Derek "Lek" Leckenby was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 and lead guitarist, most famous for his work with English pop group Herman's Hermits

Herman's Hermits

Herman's Hermits are an English beat band, formed in Manchester in 1963 as Herman & The Hermits. The group's record producer, Mickie Most , emphasized a simple, non-threatening, clean-cut image, although the band originally played R&B numbers...

.

Early life

Leckenby was born in Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

. He was educated at William Hulme's Grammar School

William Hulme's Grammar School

William Hulme's Grammar School is an Academy in Whalley Range, Manchester, England.-History:WHGS was founded on 26 January 1887 as a grammar school. It ceased to be a direct grant school when the Labour government abolished the scheme, and was therefore forced to become private...

, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, and commenced a civil engineering

Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

 degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 course at Manchester University before leaving to become a professional musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

.

Herman's Hermits

An accomplished guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 and musician, he played the lead guitar

Lead guitar

Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

 for Herman's Hermits. He played on many of the band's

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 early hits

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 and composed

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

s with bandmates Keith Hopwood

Keith Hopwood

Keith Hopwood is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer, businessman and record producer, who served as the rhythm guitarist and backing vocals for the 1960s pop band, Herman's Hermits...

, Peter Noone

Peter Noone

Peter Noone is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist and actor, best known as "Herman" of the successful 1960s rock group Herman's Hermits.-Early life:...

 and Karl Green

Karl Green

Karl Green is an English songwriter, musician and bassist who was the bass guitarist and backing singer for the 1960s British band, Herman's Hermits, which featured Peter Noone...

. He admired their 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...

 Mickie Most

Mickie Most

Mickie Most was an English record producer, with a string of hit singles with acts such as The Animals, Arrows, Herman's Hermits, Donovan, Suzi Quatro and the Jeff Beck Group often issued on his own RAK Records label....

, but was bothered at times by Most's use of session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

s on the band's mid-career hits, despite the Hermits' more-than-acceptable skills as players. Leckenby played on all the band's US

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and UK

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...

 Number One hits and provided the solo

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

 on "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am

I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am

"I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" is a 1910 British music hall song by Fred Murray and R. P. Weston...

". Karl Green commented on VH1

VH1

VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

's My Generation-Herman's Hermits that Most's use of session musicians on some of the band's records was unfair to Leckenby in particular. During the 1970s and 1980s, Leckenby tried to set the record straight with the rock media, explaining the large body of guitar playing he contributed to the band's records. Even the band's US 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,...

 ABKCO failed to credit the Hermits' playing in the liner notes to its retrospective on the band. Leckenby's skills are apparent not only on Herman's Hermits records, but also on videos

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 of the band's live appearances including the 1965 NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

music awards and the Herman's Hermits Hilton Show. Additionally, Leckenby can be heard on several releases by Hopwood's Pluto Music, including the compilation album

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

  Vault 69.

Leckenby is credited with arranging

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

 the band's first big hit, "I'm Into Something Good

I'm into Something Good

"I'm into Something Good" is a song composed by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and made famous by Herman's Hermits. The song was originally recorded by Cookies member Earl-Jean McCrea in 1964 and reached number 38 on the US pop singles chart...

". His skills on guitar and dobro

Dobro

Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...

 are heard on releases such as the LP

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 A Whale of a Tale and the later singles, such as "Ginny Go Softly" and "Heart Get Ready for Love".

Despite the split with Noone, Leckenby always spoke highly of his friend and defended the singer's vocal

Human voice

The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. Its frequency ranges from about 60 to 7000 Hz. The human voice is specifically that part of human sound production in which the vocal folds are the primary...

 abilities to critics

Music journalism

Music journalism is criticism and reportage about music. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism , comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of...

. Noone also praised Leckenby's talent in numerous interviews over the years.