John Leckie

Early life

Born in Paddington, London, Leckie was educated at The Quintin School, a grammar school in North West London, (now Quintin Kynaston Community Academy) then Ravensbourne (college) of Art and Design in Bromley. After leaving school, he worked for United Motion Pictures as audio assistant.

Early career

Leckie began work at Abbey Road Studios on 15 February 1970 as a tape operator, later graduating to balance engineer and record producer. During this early career he worked as a tape operator with artists such as John Lennon (John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band), George Harrison, (All Things Must Pass), Syd Barrett (Barrett) and moved up to the desk to be balance engineer for Pink Floyd (Meddle and Wish You Were Here). Mott The Hoople's album Mott and Paul McCartney's Wings Red Rose Speedway and the single Hi, Hi, Hi. Other engineering sessions at Abbey Road at this time were with Roy Harper, Soft Machine, Sammy Hagar, Jack Rieley's Western Justice album and the last recordings with Syd Barrett.

His first job as producer was Be-Bop Deluxe's third album Sunburst Finish, a collaboration which continued with Modern Music, Live! In The Air Age and Drastic Plastic. In 1977 Leckie produced The Adverts’ Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts, Magazine’s Real Life, and Doctors of Madness’ Figments of Emancipation.

Leckie left Abbey Road in 1978 and produced albums for Simple Minds (Life in a Day, Real to Real Cacophony and Empires and Dance). For Be-Bop Deluxe founder Bill Nelson, he produced the Red Noise album Sound on Sound and Nelson's subsequent solo album Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam (the latter unreleased until 1981). Leckie recorded the début single, Public Image for Public Image Ltd and produced The Human League’s Holiday 80 EP. Leckie's work with XTC included producing their debut 3D single and EP, and first two studio albums, White Music and Go 2. He went on to produce 25 O'Clock and Psonic Psunspot, which XTC issued under the pseudonym The Dukes of Stratosphear in the mid 1980s.

1980s work

For a full list of albums and tracks produced, engineered and mixed by John Leckie, please see Albums produced by John Leckie

Album productions in the 1980s included three albums with The Fall (The Wonderful and Frightening World Of..., This Nation's Saving Grace, and Bend Sinister), and Felt's album The Strange Idols Pattern and Other Short Stories.

He also produced records with The Woodentops, The Wake, The Adult Net, The Lucy Show, The Doctor's Children, Gene Loves Jezebel, Bill Nelson, and travelled to the USA to produce House of Freaks and Let's Active. For some of his work with The Dukes, The Adult Net and The Doctor's Children, all bands that had strong 1960s psychedelic overtones, Leckie adopted the pseudonym 'Swami Anand Nagara'.

The early 1980s saw Leckie working in Norway with Spellman-Award-Winners De Press, and Oslo-band The Cut. He also spent a period working for EMI studios in Lagos, Nigeria, working with local artists.

In the mid-1980s he recorded all over Europe, with artists such as French band Marc Seberg, German artist Phillip Boa, and Norwegian band Holy Toy.

Back in Liverpool, Leckie produced tracks with The La’s, including an early version of their hit There She Goes'.

In 1989 Leckie produced The Stone Roses' debut album The Stone Roses. The album was voted the best record of all time on a music poll taken by BBC Radio 6 Music and features as Number 1 on the Observer Music Monthly’s June 2004 “100 Greatest British Albums”. Some months later he produced and mixed their single Fools Gold, which charted at No. 4 in the UK charts, and in early 1990 he produced and mixed the single One Love which also charted at no. 4 in UK.

1990s work

For a full list of albums and tracks produced, engineered and mixed by John Leckie, please see Albums produced by John Leckie

Notable production credits from this era include The Verve's A Storm in Heaven, Ride's Carnival of Light, Cast's albums All Change (1995) and Mother Nature Calls (1997), Kula Shaker's debut K (1996), and an album with Dr John (Anutha Zone) featuring artists Paul Weller, Supergrass, Spiritualised and Dr John's touring band.

Leckie also worked on much of the recording the Stone Roses' album Second Coming. In 1992 Leckie mixed, together with Jack Rieley as producer, the album "We Are The Majority" by German artist Jaye Muller, aka J., aka Count Jaye.

Other albums recorded during this era include The Trashcan Sinatras' 1990 debut album Cake, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians' 1993 album Respect, The Lilac Time's And Love For All, The Silencers’ Dance with the Holy Man, Thee Hypnotics’ Soul Glitter & Sin, Scarlet’s Chemistry, and Six By Seven’s The Closer You Get.

In 1994, Leckie produced and engineered Radiohead's much acclaimed album, The Bends.

Internationally, he recorded The Posies' major-label debut Dear 23 in the United States, Grapes of Wrath's These Days and the Cowboy Junkies' album Miles from Our Home in Canada, and J's debut album We are the Majority in Paris.

Although always wide in scope and genre, Leckie's work during the 1990s began to include World Music, including working in Senegal with Baaba Maal to produce and record Missing You, Zaire-artist Papa Wemba’s Molokaï, Indian santoor player Shivkumar Sharma’s Raga Janasammohini, Ashkhabad’s (Turkmenistan) City of Love, and Pakistan’s Rizwan-Muazzam Qawalii’s Sacrifice To Love.

Leckie was named Best Producer by Music Week (1995) and at the Q Awards (1996) and Brit Awards (1997).

2000s work

For a full list of albums and tracks produced, engineered and mixed by John Leckie, please see Albums produced by John Leckie.

As the decade began he produced the début album Showbiz for Muse. This went platinum on the heels of the band's breakthrough 2001 second album Origin of Symmetry, also produced by Leckie, which reached No. 3 in the UK album chart.

In 2000 he began production on "Wildflowers" the debut album from Northern Ireland band Relish. It attained platinum status in Ireland on release in 2001. In 2001, Leckie produced a single for Suede ("Positivity" from the album A New Morning).

Travelling abroad, he produced Los Lobos’s Good Morning Aztlán in 2001, Longwave’s There's a Fire, and the much acclaimed My Morning Jacket album Z, all recorded in the USA.

Back in the UK Leckie also worked with New Order on Waiting For The Sirens' Call, The Blockheads Where’s The Party?, tracks with Doves on Kingdom Of Rust, and Rodrigo y Gabriela’s eponymous debut album.

Other notable works from the 2000s include John Power’s (of The La’s & Cast) Happening For Love, tracks for Starsailor’s Silence is Easy (2003), My Computer’s No CV (2004), Tiny Dancers’ (2006) Free School Milk, Scott Matthews’s The John Leckie String Sessions. He then returned to working with Baaba Maal in 2007, to record Television.

In 2008 Leckie travelled to India supported by The British Council as India Soundpad and recorded tracks with four bands: Swarathma, Advaita, Indigo Children and Medusa.

Leckie then returned to Abbey Road to record and produce the jazz sounds of Portico Quartet on their second album Isla, and was also called in to remaster the Anniversary Edition Box Set of The Stone Roses eponymous first LP complete with his videos of the sessions and some long lost demos.

2010s work

For a full list of albums and tracks produced, engineered and mixed by John Leckie, please see Albums produced by John Leckie.

In 2010, Leckie produced The Coral's album, Butterfly House, which went on to win Album of the Year at Music Producer's Guild Awards.

Bellowhead’s Hedonism followed later that year, and went on to achieve silver sales status. Leckie also remixed Portico Quartet’s debut album Knee-Deep in the North Sea. Tracks with Ahab, and an album with the reformed Cast (Troubled Times) were recorded in 2011.

He returned to work with Bellowhead on their next (fourth) album Broadside, in 2012, which also received silver sales status.

Overseas, he worked with Belgian artist Novastar on the Inside Outside album, which hit the top spot in the Benelux charts.

In 2014 he completed an album with Palma Violets, Danger In The Club.

Awards

Notable album credits as producer

For a comprehensive list of albums and tracks produced, engineered and mixed by John Leckie, see Albums produced by John Leckie.