him to produce the album.  I trusted Brad as he was a friend and a fan, and he organised a week at the Townhouse Studios day and night and we set about preparing which songs to record.  I also drafted in my oldest friend Sean Stafford to play sax and bass.  Brad got Graham Broad to play drums who he knew from his days recording ‘Bucks Fizz’.  Graham was a highly respected session drummer who would give us a great basis to build on.

We recorded virtually day and night for the whole week and totally exhausted ourselves, but you can do that when you’re so young!  There was a definite magic in the air and Steve Webbin visited the studio a couple of times to see how we were progressing.  He was always encouraging and never intrusive.  I’ve always liked Steve.  I wish I’d stayed with Beggars Banquet, but more on that later.  I played piano, organ, and acoustic and electric guitars and harmonica besides singing and harmonies and arranging all the musical parts.  It came to me instinctively and I loved it.  I was sleeping about four hours a night on Brad’s couch, and one night even slept in the studio underneath the grand piano.  I was taking illegal stimulants to try to survive the schedule.  We used a girl called Elisha Previn who called herself ‘Lovely’, on violin.  She was Andre Previn’s daughter and amidst all the euphoria and drugs we started a hot romance.  I was away from home and high on life and music too and we just clicked.  She introduced me to various philosophies and practices, too much to go into here.  She also played great violin on a self designed instrument she had named ‘Light’.  She was damn weird but I loved that.

I was trying to make a classic album with natural instruments unaffected by fashion and built to last.  I was on top form and my fellow believers spurred me on.  I was very into Bruce Springsteen and Dylan and The Beatles and I wanted to be the new version.  I totally believed in myself 100% and I didn’t have a single doubt that I would be a world beater.  I put myself on the line physically and musically.  I went back to Glasgow with the master tapes victorious and showed my friends and everyone what I’d done.  The response was extremely positive when my manager of then, Frank Murray, also Kirsty MacColl’s manager, told me Beggars Banquet didn’t like the recordings and weren’t interested in me anymore.  I spoke to Steve Webbin recently and he told me this was a lie and it was because Frank Murray wanted me to sign to Chris O’Donnell’s label, Fascination Records. 

This proved a disastrous move.  I had to re-record the songs I had already recorded and they brought in Dave Jordan who produced The Specials and who, sadly unbeknown to me, was a heroin addict.  He fell asleep during our first meeting.  I should have taken this as a sign but I was young and naive.  At this time I was planning a gig at The Hope and Anchor in London and after I finished, a young, interesting looking girl with red hair came up to me and said, “That was fantastic, you have supreme confidence”.  That girl was Kirsty MacColl and we became great friends for many years and always stayed in touch. 

1981: I released ‘Soul Darling’ on Fascination Records.  It was an unrepresentative record because it sounded nothing like me.  I had used a well known base player called Paolo Pallodini and a disco beat.  Although everyone at Beggars Banquet loved it, I was alienated by my own music and was glad it did nothing in single terms.  I always wish I’d stayed with Beggars Banquet and Steve Webbin because he understood me much more and I liked him.  I always felt uneasy with Frank Murray and Chris O’Donnell who ended up borrowing thousands of pounds off me which they never paid me back.  During this early ‘80s period I was living with Andre Previn’s daughter who plays violin on Midnight Music.  She was a nightmare.  My friends hated her and in retrospect I don’t blame them.  I released another single called ‘Dancing Queen’, the Abba song but used by Tony Visconti and even though it was played on Radio One, I realised I’d just lost my way in my career and in life and I just wanted out. 

1982: I met by chance a compelling girl named Lisa Randell at a party in Maida Vale.  She really made me laugh and re-designed my image over night.  We went shopping together and I really loved her even though we were ever only friends.  She was working as a designer for a new company called Small Giant Media who were making a film called ‘Promo Man’.  They were looking for a singer/songwriter to play the part of a singer in the film.  Lisa thought I fitted the bill and though I had never acted I was confident so she got me an audition.  The musical director was David Courtney who decided Leo Sayer and the director of the film was Tony Clinger.  I never realised how famous they were.  I strolled into the audition in my latest clothes and started chatting.  David Van Day was there from the group Dollar and he looked at me in a way that gave me confidence. 

I asked them immediately if they had a piano which they did so I sat down and played ‘What’s the Problem?’ which I’d just written then.  They were really knocked out and gave me a few lines to say and laughed at my Brummy accent but they liked me.  I got the part in the film and in a few weeks they started filming.  I was very excited and though I still lived with Lovely Previn, I was enjoying myself.

 

They decided to use ‘What’s the Problem?’ as the soundtrack of the film.  I was overjoyed.

There was an opening night party and all kinds of celebrity guests were invited including Paul McCartney and George Martin.  I was scheduled to play ‘What’s the Problem?’ live which I did and it proved to be the show stopper of the night.  I was transported to the party and back with my mum and dad in a Daimler like a true star.  It was incredible.   Hardly any of the famous people turned up and the party was a bit of a drib.  We still had fun though.  I wore a white tuxedo and picked up my new Swedish girlfriend on the way, Netti Bertillson.  She was a stunner and I was madly in love with her.  I used to get heart palpitations just thinking about how totally gorgeous she was.  I wish I’d married her.  I still think about her to this day, I’ve got her number somewhere...

1984: Needless to say the whole film business fell through and in my desperation having absolutely no money and nowhere to live, I made the horrific mistake of moving back in with Lovely Previn which meant Netti was alienated from me and this made me sad beyond belief.  In between times in 1984, Kirsty MacColl contacted me telling me she had been asked to write some songs for the new Frieda album (ex Abba singer) and she had showed Frieda my album Midnight Music and Frieda loved my song ‘Twist in the Dark’ and wanted to record it.  I was overjoyed and was invited to Paris to meet Frieda and Kirsty’s husband, Steve Lillywhite who was producing the album.  How exciting.  So, here at last was a tangible piece of success, my manager Frank Murray got me a £5000 advance from Bocu Music. 

1987: I was on my way to meet my then girlfriend, Rayne from work in Golden Square.  I had £80 on me which I was due to pay a night in rent.  A West Indian guy approached me and asked me if I wanted to buy some dope.  He put a black piece of plastic in my hand and I said, “That’s not dope, it’s plastic.”  At which point he pushed me into a doorway, drew a carving knife and put it to my neck.  He said, “Give me all your money and your credit cards.”  I took the £80 out of my wallet and gave it to him and asked if I could keep the wallet as it had only my private things in.  Surprisingly he said, “Yes,” and walked off with the money.  A good day’s work for him! 

I was shocked and in a kind of daze.  I carried on walking towards Golden Square and as I passed a pizza place I saw a grand piano inside it.  Somehow I felt if I played the piano I would come back to myself and feel okay again.  I was filled with a mixture of anger and depression.  I walked into the pizza restaurant and asked if I could play.  There was already a microphone too as they had a regular pianist/singer.  I played a few of my own songs, followed by David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’.  The manager came over and asked me what I was doing on Friday night and how much would I want to perform for two hours.  I said “£80?”  He said “I’ll give you £50 and a free pizza,” which I accepted.  Little did I know that this event would lead me all the way to making an album with the greatest pop producer in the world.  The next Friday I invited everyone I could think of, including anyone who was mildly interested in me.  Among this number was a guy called Carl Leighton-Pope who got into my stuff and offered me a gig supporting Mister Mister at the Marquee Club in Soho.  They had just had a number one song in America with ‘Broken Wings’, yet I was completely unknown without a band.  I turned up with just my electric piano.  I remember the sound engineer at the sound check saying, “Is that it? Just an electric piano and vocals?  Should be a riot!”

For me it was a big opportunity.  I knew a girl at Record Mirror called Dianne Cross and I invited her to the gig.  When it was my turn to play, the engineer announced, “Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome Phil Leek.”  I walked slightly embarrassed onto the stage.  The lights came on and I fell over a monitor onto my piano stool banging the side of my head.  The crowd laughed.  I got up, sat down at the piano and said, “Now for my next trick.”  I defiantly launched into a set of my best songs, many of which would later appear on my debut album.  The crowd’s laughter turned to appreciation and they warmed to me.  I think it was a mixture of pity, amusement and respect.

Dianne Cross, the girl from Record Mirror wrote a dynamite review.  She hated Mister Mister but thought I was a genius.  Thanks Dianne, you really helped me.  I took the review to Mister Mister’s record company and asked the top A&R man “If I was better than Mister Mister, how come they had a number one and I was unsigned?”  He laughed and we scheduled a meeting for him to hear some of my songs.  As we were listening through the cassette, there was a knock on the door and unbelievably, in walked Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin.  We were introduced and he recognised my midland accent like his own.  He asked me about Dexys and listened along to three of my songs with genuine appreciation and enthusiasm.  This influenced the A&R man who said, “If you find a good manager like Tony Smith at Hit&Run Music, then we will sign you.”  I then found Hit&Run Music and said, “Atlantic Records wants to sign me as long as you manage me, are you interested?”  Within three months I was signed to Atlantic Records in New York with Hit&Run managing me, I felt the tide had turned.  Hit&Run gave me a large advance and suddenly I could eat out, buy clothes, take taxis and feel positive about my future.

I really thought the world of air conditioned luxury was to be mine for good.

With the Dexys tag, the Abba story and George Martin’s endorsement, and complimentary quotes how could I fail...well like this.

The first single chosen was ‘Please Please’ and this was released all around the world.  But unbeknown to me or to George Martin the record and management company had colluded and decided in their greater wisdom to cut off the first minute of the song and start it with the first chorus.  Boy did this ruin things for me!  As George Martin said to them at the time, “If we thought the first minute of the song should be cut off, we would have edited it ourselves in the studio!” 

What’s the point in hiring the world’s most legendary producer then butchering his work to try to appease what you think would fit on the radio?!  Stupidity at work and no, it didn’t work!  The Baftadisation of the song was largely due to my manager of then, Patrick Williams, who grew to hate me quite a bit.  His jealousy of me overcame his ambition for success.  From only the third time in the studio recording the album people told me I had a problem with him.

The single was released to mass silence and deniably a bad start.  After all, the response to the album in general was great, even though despite it being recorded digitally (quite a new thing then), Atlantic Records had added Dolby at the mastering stage, which was totally unnecessary as there was no hiss on digital recordings and this changed the overall sound much for the worse and made the record sound bland.  Another cock up!

Still many people responded very positively to the album and we embarked on a tour of the local radio stations that were mostly playing the song, ‘What’s the Problem?’  Halfway through the radio tour finding that my album wasn’t in any of the shops despite me appearing on Richard and Judy, Breakfast Time, and the James Whale Show twice, I had a heart to heart with my manager and he left the tour to me and went back to London.  He said to tell the record company to pull the plug on my career. 

During all this time, my long time girlfriend had been in and out of hospital at deaths door.  She weighed only six stone and was heavily pregnant with our first child.  I had been at odds, not with Hit&Run Music who were great, but with Patrick Williams, who I often got the impression was actually working against me in my quest for success. 

Every time I was due an advance on publishing he would make sarcastic remarks about the sun shining out of my arse or me brown-nosing George Martin.  Poisonous stuff which really didn’t help matters!  I think I was at this point on the verge of a nervous breakdown. 

Everything depended on the next release.  ‘Holding onto you’ was released about February ’89 I think.  It made number 84 in the top 100.  It would have made the top 40 but it was ‘weighted’ because there was such a lot of hype about it.  Dave Lee Travis played it regularly.  Thanks Dave!  So did Mary Costello and Johnny Walker, but still it got nowhere. 

Tony Smith called me in to tell me, due to my falling out with Patrick Smith, he would have to pull out on the deal with me.  He kept the publishing though, which made it very difficult to get everyone else’s interest as this was the best slice of the cake.  He said he didn’t want to end up with egg on his face.  Little did we know, any of us, that at this time my song ‘Say Something’ was top of the charts in the Middle East during the Civil War and had become a sort of national anthem to the people of Lebanon. 

I was a hero and a success there but for some reason no one told us in England.  Me and my girlfriend Rayne had nowhere to live and no income or future.  But amazingly against all odds I managed to secure a support slot to the band ‘Swing Out Sister’ on the tour.  It was only about twelve dates but I played some great gigs on my piano.  It was quite sad really.  ‘Snake Davis’ sang along with me to help.  Thanks Snake, you’re a gem.  After a few months very thin, depressed and generally suicidal I went back home to my mum to rest, get well and lick my considerable wounds. 

1989: I was feeling vulnerable and broken inside but I had a few ideas of what to do.  I decided to become a lawyer and work in the music biz helping people like me.  I took on a law access course at a local college and fell in love with a student there.  I finished with Rayne and proceeded on my new path.  I visited Keele University on the open day and quite by accident, fate or whatever, I met a guitarist only 18 named Jason who looked like John Lennon and we got along famously.  We formed a band and made many recordings, some found on my album ‘Eternity Beckons.’  We started a party band to earn some money and this gave us a chance to play, have fun and earn a living. 

In about August 1990 I went to the songwriters showcase in London and played three songs with Jason.  This was the start of my involvement with my new producer, Gunther Kutsch, a German man who was very kind to me and really believed in me.  We made an album together ‘Preaching Love with a Gun’, which is a sort of 80’s retro rock throwback.  It was recorded in Saarbrucken in CAS studios.  We negotiated a deal with Polydor and it was sold all around the world.  I appeared on German TV and the song was being played throughout Europe which was a nice portrayal at this time.  It didn’t make the charts but was a radio hit in impoverished East Germany where I visited and did the TV show.   

After this failure to make a big hit, Polydor pulled out and didn’t release the album, a familiar story to me by now.  I decided once again to try university and decided to study Music and philosophy at Cardiff, which I loved.  Also my party band, The Blue Angels, was becoming more popular and I saw a way of earning a nice living when having fun.

Eventually I transferred to Birmingham University so I could do everything at once, but my mind was too distracted from my studies by the thrills of now attending some of the most prestigious parties in the UK.  I kid you not!  I became the absolute king of the party circuit and I entertained famous names such as Rory Bremner, Andy Gray, Lady Caroline Windsor, Princess Anne, Barry McGuigan, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and so many others that I have forgotten.

I played the Conservative Party Christmas and summer ball eleven years in a row and was flown to Barbados, Monte Carlo and Switzerland to play for people who owned yachts and mansions I could only dream of.  I abandoned my original songs completely and became a gigging machine driven by money, drugs, rock and roll and camaraderie.  We had a million laughs and so many fabulous times, but at fifteen years I was well on my way to burn out. 

There was a gradual mutiny in the band as is often the case, and due to various arguments and personality differences they left me one by one.  It was like losing your own family and hurt me a bit.  It was quite easy at first to replace them, but as my vocal abilities tired, I had to employ more and more different people and the band became more ragged.  Not quite the force it had been.  The parties went on though, and we still played fantastic venues, but something died in me after about 1200 gigs and I had to admit to myself that I really needed a rest or I might die. 

2008:  One day Carol Impney of Hit&Run ‘phoned me asking if I would like to own the master tapes to my original album ‘Say Something’ which had sat going mouldy in their loft for twenty years or so.  The rest of this story is on the inner sleeve of the album.   I was surprised and delighted to receive the master tapes and the many photos of my time in the studio with George Martin. 

The tapes were so mouldy that they had to be cleaned by hand and baked for several days in a large oven in order to regenerate the glue which held together the digital information.  I then had to make a composite of various tracks because there were so many clicks and bumps.  It took a further few weeks and was very expensive as well.  Many thanks to Kevin Burgman for helping me with it.  I then proceeded to remix the entire album at Kings Recordings and edited many of the tracks to my more mature taste, the results of which are found on my new album ‘Say Something Revisited’.  I also included one new song ‘All around The World’.  I decided to form my own label and do everything myself from now on.  That label is ‘Undiscovered Classics’.

PR Links

Andy Leek’s ‘Say Something,’ A Classic George Martin Production Reissued

Andy Leek’s ‘Say Something,’ A Classic George Martin Production Reissued

What's The Problem With Andy Leek & Sir George Martin

Andy Leek Moors Magazine

Andy Leek Mike Davies Review

Sir George Martin & The Small Man Against The World

The Times "Come on, aisle-een: Andy Leek has played weddings for over a decade"

Andy Leek 'Caught In The Act' Geoff Wall - Stick It In Your Ear

Andy Leek Releases Say Something Revisited - Sixtyplusurfers