Engineers

Kevin Metcalfe

Kevin was born in Yorkshire and moved to London aged 20, armed with nothing but his record collection and a Mark II Ford Cortina. Kevin started his long and illustrious career in the music business after seeing an ad for a disc-cutting engineer with RCA Records.

Kevin worked at RCA for two years, cutting many Number 1 singles such as Charles Aznavour's ‘She’, Dolly Parton's ‘Jolene’ and John Denver's ‘Annie's Song’. During this time he also cut albums like ‘Pin Ups’ and ‘Diamond Dogs’ by David Bowie, ‘Slaughter On 12th Avenue’ by Mick Ronson and ‘Preservation: Acts 1 & 2’ by The Kinks.

Kevin then moved to Delane Lea/CTS Studios where he swiftly became a favourite for the era’s leading figures of reggae, working with producers such as Bunny Lee, Gussie Clarke, King Tubby and Lee' Scratch' Perry, and cutting albums for the likes of Dennis Brown, Dr Alimantado, Black Uhuru, Creation Rebel, Aswad, Prince Fari, Keith Hudson and many more. Here Kevin first worked with Greensleeves Records and Chris Cracknell, who continue to work with Kevin for the last 28 years.

During this period Kevin also cut countless notable albums such as The Who's ‘Who Are You?’, Electric Light Orchestra's ’Out of The Blue’ Chas & Dave's cult classic ‘Wotcha!’ and several film soundtracks engineered by the legendary John Richards.

Kevin also came in contact with the Punk phenomenon for the first time and mastered music by The Sex Pistols, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Members, and Dead Kennedys, amongst others.

Another highlight of Kevin's time here was meeting legends Fred Astaire & Bing Crosby when they came in to record the classic hit ‘Tea For Two’.

From CTS, Kevin moved on to Utopia Studios, where he mastered a vast range of music, including Spandau Ballet, Roger Waters, Heatwave, Lindisfarne, Judy Tzuke, Paul McCartney, Ultravox, The Clash, The Police, Yello, UB40, Duran Duran and...Bucks Fizz.

Kevin then went on to work for Virgin Records at The Townhouse Studios, mastering for many of the period’s leading recording artists including Queen, Depeche Mode, Phil Collins, Happy Mondays, Chris Rea, U2, Simple Minds, David Bowie, KLF, Orbital, Spiritualized, Pulp and many more.

In 1997 Kevin co-founded The Soundmasters International,  and quickly attracted a wide variety of artists such as Underworld, Death In Vegas, Paul Weller, Simply Red, Rufus Wainwright, Robert Plant, Craig Armstrong, The Prodigy, Simply Red, Supergrass, Zero7, The White Stripes, and so on!

In the last 12 months Kevin is showing no signs of slowing down – he continues to master for major and independent record labels across a massive range of genres – some recent favourite albums include Passenger (Chalkmark), Mr Scruff, Fink & Yppah  (Ninja Tune), Wiley, Roots Manuva (Big Dada), The Little Ones (Heavenly), Friendly Fires (XL Recordings) Siouxsie, The Proclaimers (W14) and also singles for Jack Penate, Golden Silvers, M.I.A, The White Stripes, Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings), to name but a few!

Kevin has also been busy with several remastering projects, including Simply Red’s entire catalogue, cult indie band Loop, The La's, Asian Dub Foundation, Can, and Siouxsie & the Banshees.

For a more extensive list of Kevin’s work by genre see the Clients page.

Click here for a list of Kevins career highlights.

To book Kevin please call +44 (0) 207 565 3020 or email info@soundmasters.co.uk