Ian Geoffrey Levine (born 22 June 1953) is a British songwriter, producer, and DJ. A moderniser of Northern soul music in the UK, and a developer of the style of hi-NRG, he has written and produced records with sales totalling over 40 million. Levine is known as a fan of the long-running television show Doctor Who.
Early and personal life
Levine was born into a Jewish family; his parents owned and ran the "Lemon Tree" complex in Blackpool, including its casino and nightclub. Levine is openly gay. He suffered a major stroke in July 2014, leaving him with severely limited movement on the left side of his body.
Career
Disc jockey
Levine began collecting Motown records from the age of 13, building a collection from UK record shops and those his family visited on holidays to Miami and New Orleans. He later became an avid collector of soul, R&B, and Northern soul. After his parents emigrated to the Caribbean in 1979, Levine sold most of his records to fund a house purchase in London.
Having attended some early Northern soul all-nighters at "The Twisted Wheel" nightclub in Manchester with DJ Stuart Bremner, on leaving school in 1971 he became a disc jockey at the Blackpool Mecca. Levine joined other DJs in travelling to Stoke on Trent to join the Northern soul all-nighter "Torch", which was quickly shut down but was the fore runner of the Wigan Casino events, which Levine opened. Working with fellow DJ Colin Curtis, the pair was responsible for guiding the Northern Soul scene away from its oldies-only policy and towards modern soul and disco. This resulted in BBC Radio 1's DJ John Peel travelling to Blackpool to interview Levine.
In 1979, Levine began advising London's gay disco Heaven on its set-up, and became the club's first resident DJ, remaining through most of the 1980s. He finally left in 1989. Levine was also one of the first DJs to mix records in the UK.
Writer/producer
In 1974, Levine assisted Dave McAleer with in compiling Solid Soul Sensations, which was released on the British Disco Demand label and reached No. 30 on the UK Albums Chart. With the proceeds, he travelled to New York City and co-produced Reaching for the Best with girl group the Exciters, which reached No. 31 on the UK Singles Chart selling 80,000 records. This allowed Levine to then travel to Chicago, where he signed postman L.J. Johnson, Barbara Pennington (who both after appearing on Top of the Pops reached the UK Singles Chart), as well as Evelyn Thomas. Although Thomas's 1976 record "Weak Spot" was not a big success reaching No. 26 in the UK, Levine later co-produced Thomas's 1984 hit record "High Energy".
Hi-NRG and pop
In 1983, the London-based record shop Record Shack offered Levine £2,000 to set up a new joint-venture record label, Record Shack Records. Through friend Jean-Philippe Iliesco, he used his Trident Studios, and formed a songwriting partnership with Fiachra Trench.
The first record from the label was "So Many Men, So Little Time" by Miquel Brown, which sold two million copies and got to number 2 on the American Dance Club Songs chart. This was quickly followed by "High Energy" by Evelyn Thomas. The partnership with Record Shack ended in 1985.
After his return to the UK following the financial failure of Motorcity Records, Levine wrote and produced hi-NRG-derived singles for various bands, including Take That (he co-produced three tracks on their debut album and co-wrote one), and the Pasadenas. During the 1980s and 1990s, he co-wrote and/or mixed a number of dance-pop hits for a variety of artists, including Pet Shop Boys, Bucks Fizz, Erasure, Kim Wilde, Bronski Beat, Amanda Lear, Bananarama, Tiffany, Dollar, and Hazell Dean. He has also co-written and co-produced the theme music for the 2004 Donna Summer television special "Discomania".
Manager
Levine founded bands, including Seventh Avenue, which featured two members of Big Fun; Optimystic; and Bad Boys Inc. In 2010, Levine formed a new boy band called Inju5tice. After the commercial failure of debut "A Long Long Way from Home", the group and Levine split, and the group relaunched itself as ELi'Prime.
Record labels
In 1987, Levine began recording some former artists from Motown. After a reunion of 60 Motown stars, including Edwin Starr and Levi Stubbs on top of a hotel opposite the original Hitsville USA building, Motorcity Records was launched as a record label. Initially distributed by PRT, then Pacific, Charly and finally Total/BMG, by the time that the label ended in the 1990s due to severe financial losses, 850 songs had been recorded by 108 artists.