When I first began researching the career of British recording icon Joe Meek back in 2000, I knew that he was reputedly a great innovator, but I had no concept of the scope of his achievements.
It was only after a year of acquiring, and poring over, huge quantities of written and recorded material, interviewing people who either worked with Meek or were knowledgeable about him, and listening to well over a thousand recordings from throughout his career, that a relatively complete picture began to emerge.
Meek wasn't just a curious footnote in the annals of British recording history. He was a giant whose approach to recording and recording technology was years, and in some cases decades, ahead of his time, and his influence has been felt throughout the entire British recording community.
Nowadays, many of Meek's once-radical innovations have been so thoroughly assimilated that we take them for granted, if we notice them at all - but they provoked a fierce backlash from the majority of his contemporaries at the time they were introduced.
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