Michael George Farr professionally known as Mike Leander was an arranger and record producer for Decca Records

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

 in the 1960s and Bell Records in the 1970s and worked with such artists as Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....

, Billy Fury

Billy Fury

Billy Fury, born Ronald William Wycherley , was an internationally successful English singer from the late-1950s to the mid-1960s, and remained an active songwriter until the 1980s. Rheumatic fever, which he first contracted as a child, damaged his heart and ultimately contributed to his death...

, Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and poet. He is best known as the founder, frontman, lead singer & guitarist for T. Rex, but also a successful solo artist...

, Joe Cocker

Joe Cocker

John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...

, The Small Faces

The Small Faces

The Small Faces were an English rock and roll band from East London, heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston, although by 1966 Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan as the band's...

, Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

, Alan Price

Alan Price

Alan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....

, Peter Frampton

Peter Frampton

Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...

, Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

, Shirley Bassey

Shirley Bassey

Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...

, Lulu

Lulu (singer)

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...

, Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

, Roy Orbison

Roy Orbison

Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...

, Brian Jones

Brian Jones

Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....

 and Gene Pitney

Gene Pitney

Eugene Francis Alan Pitney, known as Gene Pitney , was an American singer-songwriter, musician and sound engineer. Through the mid-1960s, he enjoyed success as a recording artist on both sides of the Atlantic and was among the group of early 1960s American acts who continued to enjoy hits after the...

. He is perhaps best known as co-writer and producer for Gary Glitter

Gary Glitter

Gary Glitter is an English former glam rock singer-songwriter and musician.Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s...

 throughout the 1970s.

Leander also worked as a producer/arranger with Ben E. King

Ben E. King

Benjamin Earl King , better known as Ben E. King, is an American soul singer. He is perhaps best known as the singer and co-composer of "Stand by Me", a U.S...

 and The Drifters

The Drifters

The Drifters are a long-lived American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal group with a peak in popularity from 1953 to 1963, though several splinter Drifters continue to perform today. They were originally formed to serve as Clyde McPhatter's backing group in 1953...

 on the Atlantic record label and was the arranger on The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' "She's Leaving Home

She's Leaving Home

"She's Leaving Home" is a song credited to Lennon–McCartney and released in 1967 on The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney wrote and sang the verse and Lennon the chorus...

" from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...

album (the only time The Beatles recruited someone other than their producer, George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

, to provide orchestration.)

He was executive producer of the Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

/Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

 concept album Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...

and in the late 1960s wrote scores for several films, including Privilege

Privilege (film)

Privilege is a British film directed by Peter Watkins. It was released in 1967 being produced by John Heyman. Story: Johnny Speight. Script: Norman Bogner...

with Paul Jones

Paul Jones (singer)

Paul Jones is an English singer, actor, harmonica player, and radio personality and television presenter.-Career:As P. P...

 and Jean Shrimpton

Jean Shrimpton

Jean Rosemary Shrimpton is an English model and actress. She was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels....

, Run a Crooked Mile

Run a Crooked Mile

Run a Crooked Mile is a made-for-TV thriller in which Louis Jourdan stars as Richard Stuart, an ordinary schoolteacher who, whilst on holiday, is a witness to a murder in a private secluded mansion....

with Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as...

 and Louis Jourdan and The Adding Machine

The Adding Machine (film)

The Adding Machine is a 1969 British fantasy drama film directed by Jerome Epstein and starring Milo O'Shea, Phyllis Diller, Billie Whitelaw, Sydney Chaplin and Raymond Huntley...

with Billie Whitelaw

Billie Whitelaw

Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...

 and Milo O'Shea

Milo O'Shea

-Early life:He was born and raised in Dublin and educated by the Christian Brothers at Synge Street, along with his friend Donal Donnelly.He was discovered in the 1950s by Harry Dillon, who ran the "37 Theatre Club" on the top floor of his shop The Swiss Gem Company, 51 Lower O'Connell Street...

.

Leander first worked with singer Paul Raven in the 1960s and produced various singles for him on MCA Records

MCA Records

MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

 (now Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...

) and this led to Raven's part on Jesus Christ Superstar. Raven later became Gary Glitter

Gary Glitter

Gary Glitter is an English former glam rock singer-songwriter and musician.Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s...

 and the two began an on/off working relationship that would last until Leander's death. The partnership produced a string of glam rock

Glam rock

Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

 hits -- many of which Leander co-wrote with Glitter -- beginning in 1972 with "Rock and Roll (Parts 1 and 2)

Rock and Roll (Gary Glitter song)

"Rock and Roll", also known as "The Hey Song", is a song performed by British glam rocker Gary Glitter that was released in 1972 as a single and on the album Glitter. Co-written by Glitter and Mike Leander, the song is in two parts: Part 1 is a vocal track reflecting on the history of the genre,...

", which reached #2 in the UK, #1 in France and also the top 10 in many other countries including the USA. This was followed by ten more Top 10 UK singles, including three chart-toppers, "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)" (1973), "I Love You Love Me Love

I Love You Love Me Love

"I Love You Love Me Love" was a popular song by Gary Glitter.Written by Gary Glitter and Mike Leander and produced by Mike Leander, "I Love You Love Me Love" was Glitter's second number one single in the UK, spending four weeks at the top of the chart in November 1973, and establishing itself as...

" (1973) and "Always Yours

Always Yours

"Always Yours" was a popular song by Gary Glitter.Written by Glitter and Mike Leander and produced by Leander, "Always Yours" was Glitter's third and final number one single in the UK, spending a single week at the top of the chart in June 1974....

" (1974).

In the 1980s he wrote the musical Matador

Matador (musical)

Matador is the title of a 1991 musical by Mike Leander and Edward Seago, with a book by Peter Jukes, which tells the story of the rise and fall of a fictional matador, loosely based on Manuel Benitez, El Cordobes. The show featured stunning choreography in traditional Flamenco style by Rafael...

, which gave Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

a hit album and single A Boy From Nowhere.

External links

• Mike Leander Biography (dead link)