One of the most striking boxsets released over the past month, 1962 – From Taboo To Telstar is very much a testament to the tortured genius of one Robert George ‘Joe’ Meek.
Growing up in a time when homosexuality was not only taboo but also illegal in the UK, the producer’s pent up frustration would eventually culminate in the murder of his landlady and subsequent suicide by the same gun in 1967. Some would argue that it is wrong to commemorate a killer with such a collection but let’s face it, if we wiped out every artist who’d ever committed a crime or misdemeanour, there wouldn’t be many left, would there?
Whatever indiscretions were perpetrated by Joe Meek, his musical legacy, at least, remains untarnished, and that is solely what we will be concentrating on, for this remarkable triple disc set. The 1962 instrumental ‘Telstar‘ by The Tornadoes is undoubtedly his best-known production and still sounds like nothing else some 62 years later, but there was more to Meek than that, as represented by the earlier recordings that make up disc one.
Kicking off with Charles Blackwell Orchestra‘s ‘Taboo‘, there’s already an intensity to this otherwise playful track, and, as uptempo as many of the tunes on this compilation are, this is something of a consistent where Meek is concerned. Happy, but with a strange undercurrent of menace. Not that you’d notice such a thing on the other CBO track here, ‘Midnight In Luxembourg‘, but it’s there on most of the other recordings if you listen closely enough. It’s particularly apparent on the handful of John Leyton songs that make the cut – ‘Lone Rider‘ (like the soundtrack to an early Western movie) and the throbbing ‘Lonely City‘ especially.
Of course, it’s not always that way – those tracks by The Stonehenge Men, ‘Big Feet‘ and ‘Pinto‘ just make you want to dance, and there are songs on disc two, most notably Iain Gregory‘s ‘Pocket Full Of Dreams (And Eyes Full Of Tears)‘ and ‘My Little Girl’s Come Home‘ that are more in line with the heartthrobs of the late fifties and early sixties, such as Bobby Vee or Marty Wilde, and, much like Phil Spector‘s so-called ‘wall of sound’, the expansiveness that Meek provides for his subjects is something to behold.
My personal favourite of the three discs though, is the last one, when we get to the rockier sounds of Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers and the irresistibly rhythmic groove of ‘Avenue Of Loneliness‘ or ‘I Get Up In The Morning‘. Also of great appeal is the lesser-known rockabilly-ish sound of Ricky Wayne‘s ‘Pretend‘ and Geri Harlow‘s dreamy ‘Mr. Right‘, which reminds me somewhat of the late English singer Twinkle.
In short, this is an excellent, varied set of recordings by a diverse bunch of artists that is guaranteed to brighten your day, and that’s what Joe Meek should be remembered for. Even if that does contradict what I said earlier!
