Harold Pendleton (17 July 1924 – 22 September 2017) was a British music business executive and former club owner, who established the

Marquee Club The Marquee Club was a music venue first located at 165 Oxford Street in London, when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts. Its most famous period was from 1964 to 1988 at 90 Wardour Street in Soho, and it finally closed wh ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and the National Jazz Festival, the precursor of the Reading Rock Festival.

Biography

Born in

Southport Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England. Southport lies on the Iris ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a Historic counties of England, historic county, Ceremonial County, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significa ...

, Pendleton trained as an

accountant An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certi ...

and moved to London in 1948. He had a love of

traditional jazz Trad jazz, short for "traditional jazz", is a form of jazz in the United States and Britain in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, played by musicians such as Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine, based on a reviv ...

music, and when visiting clubs became friendly with

Chris Barber Donald Christopher "Chris" Barber OBE (17 April 1930 – 2 March 2021) was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with " Petite Fl ...

, who had set up the National Federation of Jazz Organisations of Great Britain (NFJOGB). Pendleton became the organisation's secretary, shortening its name to the National Jazz Federation (NJF), and began organising events highlighting British jazz musicians. "Harold Pendleton", ''TheMarqueeClub.net''
. Retrieved 1 May 2014 By 1957 it was promoting 200 concerts a year, but lacked a regular venue. Simon Frith et al., ''The History of Live Music in Britain, Volume I: 1950-1967'', Ashgate Publishing, 2013
/ref> He also encouraged Barber's banjo player

Lonnie Donegan Anthony James Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002), known as Lonnie Donegan, was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the " King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Sco ...

to record

Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...

's song "

Rock Island Line "Rock Island Line" is an American folk song. Ostensibly about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, it appeared as a folk song as early as 1929. The first recorded performance of "Rock Island Line" was by inmates of the Arkansas Cummins ...

", so stimulating the 1950s

skiffle Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United State ...

craze. In 1958, Pendleton took over the jazz nights held in the Marquee Ballroom in

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...

, expanding their programme and frequency and occasionally inviting American musicians, including

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post- war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicag ...

, to perform there. After Pendleton saw how successful blues music had become at the Ealing Club, the Marquee began hosting

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed p ...

nights in 1962, and featured the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

despite Pendleton's personal dislike of their music. Christopher Andersen, ''Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger'', Simon and Schuster, 2012, p.37
/ref> Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the club, and its attached

recording studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large en ...

, became one of the leading venues for R&B and rock music in Britain. As Secretary of the NJF, and after being involved in earlier jazz festivals at Beaulieu, Pendleton set up the first National Jazz Festival in 1961. Over time, the event expanded to include not only jazz but also blues,

, and

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and ...

, before becoming known as the Reading Festival. In 1987 Pendleton sold the Marquee Club to Billy Gaff, and he retired from his role at the Reading Festival in 1988. Before that, in 1979, he and his wife Barbara became partners with a lighting and sound equipment company, Entec Sound & Light, which had been established by

Pat Chapman Patrick Lawrence Chapman (20 December 1940 – 22 July 2022) was an English food writer, broadcaster and author, best known for founding The Curry Club. Early days Chapman was born in London during the Blitz. His grandfather had achieved s ...

in 1968 to provide services for rock and pop bands, clubs and festivals. Pendleton died in 2017, aged 93, after a short illness. Harold Pendleton 1924 – 2017, Entec Sound & Light
Retrieved 15 October 2017

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pendleton, Harold 1924 births 2017 deaths People from Southport British music industry executives