Mike Vernon obituary

"From Bolton to Bexhill-on-Sea, teenagers went prospecting for it: haunting specialist record shops, starting fanzines and creating fly-by-night record labels for illicit reissues. That was exactly how the record producer and music executive Mike Vernon, who has died aged 81, began a lengthy career that helped to introduce the world to artists such as John Mayall, Eric Clapton and Fleetwood Mac."

"A dedicated record collector in his teens, in 1964 Mike founded a fanzine, R&B Monthly, with his schoolfriend Neil Slaven. The following year, with the help of his brother Richard, he created the Blue Horizon Records label, which reissued obscure American singles in the UK and gave first opportunities to young British musicians who had also heard the siren call of the blues."

"At 18 Mike was taken on as a producer at Decca Records, where he overseeing the album From New Orleans to Chicago (1965) by the blues singer and pianist Champion Jack Dupree, accompanied by emerging British blues names such as Mayall, Clapton and Tony McPhee."

Mike Vernon, who died at 81, became a pivotal figure in British music history by introducing African-American R&B and blues to young British audiences. Beginning as a dedicated record collector in the 1950s, he co-founded the fanzine R&B Monthly in 1964 and established Blue Horizon Records in 1965 to reissue obscure American blues singles and support emerging British musicians. At 18, Vernon joined Decca Records as a producer, overseeing influential albums including Champion Jack Dupree's From New Orleans to Chicago and John Mayall's Blues Breakers, which featured Eric Clapton. His work with Mayall's subsequent album A Hard Road introduced Peter Green, who later recruited Vernon to produce Fleetwood Mac's debut album and the single Albatross, establishing Vernon's reputation for creating authentic, earthy recordings that defined British blues.

Read at www.theguardian.com