During the late 1950s and early 60s the weekly music press was the main source of news and information about the latest developments in British and American pop music. Of the several papers in the marketplace, Record Mirror was most often the first to spot new trends, including the Motown sound and rhythm & blues. Its chief writer and editor for much of this era was Peter Jones, who has died aged 85. As well as his articles, Jones wrote the earliest book-length biographies of both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Always immaculately dressed, Jones evolved a working routine at Record Mirror centred on a lengthy lunchtime spent at the bar of the De Hems pub off Shaftesbury Avenue in London. There, according to his friend and colleague Norman Jopling, when music business contacts came to meet him “he was genial, good company, and, importantly, an easy touch for those precious column inches”. Frequently interviews with artists would take place at De Hems, with Peter taking notes in shorthand. He would compose articles and pithy record reviews on a typewriter that had two sizes of capital letters but no lower-case keys.
The American singer Johnnie Ray was an early enthusiasm, but Jones and Record Mirror came into their own by riding the new wave of British music led by the Beatles and Stones. Paul McCartney did his first ever national music press interview with the paper, and in 1963 Jones wrote a biography of the band. Based almost entirely on interviews with group members and those close to them, such as Cilla Black and George Martin, it was published in 1964 as The True Story of the Beatles. The author was given as Billy Shepherd, the pen-name used by Jones for his writing and editing work on the Beatles Monthly Book, an authorised magazine for the group’s fans in which the True Story had previously been serialised.
In 1963, too, Jones became the first journalist to discover the Rolling Stones, when their earliest promoter, Giorgio Gomelsky, persuaded him to attend a show at the Station hotel in Richmond upon Thames, Surrey. Although not a rhythm & blues expert, Jones was so enthused that he commissioned Jopling to write an article, the first time Record Mirror had featured a band without a recording contract. Jones also tipped off Andrew Loog Oldham, then a youthful publicity agent, who quickly became the Stones’ personal manager. Oldham subsequently hired Jones to write the group’s “autobiography” – Our Own Story by the Rolling Stones as told to Pete Goodman – another Jones nom-de-plume. The Beatles and Stones books were both translated into a dozen languages.
Other highlights of Jones’s tenure at Record Mirror included the first interview with the High Numbers (later to become the Who), ecstatic coverage of Jimi Hendrix’s British debut, and early recognition of Dusty Springfield’s star quality by placing her full-colour portrait on the front page.
Jones went on to write biographies of Tom Jones and Elvis Presley, to contribute to the Monkees Monthly, and to ghost columns for singers such as Sandie Shaw and Dave Dee, as well as soccer stars George Best, Denis Law and Alan Ball. He also hosted a sports show for Southern TV between 1961 and 1963.
Ownership of Record Mirror changed hands twice in the 1960s, and when it was sold to the Morgan Grampian group Jones stayed with its former owner, the American Billboard group. From 1972 to 1997 he worked in the London office of Billboard magazine, the leading American music industry weekly, latterly as international news and special issues editor. In 1973 he launched and edited a short-lived magazine on easy listening music.
Jones was born in London to Violet and Charles, an engineer who died from the effects of a war wound when Peter was seven. After his mother was remarried to Frederick Pittam, a dairy manager, Peter grew up in Hampshire and attended Churcher’s college in Petersfield before taking a commercial course at Portsmouth Municipal College. He began work as a sports and showbusiness reporter on the Portsmouth Evening News, writing Backstage, a page of interviews with actors and singers appearing at the city’s three main local theatres.
In 1954 he moved to London as a trainee scriptwriter and booker at the theatrical agency Associated London Scripts. On the recommendation of David English, a former Portsmouth Evening News colleague and future editor of the Daily Mail, Peter next joined the mass-circulation Weekend magazine. There he wrote a column called My Friends the Stars. He began to contribute freelance articles to Record Mirror in the late 50s, becoming editor in 1964.
Outside music, Peter was a lifelong supporter of Chelsea football club and a cricket enthusiast.
He is survived by his wife, Barbara Smith, an actor and model whom he married in 1963, by a sister, Vera, sons Martin and Warren, and grandchildren Ellie and Lewis.
• Peter Langley Jones, journalist and author, born 6 January 1930; died 10 July 2015
