Love and Fury: The Life, Death and Legacy of Joe Meek

by Darryl W Bullock

Genres: Music, Biography, British Literature

Hardcover

Published June 17, 2025

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is my review of this fantastic Joe Meek biography. Read it here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...

[Zac · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’d describe this as providing a very extensive timeline of Joe Meek’s life. I picked this up because I’d heard that Alan Moore’s next instalment of his Long London series was going to focus on Meek, and the more outré aspects of Meek’s life (including his interest in the occult) had me interested. I did really enjoy the brief forays into Meek’s connection with Buddy Holly and his ghost, but overall I found the book to be a bit dry. It’s deeply researched with information about each of Meek’s recording sessions (at least it seems that way) though I was unfamiliar with many of the artists mentioned. As the story gets deeper into the 1960s, some more familiar names emerge (Ritchie Blackmore, Screaming Lord Sutch, briefly Bowie and Tom Jones) and Meek’s relationship to Epstein and the emerging Beatles was also quite interesting. The book also did point me towards a few British jazz records that I have been enjoying. Otherwise it was a little bit of a slog and I had a lot of long breaks, but got through the last half quite quickly while on holiday. It was hard to know what to make of Joe Meek by the end of the book: many found him sweet and nerdy, even if they simultaneously found him to be an unstable jerk and slightly lecherous at other times. I popped on a few songs along the way but couldn’t really get into his style either. Recommended I think for Meek fans and those familiar with pre-Beatles British pop scene.

[3PCats · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long overdue reassessment of Joe Meek’s life and work.

This is a beautifully produced book with some previously unseen photos of young Joe. I loved the inside cover detail with the row of multicoloured boxes containing Joe’s legendary tea chest tapes.

‘Love and Fury’ exhaustively catalogs Meek’s recording career and the many singers and musicians he worked with.

The author sensitively discusses Joe’s sexuality and mental health which was welcome after years of sensationalism in previous media. Like others before him, the author suggests that Joe was displaying signs of manic depression (now bipolar disorder) near the end of his life, but sadly no one seems ready for the conversation about Joe very obviously (to me anyway) being on the autism spectrum. I would love to have read about that.

My late husband was very close to Joe, so I did notice a few factual errors, but these don’t take away from the book itself. Overall, an excellent read about music’s most fascinating producer.

(4.5 stars)