Sydney Denis Preston was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 and music critic. He has been described as "Europe's first independent record producer".

Biography

Preston worked independently; he was not contracted to a particular record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 and would often risk cutting a record before pitching for a deal.

In the early 1950s, Preston founded Record Supervision Ltd, a production company that licensed

Music licensing

Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the creators of musical works get paid for their work. A purchaser of recorded music owns the media on which the music is stored, not the music itself...

 recordings to major labels. The following year, he accepted a licensing deal with Pye Records

Pye Records

Pye Records was a British record label. In its first incarnation, perhaps Pye's best known artists were Lonnie Donegan , Petula Clark , The Searchers , The Kinks , Sandie Shaw and Brotherhood of Man...

 and produced records for Chris Barber

Chris Barber

Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber is best known as a jazz trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with...

, Acker Bilk, Alex Welsh

Alex Welsh

Alex Welsh was a Scottish jazz musician, who played the cornet, trumpet and sang.-Biography:Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Welsh started playing in the teenage 'Leith Silver Band' and gigged with Archie Semple's 'Capital Jazz Band'. After moving to London in the early 1950s, Welsh formed his own band...

, Sandy Brown

Sandy Brown

Sandy Brown may refer to:*Sandy Brown *Sandy Brown *Sandy Brown , Scottish clarinettist*Sandy brown, a colour and shade of brown-See also:...

 and Al Fairweather

Al Fairweather

Alastair Fairweather was a British jazz musician, born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Educated at the city's Royal High School and Edinburgh College of Art, Fairweather served his National Service in Egypt....

, Terry Lightfoot

Terry Lightfoot

Terry Lightfoot is a British clarinettist and bandleader, and together with Chris Barber, Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball was one of the leading members of the trad jazz generation of British jazzmen.-Early life:Lightfoot started his musical career as a vocalist during school-life, singing popular songs...

, and Kenny Baker

Kenny Baker

Kenneth George "Kenny" Baker is a British actor and musician, best known as the man inside R2-D2 in the popular Star Wars film series.- Career :...

. He also produced some of Lonnie Donegan

Lonnie Donegan

Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...

's early skiffle

Skiffle

Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...

 recordings.

In 1956, he established Lansdowne Studios (and associated label Lansdowne Records) in west London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The same year he produced Humphrey Lyttleton's 1956 record "Bad Penny Blues

Bad Penny Blues

"Bad Penny Blues" is a trad jazz piece written by Humphrey Lyttelton and recorded with his band in London on April 20, 1956.- Popular success :It was originally released as Parlophone ER 4184 and became a hit record in Britain at the time....

" with the recording engineer Joe Meek

Joe Meek

Robert George "Joe" Meek was a pioneering English record producer and songwriter....

. 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

Recording studio

A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...

.

During the early, Preston worked with EMI

EMI Records

EMI Records is the flagship record label founded by the EMI company in 1972 and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia label. The EMI label was launched worldwide...

 on their Columbia

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 label. Preston's production branched out from traditional jazz into folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, modern jazz and guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

-based genres (working with artists such as Jack Elliot, Roger Whittaker

Roger Whittaker

Roger Whittaker is an Anglo-Kenyan singer-songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of over 55 million. His music can be described as easy listening. He is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability...

, Joe Harriott

Joe Harriott

Joseph Arthurlin 'Joe' Harriott was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone....

 and Stan Tracey

Stan Tracey

Stanley William Tracey CBE is a British jazz pianist and composer, most influenced by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.-Early career:...

) as well as African and Indian-inspired artists (Amancio D'Silva

Amancio D'Silva

Amancio D'Silva was an Indian-born jazz guitarist and composer, known for his own recordings and his collaborations with other musicians in Britain, notably Joe Harriott and Stan Tracey.-Life:...

 and Kofi Ghanaba).

Preston died in 1979. His Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

obituary

Obituary

An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...

 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

Eric Hobsbawm

Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm , CH, FBA, is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual, and author...

.