John Leyton

Like the better-remembered Adam Faith, John Leyton had a lot of success in Britain in the early '60s with lugubrious teen idol pop that was only tenuously related to rock & roll. Not much of a singer, his hits are most notable for Joe Meek's inventive production, which utilized ghostly female backup vocals, variable-speed pianos, and swirling wind effects. Most of Leyton's earliest (and most successful) material was written by Geoff Goddard, a songwriter who often penned compositions for Meek's acts; heavy on loner melodrama, it often used pseudo-wild west galloping rhythms an...