Career
Leander started his career as an arranger with Decca Records in 1963 and Bell Records in 1972 and worked with such musicians as Marianne Faithfull, Billy Fury, Marc Bolan, Joe Cocker, The Small Faces, Van Morrison, Alan Price, Peter Frampton, Keith Richards, Shirley Bassey, Lulu, Jimmy Page, Roy Orbison, Brian Jones and Gene Pitney. He is perhaps best known as co-writer and producer for Gary Glitter throughout the 1970s.
Leander worked as a producer and arranger with Ben E. King and The Drifters on the Atlantic record label. He later was requested to arrange The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home" from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album by Paul McCartney as their staple producer and arranger, George Martin was unwell at the time, being the only producer other than Martin to actively work with The Beatles during a song recording.
He was executive producer of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice concept album Jesus Christ Superstar and in the late 1960s wrote scores for several films, including Privilege with Paul Jones and Jean Shrimpton, Run a Crooked Mile with Mary Tyler Moore and Louis Jourdan and The Adding Machine with Billie Whitelaw and Milo O'Shea.
Leander first worked with singer Paul Raven in the 1960s and produced various singles for him on MCA Records (now Universal Music Group) and this led to Raven's part on Jesus Christ Superstar. Raven later became Gary Glitter and the two began an on/off working relationship that would last until Leander's death. The partnership produced a string of glam rock hits — many of which Leander co-wrote with Glitter — beginning in 1972 with "Rock and Roll (Parts 1 and 2)", which reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, No. 1 in France and also the top 10 in many other countries including the US. This was followed by ten more Top 10 UK singles, including three UK chart-toppers, "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)" (1973), "I Love You Love Me Love" (1973) and "Always Yours" (1974).
In the 1980s he wrote the musical Matador, which gave Tom Jones a hit album and single A Boy From Nowhere.
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