Len Brown

Born in the Scottish borders, Len Brown escaped from the head-banging hairy-backed rock scene of Newcastle in the '70s. He wrote for NME and Vox in the '80s and early '90s - chiefly chasing and championing the Smiths, Gil-Scott Heron, assorted folkies and myriad World Music masters such as Youssou N'Dour - before stumbling into an ongoing television career.

His history of TV music documentary credits (as producer, director or executive producer) includes the My Generation series for Channel Four (The Animals, The Kinks, The Troggs, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces and Herman's Hermits), The Brit Girls for Channel Four (Cilla, Sandie, Marianne and Lulu), It's Slade, Wild Boys: Duran Duran, A Fine Romance: The New Romantics, Rod Stewart & The Faces: Wine Women & Song (all for BBC1) plus Close To You: The Carpenters for ITV. Len also produced the definitive television documentary about Marc Bolan - T.Rex: Dandy In The Underworld (available on the TV Rex On TV DVD).

Married with two daughters and marooned in the Midlands, he's re-invented himself as an author and playwright but still dreams of making documentaries about Kate Bush and Sandy Denny. Len's biography Meetings With Morrissey - the first by someone who'd actually interviewed the artist - was published by Omnibus Press. It was named as one of the Top Ten Rock Biographies of All Time by The Independent newsaper. http://ind.pn/1ebWddF The new-improved, revised and updated paperback version was published in May 2009. Since then it's been translated into German, French and Swedish.