Any try and do justice to the prodigious output of Richard Havers since he determined to observe his ardour and change into a self-employed author within the early Nineteen Nineties is a problem in itself.
The uDiscover Music group and his numerous associates throughout the music enterprise and much past had been united in an enormous sense of loss after the creator, journalist, broadcaster, and uDiscover Music editor-in-chief handed away on December 31, 2017. He died in Minehead Hospital in Somerset on the age of 66, and had been affected by most cancers.
As a buddy and colleague for greater than 30 years, I fondly recall numerous conversations wherein we in contrast notes on the mountainous workloads he took on with good grace, our respective deadlines, the lot of the freelance journalist, and life basically. Such chats got here to take some planning, since you knew they might final for hours, beginning with the urgent problems with the day and progressing to an in depth dialogue of nice Seashore Boys B-sides, the glory days of Cream, or the under-appreciated artists on whom we had bonded from the start, be it Clifford T. Ward or Chris Rainbow.
Richard was revered all through the business not just for his all-embracing information, however for the totally unquenchable ardour for music that knowledgeable such knowledge. A very prolific author, he leaves an enormous bibliography to which he added just a few months earlier than his dying with the publication by Virgin Books final August of On Air In The Sixties. The official historical past of the Rolling Stones’ BBC recording classes, it tied in with Polydor’s On Air album anthology.
This was the newest of many guide and report tasks with the band, with whom he developed a detailed bond, notably with Ronnie Wooden and former Stone Invoice Wyman. He co-wrote 2002’s Invoice Wyman’s Blues Odyssey, which received the Blues Basis’s Award For Literature; he additionally collaborated with Wyman on his 2003 tome Rolling With The Stones and 2006’s The Stones: A Historical past In Cartoons.
The identical 12 months, Havers was the creator of The Rolling Stones: In The Starting, and he compiled and edited the band’s official anniversary guide in 2012, Rolling Stones 50, additionally writing the sleeve notes for 2016’s Blue & Lonesome album. He was a trusted supply at The Beatles’ Apple Corps organisation and a voice of authority within the fields of jazz and blues, writing such definitive tomes as Verve: The Sound of America and the 75th anniversary historical past of Blue Word, Uncompromising Expression.
Because the jazz advisor to Common Music, Richard compiled definitive, multi-disc compilations on such figureheads and private passions as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat King Cole. One other of his nice musical devotions led to the much-lauded 2004 guide Sinatra.
As a confidant of many well-known personalities in music and additional afield, Havers co-wrote autobiographies of Gary Barlow, Tony Visconti, tv character Len Goodman, and movie and stage director Peter Glenville. Myriad different topics to return below his microscope included the BBC throughout World Struggle II, soccer, the Titanic, and the airline business from which he got here.
Born in Carshalton in Surrey, Richard was educated at Reigate Grammar College and joined British Caledonian Airways on the age of 18, primarily based at Gatwick Airport. He wrote and produced countless promoting jingles and, after 16 years, moved to Continental Airways. He first crossed paths with this author in Havers’ function as a advertising and marketing government: within the mid-Eighties, Continental turned an official sponsor of Rock Over London, a weekly British music present that I produced and later hosted for worldwide syndication. Along with his affect, the airline went on to sponsor music occasions equivalent to Route 88, a rustic competition in London.
After leaving Continental in 1989, Richard started to hone his new repute as an creator and journalist, additionally writing for such publications because the Day by day Telegraph, The Instances and Document Collector. One notably memorable collaboration got here in 2011, when his relationship with the Louis Armstrong property opened the door for me to make the BBC Radio 2 documentary Satchmo By Satchmo, utilizing never-before-heard audio from the jazz legend’s private audio diaries.
Because the co-founder of uDiscover Music, Richard was the driving power in establishing it as a world supply of details about music, designed to enchantment in the identical method that he noticed music itself, slicing throughout all genres and generations. He continuously posted tales lengthy into the evening, fired together with his trademark enthusiasm for the subject material and this new method of sharing it.
These of us who had the privilege of working with Richard noticed the defiant positivity with which he approached his sickness. The response to his passing spoke volumes for his contribution to our lives, and the work he leaves us – throughout this website and in so many different locations — will endure as his indelible byline.
Editor’s observe: This text was first revealed in 2018. We’re republishing it immediately, on what would have been his birthday, in celebration of Richard’s immense legacy.
