Scottish music executive who signed the Eurythmics and Take That

Born: August 29, 1950;

Died: November 19, 2017

JOHN Preston, who has died aged 67, was a British music industry executive with a keen sense of his Scottish heritage who enjoyed a career at the top level of the UK industry.

He worked most notably as managing director of Polydor Records from 1984 to 1985, managing director of RCA Records between 1985 and 1989, and in the role of chairman at BMG Entertainment from 1989 until 1998. He was also chairman of the British Phonographic Industry between 1996 and 1997, trustee of the BRIT Trust between 1994 and 1998, and had roles with EMI, Decca and London Records, and with Universal Publishing.

Early in his career he worked in artist liaison with Kate Bush, and later signed big names like the Eurythmics, M-People and Take That to contracts, while at the same time mentoring some of the brightest industry talents of the 1980s and 1990s.

He will be fondly remembered within the British music business as the person who appointed the first two female managing directors of labels, Lisa Anderson at RCA and Diana Graham at Arista. Simon Cowell has said since his death, “John was one of my first bosses at BMG and an absolute gentleman to work with.”

He was also a smart political operator, and one of the behind-the-scenes architects of New Labour-era Cool Britannia in the late 1990s. At the 1996 BRIT Awards, which became thrillingly notorious for Oasis’ lairy speech and Jarvis Cocker’s stage invasion during Michael Jackson’s set, Preston shared a table with Tony Blair and helped prepare the soon-to-be Prime Minister’s address, while behind the scenes he was also one of the founders of Rock the Vote, a movement aimed at getting under-25s out to the polls.

His wife Roz Preston was a special advisor to Tony Blair when he was Shadow Home Secretary, and following the Labour election win in 1997, she became a paid assistant to Cherie Blair alongside Fiona Millar, the partner of then-Labour director of communications Alastair Campbell. Preston also testified in the early 1990s before the Monopolies and Mergers Commission’s inquiry into CD pricing, which eventually found in favour of the industry.

Taking retirement in 1998, Preston and his wife – also a Scot – threw themselves into their joint passion of sailing, moving to Dorset and taking a year-long course at the Lyme Regis boatbuilding school. Their dream had been to move to Scotland and build a boat together, but after taking the course they realised they would not be able to do it without a lot of help. Working to the plans of naval architect Bill Dixon and with the help of craftspeople from the school, they remained in the area to complete their seven-and-a-half-year project, building a 44-foot, ocean-going yacht.

“We have no children and building the boat probably cost no more than bringing up two children and sending them to university,” Roz told the Bournemouth Echo at the time of the boat’s completion. “This is our baby. The practical side was a challenge as far as John was concerned… I am the one who would have given up five years ago.” They named the boat Sweet Dreams, after the Eurythmics song, and went on the trip of a lifetime, sailing around mainland Europe.

Born in Nottingham in 1950 to parents who were both Scottish, John O’Driscoll Preston went to school in Scotland and studied history at Trinity College, Oxford, and then at Liverpool University, graduating in the early 1970s.

His first job in the music industry was in Edinburgh, where he worked for Bruce’s record store; started as a single branch in Falkirk in 1967 by brothers Bruce and Brian Findlay, Bruce’s had grown to become Scotland’s biggest independent record store chain by the 1970s, selling alternative music and American imports. The distinctive red bags said “I Found It At Bruce’s”, and it was the only place much of the music they sold could be tracked down.

In 1977, Preston moved to London and started working for EMI, soon after which, Bruce Findlay started his own punk label Zoom, and became manager of one of their best bands, Glasgow’s Simple Minds. Later Findlay also managed Scottish rock group the Silencers, and Preston – a fan of the group – signed them to RCA in 1987. “(John was) a truly lovely guy who made a huge impact on the record industry,” said Findlay, upon hearing of his death. “Intelligent, honest, caring and he had impeccable taste in music. He was my friend and I’m going to miss him.”

When Sweet Dreams was completed, John and Roz moved back to Edinburgh, where they lived on the Southside of the city. Although nominally retired, John busied himself with company directorships, including at the city’s nearby Queen’s Hall and the Scottish Drugs Forum in Glasgow.

Since his retirement he had not quite left the music industry behind either, being quoted in Billboard as a director of Music On Demand (MODE) International (the subject, illustrating his prescience once more, was the effect of the internet upon the industry) and helping the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart co-found the Hospital private members’ club in Covent Garden.

When he left BMG, a party was held for Preston in a tiny working men’s club on Kensal Road in London, at which the Eurythmics played a surprise live set for him. “We were hiding and as we came on stage, he started crying,” remembers Stewart. “He used to cry a lot, but it was such a sweet thing because he was a really sensitive person. That made it very easy to connect with him as an artist. He had a gentle side to him that was actually quite rare in such a tough business.”

DAVID POLLOCK