Joe Boyd is a record and film producer. Born in Boston in 1942, he graduated from Harvard in 1964. After university, he worked as a production and tour manager for George Wein in Europe where he traveled with Muddy Waters, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz and others; and at Newport where he supervised Bob Dylan’s electric debut. In 1966, he opened UFO, London’s psychedelic ballroom.
His first record production was four tracks by “Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse” for Elektra in 1966. He went on to produce Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard & Linda Thompson, Maria Muldaur, Toots and the Maytals, REM, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, 10,000 Maniacs, Billy Bragg, Cubanismo, Taj Mahal and many others. (Read more here)
Links to Peel[]
Joe Boyd was chosen as the first guest to be invited to Peel Acres in order to compile a Record Box of his own choices from Peel's collection. A folk and blues enthusiast, co-founder of London's UFO Club, representative of Elektra Records in London, discoverer, manager and producer of many artists featured on Peel's shows in the 1960s, 1970s, then world music pioneer and reggae fan, his links to Peel are clear (they even shared a love of football). The results of his search can now be viewed and listened to online.[1]
Joe Boyd became aware of Peel when the DJ was hosting his Perfumed Garden late-night show on Radio London. As Boyd relates in his memoir of the 1960s, White Bicycles, regular plays on the show of tracks from the Incredible String Band's The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion were crucial to the album's success. Peel also played tracks associated with the UFO club on the PG, and Boyd chooses several of these for his own Record Box - the Purple Gang's "Granny Takes A Trip", "My White Bicycle" by Tomorrow and early material by Pink Floyd. Later, other Boyd-produced artists, notably Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, did sessions for Peel's BBC radio programmes.
Drake, the ISB and Fairport were influential on later generations of musicians, which led to Joe Boyd producing artists such as 10,000 Maniacs, REM and Billy Bragg. Boyd was also aware of reggae through his work for Island Records' Chris Blackwell, and developed an interest in African music; he was also a member of the group of music industry figures who invented the term World Music in 1987.