Customer Reviews

Portrait of a Genius: The Rgm Legacy

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This is a great reason why collecting Joe Meek is a very rewarding hobby. Castle Records has released this fantastic and extensive overview of Joe's full body of work, containing rarities that will certainly please those who enjoy his work and this type of music. The highlight, for me personally, is the German A-Side version of the Honeycombs single 'Have I the Right?' which is performed in the Germans language. This is a most entertaining take, as the song itself is a totally different take, not merely a vocal overdub.

I feel confident in giving this set 5 stars, but I would strongly recommend the set for more seasoned vets of Mr. Meek; this is not the best place to start for the beginner. Beginners should definitely check out one of the single-disc overviews, as this 4CD box will probably be too overwhelming if you are not familiar with the more popular material first.

Joe Meek was considered a genius because he took the recording medium and interpreted it as another instrument in the creative process. Before him, most recordings were done with the intention of making it sound as accurate as possible. Meek completely bewildered musicians when he mic'ed their instruments at a really high volume and used all sorts of effects and compression. He existed at a weird vortex in time where pop music still wasn't very widely accepted, but he used it as a vessel to express his passion for outer space as well as the loneliness he felt, especially since he was said to be a very strange person, on top of being gay in a time when such things were illegal.

As a result, there were tons of hit songs churned out of Meeksville, produced by a tone deaf man who used to record himself tapping on a plate and humming in order to communicate to musicians the sound that he wanted. Meek often utilized strange otherworldly sounds he created as well as recordings from his attempts to record the dead in graveyards in his regularly charting songs.

It goes without saying that people who aren't very familiar with Joe Meek should probably pick up a single CD collection before this one, as it isn't that wise to buy a box set of someone you're not familiar with, but especially because this one seems to have been released for the specific purpose of selling to seasoned fans. There are a number of hits that are not in this collection, almost as if to assume that anyone who buys it will already own them. For instance, The Moontrekkers' "Night of The Vampire", Screaming Lord Sutch's "Til The Following Night", anything by Glenda Collins, and Joe Meek & The Blue Men's "I Hear A New World" (there is only an excerpt on this release) are what I consider to be essential for anyone fond of Joe Meek, and missing from "Portrait of a Genius". In it's place there are 40 something pages of liner notes/photos, alternate takes, demo versions, unissued sides, and several excerpts from a bio that Joe seemed to have recorded for a record label or something.

"The RGM Legacy" is by no means "one-stop shopping", but for the initiated, it is pure gold.

This great box set is a sprawling overview of the entire
music production career of Joe Meek. Disc 1 starts out with
the work he did while employed at major recording studios.
Discs 2 through 4 cover the prized period where Meek recorded as
an independent producer, setting up shop in various flats.
Contains many great rare and unreleased tracks, some of which rank
amongst Meek's best productions. Highly recommended for the
serious Meek fan.

Joe Meek was one of the true mavericks of music. Every bit as important as Phil Spector and like Spector someone who should never have owned a gun. His life can be best viewed in the excellent bio-pic "Telstar" and heard here in this collection. This set focuses on Meek the engineer as well as Meek the producer. It covers his work from 1955 thru 1966. In just over 10 years he contributed so much to the word of music. All the hits are here sounding better than ever. There are many rare and unreleased tracks as well. This set is worth having just for The Honeycombs "HAVE I THE RIGHT" sung in German! A highly recommended collection.

this is a great 4 cd set of some of joes best work that comes with an incredible booklet that explains everything, i was so glad when this came out, the cds are remastered and sound excellent, to bad joe did not hang around longer the swinging 60s where just starting to boom when joe died in february 1967, it always makes me wonder what could have become of him had he lived, fantastic box set for any joe meek fan or 60s psych fan.