DARRYL W. BULLOCK – Love and Fury: The Extraordinary Life, Death and Legacy of Joe Meek

RELEASE YEAR: 2025
BAND URL: https://omnibuspress.com/products/love-and-fury

Darryl W. Bullock was an immensely talented writer (with the phenomenal The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties being a standout) whose books on queer music history were thought-provoking and reflective, but the latest entry in his bibliography may well be the finest and most impressive one to have been penned by him. The legendary (and undoubtedly infamous) record producer and engineer Joe Meek, a true pioneer in terms of establishing a totally unique sound and pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible to achieve in the recording studio, was simply the perfect subject for Bullock to examine and discuss in thorough detail, and you can tell from its nearly four hundred pages that the author had a fabulous time immersing himself in all things Meek – not least the staggering amount of albums and singles that Joe had a hand in conceiving and bringing to life. With respect to its topic, overall atmosphere, and emotional intensity, Love and Fury almost feels like a sequel to The Velvet Mafia and a rather perfect one at that.

Nuanced and brimming with a subtle energy that compels one to simply keep going once one has ventured into the strange world of Meek, Bullock’s book offers a myriad of different perspectives – all of which are fascinating – on the complex nature of Joe’s life and the very core of his being. Ambitious, creative, polite, innovative, and generous to a fault, but also prone to violent outbursts and intense temper tantrums that earned him a certain reputation and cost him quite a few friends and colleagues over the years, the man was occasionally maniacal only to revert to his usually gentle and quietly spoken nature a few minutes later. In addition to certain actions and deeds that spoke of an unwell mind, Meek was also gay, and with the prevailing point of view in Britain and the draconian laws pertaining to homosexuality being what they were in the 50s and 60s, life was anything but easy when one was as driven by instinct and intution as he was. Despite these contrasts constantly wrestling within him, he became a go-to producer in London and an expert in his field, and his hallowed recording studio at 304 Holloway Road, which he treated as a musical instrument, is now a historical landmark in the city.

The author’s meticulous and exhaustive research coupled with the countless candid interviews with those who knew Joe make for a gripping tale, and never has the story been told as vividly and passionately in either print or on screen as it is here. Bullock paints an emotionally charged yet unsentimental portrait of a troubled soul and a genius who constantly went back and forth between triumph and defeat in terms of his professional work and private life. Depressed and what must have bordered on clinical fatigue saw a tragic end to Meek’s life, but even more catastrophic was the death of his landlady, Violet Shenton, who suffered a terrible and unjust fate; Meek shot her in a fit of blistering rage and then immediately turned the gun on himself afterwards. Questions, theories, and speculation have always surrounded the demise of the doomed audio maverick, including ones that revolve around the Kray Twins and London’s criminal underworld, but they are fortunately neither sensationalized nor given too much credit by Bullock. Paranoia, amphetamines, and an unearthly fit of madness undoubtedly played a key role in the horrendous incident.

Love and Fury is an unforgettable read and a moving narrative with a haunting quality to it, and for the rock aficionados out there, it might interest you to know that some of the session players who often turned up at Meek’s studio and appeared on his recordings included Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, Mick Underwood, and Steve Howe. Seldom has a book on what can only be termed devastating obsession been as arresting as this one.