Hugh Mendl

Jul 21 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

THE public school boy, who had been groomed for the diplomatic service, didn’t actually give birth to The Beatles himself.

But he did plant the seed that grew into the British rock and roll scene, which would in the 1960s dominate music on both sides of the Atlantic.

And Billy Bragg, the singer/ songwriter, tells a story about that, starting with the day on July 5, 1954, when the young truck driver, Elvis Presley, walked into the Sun Record studios in Memphis, Tennessee.

A week later, the Chris Barber Jazz Band, with the banjo player Lonnie Donegan, assembled at the Decca Gramophone Company’s Studio Two, in Broadhurst Gardens, London.

When it seemed that their jazz repertoire was exhausted, Lonnie suggested to Hugh Mendl, the producer, that they should do some “skiffle”.

Mendl hadn’t heard the word before, but he agreed. The result was Lonnie’s version of Leadbelly’s song, Rock Island Line.

More than a year later, it was released as a single, soaring up the British and, more surprisingly, the US charts. The biggest teenage craze in British history had started. Soon, there were thousands of skiffle groups in England.

Nearly all the leading rockers of the 1960s began with skiffle, including The Beatles. But skiffle was replaced by rock and roll. Youth culture in this country had changed forever.

However, Mendl seemed an unlikely social revolutionary, as an old boy of Radley College, Abingdon, Oxford- shire, who had advanced to University College, Oxford, with the intention of entering the diplomatic service.

However, he loved jazz and, instead, joined Decca, where his grandfather was chairman. In traditional style, he began as an office boy, but his rise was interrupted by war service in Jerusalem, where he also presented a jazz show on the radio and read the news.

On his return to Decca, he became a record plugger and then a producer. After the success with Lonnie, he signed Tommy Steele – during this time befriending George Martin, who would later produce The Beatles at the rival EMI studio.

Decca had turned down The Beatles and, in a bid to recover from that disaster, signed The Rolling Stones, on the recommendation of George Harrison.

Mendl, married twice with four children, also brought David Bowie to Decca, but had his greatest moment as executive producer of Days of Future Passed (1967) by the Moody Blues.

Hugh Mendl, record producer; born August 6, 1919, died July 7, 2008.