Kevin remembered, by Keith Nichols

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I wish my Dad had been like Kevin – a real enthusiast – excited and motivated by music. I first met Kevin Daly in 1975, when he produced Richard Sudhalter’s New Paul Whiteman album for Argo. We hit it off – Kevin knew all that was to be known about my kind of music, plus owning a record collection of many thousands of discs. The Whiteman project was successful, and this led to my participation on many recordings, mainly conducted by Alan Cohen, who had recorded Ellington’s Black, Brown & Beige for Kevin...

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Recording with Kevin, by Norma Winstone, MBE

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Kevin always seemed relaxed at recording sessions, as I remember. Even when we once turned up for a recording at ‘The Paramount Organ Works’ in Bolton which felt like someone’s house with an organ sunk into the lounge floor if I remember correctly! It was actually the home of cinema organist Ron Curtis’s three organs, one of which did actually rise up on its original cinema mechanism...

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Working (and drinking) with Kevin, by Martin Atkinson

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I was a recording engineer at Decca from 1976-1989 and knew Kevin, in fact I worked with him and Iain Churches recording Ron Curtis and one of his organs at Ron’s Paramount Organ Works in Bolton. We had to make two trips as the first trip ended in a drunken stupor at lunch time, with Ron being unable to play! As we couldn’t stay an extra day we had to re-schedule for a later date...

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Thanks Kevin! by Andy Leggett

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In October 1969 I’d given up the day-job building Concordes at Filton to strum guitar with the Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra – a comedy quartet selling primitive jazz and jug-band music on the folk club circuit. The name of Kevin Daly kept cropping up. He had produced Argo LPs for other folk artistes, similarly equipped with stringed instruments and too much hair. Several were suggesting we should approach him...

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Fats At The Organ

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Fats At The Organ

Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller was born in New York City on 21 May 1904 and by the time he was sixteen he had already written his first hit song ‘Squeeze Me’, and established a reputation as one of the most likeable and talented of the exponents of Harlem stride piano. He idolised James P. Johnson, who gave him lessons and encouragement and even got him his first job at Leroy’s Cabaret on 135th Street and Fifth Avenue...

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