John Preston obituary

John Preston, who has died aged 67 after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage, was one of the most influential figures in a boom period for the British music industry, before CDs had to contend with the challenge of the internet. A quietly spoken maverick in the corporate world, he was also a lifelong supporter of the Labour party. As a friend and supporter of Tony Blair he chaired the Rock the Vote campaign, persuading young people to register to vote in the run-up to the 1997 general election.

During his time as managing director of RCA Records UK (1985-89) the company was bought by Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). He went on to become chairman of BMG Entertainment (1989-98). There he oversaw very different labels, including RCA, and expanded the range to include anything from classical music to Simon Cowell’s signings.

Preston brought in Cowell as an A&R consultant, and gave him the freedom to sign and develop such unlikely, and massively commercial, pop acts as the actors Robson & Jerome. Cowell described Preston as “an absolute gentleman to work with. He inspired incredible loyalty and I owe a lot to him.” While at RCA UK and then BMG, Preston worked with a large number of successful artists, from Eurythmics to M People and Take That.

Alison Wenham, former managing director of the classical label Conifer, which joined BMG in 1995, saw him as “a smart businessman and scrupulously fair. He liked the idea of a big corporation being enlivened by independent entrepreneurs – the grit in the oyster. And it was unheard of in the music industry that he worked with three female MDs.” Alongside Wenham were Diana Graham, whom he promoted to MD of Arista UK, and Lisa Anderson, who became MD of RCA UK.

Preston became close friends with many artists, especially Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. Lennox described him as “a thoroughly good man – a rare diamond”, while Stewart said he was “a free spirit and understood artists completely”. They both had houses in the same French village where, according to Stewart, “John spent many hours in my home studio, with me playing guitar along to tracks or just listening to music … John was a music fanatic and he loved guitars.”

It was typical of his free-wheeling approach to life that he retired at the height of his success, when he was 48. Eurythmics gave a surprise performance at his leaving party. He then spent seven years building a boat with his wife, Roz. It was named Sweet Dreams, after the Eurythmics hit.

Born in Nottingham, John was the son of Major Ian Preston, who served in the Royal Artillery and later worked for an Edinburgh brewery, and a talented actor mother who insisted on using her unlikely middle name, Michael (nee Cochrane). He went to Shrewsbury school and Trinity College, Oxford, to study history before moving on to Liverpool University, where he gained a BPhil in Latin American history (1972).

To his parents’ horror, rather than join the Foreign Office he took a job working behind the counter at Bruce’s Record Shop in Edinburgh in 1974. The owner, Bruce Findlay, found that Preston had “impeccable taste in music”, and he was promoted to marketing manager and began co-managing the Edinburgh rock band Café Jacques with Findlay. He met Roz (nee Rosalind Tosh) when she was selling advertising for the Scotsman and Evening News.

In 1976 he moved to London, Roz soon followed, and they were married two years later. He got a job as export clerk at One Stop Music, and moved on to EMI’s new artist development department. One of his colleagues there, David Munns, later MD at Polydor Records UK, described him as “a modern marketer, thinking about image and promotion, not just running an ad in the NME”. He worked on campaigns for Kate Bush and for Bow Wow Wow with Malcolm McLaren.

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Preston moved quickly up the industry ladder, first moving to Decca, then to Polydor, where he was managing director (1984-85), before joining RCA.

He expanded his political contacts thanks to his wife’s career – Roz worked in Blair’s office (1990-96) and co-ran Cherie Blair’s office with Fiona Millar (1996-98). However, as a council member and then chair (1996-97) of the BPI (British Phonographic Institute), the trade organisation for the recorded music industry, Preston found himself in dispute with Gerald Kaufman. The Labour MP was then chair of the National Heritage select committee, and in 1993 asked for a Monopolies and Mergers Commission investigation into CD pricing. After a £1m inquiry, the record companies were cleared of over-charging. Wenham said that Preston’s “intellectual rigour … was crucial in steering us through”.

After training at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis, Dorset, he and Roz completed their ocean cruising yacht in 2007, and then spent two or three months sailing every year. They moved back to Edinburgh in 2009, where Preston was on the board of the Queen’s Hall music venue until last year, and that of the Scottish Drugs Forum.

He is survived by Roz and his half-sister, Prue.