It's all about Stroud (From Stroud News and Journal)

It's all about Stroud

SITTING in his battered old pick up truck, Hugh Padgham was trying to get the latest cricket score on the radio as his daughter cantered around at a pony club rally.

His house in London had just been flooded and he wasn't quite sure whether he was supposed to be organising lunch for his daughter and her friends or not.

He might be one of the hottest names in the music business at the moment, having worked on McFly's last two albums but Hugh's priority is spending time with his family away from the glitter of London.

Such domestic scenes are a far cry from what some people might expect from one of the hottest names in music production. But Hugh has been in the business too long to take himself or it too seriously.

The music industry has always been fickle and to have survived it as long as Hugh, more than 30 years, is a testament to his level head.

As a 17-year-old at an Oxford boarding school, Hugh was passionate about music but sensible enough to realise he wasn't good enough to cut it as a professional musician.

It was an article in a magazine at the time, Beat Instrumental that set him on the road to a career that has paid him good dividends. "I spotted an article about a recording studio and there was a picture of all this equipment with knobs and dials everywhere and I thought wow, how great would that be to work in a recording studio," said Hugh.

So much to his parents chagrin, after his very expensive education, Hugh found himself a job as a tea boy on £9 a week at a small London recording studio.

"I decided I was going to work my way up. I had a lot of self-belief and I was determined to succeed somehow," he says. It wasn't long before Hugh was no longer making the tea having been promoted to recording engineer.

He was producing everything from rock to advertising jingles and eventually found himself working for Richard Branson's Virgin label. One of the first groups he was involved in producing was Swindon band XTC which was big in the 1980's and opened many doors for the ambitious young Hugh.

He had already persuaded some of the people at Virgin to let him have a go at producing and his reputation was growing fast. He produced an album for Peter Gabrielle who recommended him to Phil Collins and he produced Phil's first solo album.

Through him he met and worked with Kate Bush and soon found he was so in demand he could probably earn more in a week on his own than in a month with Virgin. So he went freelance and never looked back.

"Suddenly I was a producer in demand and I loved it," says Hugh. "My aspirations had only ever been to become a great sound engineer but it just took off."

He spent months on the Caribbean island of Monseratt producing albums for Sting and one of his proudest moments was in the 1980s when America's Billboard, a trade magazine, described him as "The most successful producer in America."

"I've still got the cutting," says Hugh.

Of his first meeting with the McFly boys he says: "They played some songs for me on an acoustic guitar and I just knew they had it. "The McFly guys are absolutely fantastic. They are so eager to learn," he says.

But he has had his fair share of rock n roll bands and their involvement with drugs and alcohol. "A lot of being a producer is being a diplomat and knowing when someone is at their best to sing, more than twiddling a few knobs and dials," said Hugh.

And he has lost none of his fervour for new talent. "I discovered Sheryl Crow at a mud wrestling club in Los Angeles," he says.

"Sting and I were invited to Billy Idol's after show party there and she had wangled her way in with a friend. She told me she was a singer and had a demo tape and although I hear that sort of thing all the time I never dismiss anyone because you just never know who is going to be the next big name."

For that reason Hugh is a big fan of the Stroud Fringe and says he has his eye on two local groups. "I have a fantastic assistant now and my plan is to hand over more to him so that I can spend time developing and nurturing young talent," he says.

And then he reflects: "When I started out I thought I would give it my best shot and if it didn't work out I would still be young enough to go to college and learn something else.

"I couldn't really believe it was possible to make a living out of something I loved so much. But here I am, 30 years later, still loving every minute of it, I guess I must have done something right."