Joe Meek

Acclaimed by many as the UK's Phil Spector, Joe Meek was born on April 5, 1929. In the 1960's he produced hits for Lonnie Donegan, The Honeycombs, John Leyton and others, but his single greatest achievement was writing and producing The Tornados' Telstar, a UK and US Number 1 hit in 1962.

Meek had built his own recording studio in a flat above a shop at 304 Holloway Road in North London, and there he experimented with echo, overdubs and various other effects to achieve a sound unique on the British scene. By late 1963 he had much to smile about. Once the laughing stock of his rivals for daring to make pop hits in his home studio, the Number 1 success of both Telstar and John Leyton's Johnny Remember Me was enough to silence any critics.

And so, on the night of November 11, Meek strolled to the gentlemen's lavatories of Madras Place, London N7 for a spot of recreational 'cottaging'. This being 1963, homosexuality was still illegal in Britain but Meek was no stranger to the thrill of illicit gay sex in public toilets. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong place and the wrong time to be hanging around for rough trade - the conveniences were under police surveillance, and no sooner had Meek "smiled at an old man" than he was arrested by an undercover police officer.

The producer was formally charged the next day at Clerkenwell Magistrates Court for "persistently importuning for an immoral purpose". He was fined £15, but the cost to his career and mental health was to be far greater. In the aftermath of his arrest, his already rampant paranoia increased, exacerbated by drug abuse and blackmail threats (homosexuals being a favourite victim of extortionists until the law changed in 1967).

Within three years, the hits dried up as Meek resisted pop's changing trends. He was found dead on February 3 1967, with a bullet wound to his head, at his home studio. After shooting his landlady, Mrs Violet Shenton, he had turned the gun on himself. 

He was known to have been depressed about his recent lack of success, but it seems no coincidence that the date of his probable suicide coincided with the eighth anniversary of Buddy Holly's death - Meek had been an obsessively devoted Holly fan all his adult life.