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 in London, England, that opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts. It was a small and relatively cheap club, in the heart of London's West End of London, West End. It was the location of the first ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and the

National Jazz Festival The National Jazz and Blues Festival was the precursor to the Reading Rock Festival and was the brainchild of Harold Pendleton, the founder of the prestigious Marquee Club in Soho. History Initially called The National Jazz Festival, it was ...

, the precursor of the Reading Rock Festival.

Biography

Born in

Southport Southport is a seaside resort, seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It lies on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, West Lancashire coastal plain and the east coast of the Irish Sea, approximately north of ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, 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 Certif ...

and moved to London in 1948. He had a love of traditional jazz music, and when visiting

clubs Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Club (magazine), ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands a ...

became friendly with

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

, 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 "Lonnie" Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002) 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 Scotland and brought ...

to record

Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter ( ; January 1888 or 1889 – 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, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the ...

's song "

Rock Island Line "Rock Island Line" ( Roud 15211) was originally sung as a spiritual by slaves on the plantations of the Mississippi River Valley, and was first transcribed as a folk song in 1929. The first recording was made by John Lomax, who was traveling amo ...

", so stimulating the 1950s

skiffle Skiffle is a music genre, genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, Country music, country, Bluegrass music, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. ...

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 between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

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

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...

, 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 genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...

nights in 1962, and featured the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

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 and reproduction, recording and Audio mixing, mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home proje ...

, 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 Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

, and

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

, 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 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