The magazine editor and publisher Alan Lewis, who has died aged 75 of Parkinson’s disease and cancer, married the passions of readers and writers to create some of the most influential music publications of the late 20th century. Across a 45-year career he sensed emerging trends in publishing and music and displayed a flair for recruiting new talent.
As an editor he launched the genre-defining magazines Black Music and Kerrang!, edited No1, Sounds and the New Musical Express, and as publisher launched Vox, Uncut and Muzik. By altering the results of focus group research he persuaded IPC magazines in 1994 to launch Loaded, the first mass-market magazine for young men.
Alan was a hands-on editor who would happily lay pages out himself, and entrusted his younger writers to seek out new bands to champion. He believed as much could be learned in the pub as the subs room, and was popular with his staff for both policies. His ability to create successful launches and turn declining titles around also made him popular with his bosses at Spotlight and IPC.
He was born in Hillingdon, west London, to Silvan Lewis, an engineer, and his wife, Doreen (nee Gordon), who had met during the second world war at EMI’s research unit at Hayes. Alan went to Hayes County grammar school and wanted to join the military, but after failing the Sandhurst entrance interview he went into local journalism as a reporter and subeditor on the Middlesex Advertiser, alongside Greg Dyke and Raymond Snoddy.
In 1969 he joined Melody Maker as a subeditor and started a soul music column, an under-represented genre at the time. He interviewed James Brown, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder and Al Green and witnessed Lionel Richie writing Three Times a Lady on a hotel bar piano in the US.
In 1973 he became the founding editor of Black Music, which ran until 1984 and was the first British print outlet to cover reggae and Afrobeat. Alan helped launch Sounds, becoming editor in 1975, after which the circulation grew from 70,000 to 170,000. It was the first of the weekly “inkies” to champion punk by hiring a new generation of writers, including Jane Suck, John Ingham, Vivien Goldman and Garry Bushell.
After an unintentional picture caption slight, Led Zeppelin’s notoriously heavy manager, Peter Grant, called Lewis and threatened to have him kneecapped. He also rued the day he missed Debbie Harry visiting the office with the intention of giving him a kiss to say thank you for Sounds’ support for Blondie.
Working with the writer Geoff Barton, in 1981 Alan launched Kerrang!, championing the “new wave of British heavy metal” – Motörhead, Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. It quickly became the fortnightly bible of heavy metal, and no other music title would ever be as synonymous with its subject matter. Kerrang! continued to grow and change through thrash metal, grunge, nu metal and metal core, reaching its sales peak 20 years after launch.
In 1984 Alan “retired” from journalism for the first time and with his wife, Carolyn, bought the Blue Ball pub in Asheridge, Buckinghamshire. When the Frankie Goes to Hollywood label ZTT advertised for a press officer successful applicants were required to know the pub’s name.
Tiring of being on what he considered the wrong side of the bar, Alan returned to edit the pop mag No1 in 1986, and a year later moved to the editorship of the NME, which was experiencing notable circulation decline.
I had joined the paper shortly before and Alan promoted me to features editor at the age of 22, allowing me to bring in a new wave of writers including Barbara Ellen, Stuart Maconie, Mary Anne Hobbs and Steve Lamacq.
Lewis encouraged a broad church of content and the NME championed Morrissey, the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, the Charlatans, Blur, the Wonder Stuff and PJ Harvey, alongside the rise of Balearic beats and acid house. Hip-hop acts including Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and De La Soul sat alongside mainstream front covers featuring Def Leppard, Bros, Iron Maiden, Bananarama and T’Pau.
The title saw a 60% sales rise over four years, during which Lewis was promoted to editor-in-chief and launched the music monthly Vox, voted the British Society of Magazine Editors launch of the year for 1990.
In 1994 he convinced IPC that my idea for a magazine combining music and football was worth publishing, and when at the last-minute lawyers made us remove a spread on Rod Stewart, Lewis suggested we include photographs of an unknown actress in see-through underwear called Elizabeth Hurley. He also insisted we include fashion to help ad sales. Loaded was launched, and the mainstream men’s magazine sector was born.
After just three issues – featuring Gary Oldman, Leslie Nielsen and Elle Macpherson on the covers – Loaded paid in its first pound of profit, against a break-even target of three years. The title was voted magazine of the year by the PPA and went on to receive numerous other awards, selling some half-a-million copies at its peak.
Alan subsequently oversaw the launches of Uncut, Muzik, Eat Soup and Later, and ran Record Collector from 2003 until 2011.
He is survived by Carolyn (nee Sear), whom he married in 1970, and his sons Simon, Ben and Luke.
• Alan Edwin Lewis, magazine publisher, born 2 July 1945; died 23 June 2021
