English music writers

Michael Aldred (6 July 1945 – 15 April 1995) was a British record producer and music journalist. However, he is probably best remembered as co-presenter of the 1960s music show Ready Steady Go!.

Peter Barakan is an English-born DJ and broadcaster in Japan, the host of "Barakan Beat" on InterFM and "Weekend Sunshine" on NHK FM. He also hosts the series Begin Japanology and Japanology Plus on NHK World, which introduces various aspects of Japanese culture.

Natasha Spender, Lady Spender (née Litvin; 18 April 1919 – 21 October 2010) was an English pianist and author. She was the second wife of the writer Sir Stephen Spender.

Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood CBE (10 September 1941 – 24 September 2014) was an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer, and musicologist. Founder of the early music ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music, he was an authority on historically informed performance and a leading figure in the early music revival of the late 20th century.

Thomas Frederick Dunhill (1 February 1877 – 13 March 1946) was a prolific English composer in many genres, though he is best known today for his light music and educational piano works. His compositions include much chamber music, a song cycle, The Wind Among the Reeds, and an operetta Tantivy Towers that had a successful London run in 1931. He was also a teacher, examiner and writer on musical subjects.

Simon Robert Napier-Bell (born 22 April 1939) is an English record producer, music manager, author and journalist. At different times, he has managed artists as diverse as the Yardbirds, John's Children, Marc Bolan, Japan, London, Ultravox, Boney M, Sinitta, Wham!, Blue Mercedes, Alsou and Candi Staton, among others.

Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus, CBE (2 April 1888 – 28 February 1975) was an English writer and critic. From an impoverished home background, and mainly self-educated, he became The Manchester Guardians cricket correspondent in 1919 and its chief music critic in 1927, holding the two posts simultaneously until 1940. His contributions to these two distinct fields in the years before the Second World War established his reputation as one of the foremost critics of his generation.

David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician, author, and professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a regular contributor to British music magazine The Wire and the British magazine The Face. He was a member of the Flying Lizards.

Christopher Francis Palmer (9 September 1946 – 22 January 1995) was an English composer, arranger and orchestrator; biographer of composers, champion of lesser-known composers and writer on film music and other musical subjects; record producer; and lecturer. He was involved in a very wide range of projects and his output was prodigious. He came to be regarded as one of the finest symphonic orchestrators of his generation. He was dedicated to the conservation, recording and promotion of classic film scores by composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Miklós Rózsa, Elmer Bernstein and others. He wrote full biographies as well as sleeve notes, radio scripts, reviews and articles, on composers such as Benjamin Britten, Frederick Delius, Karol Szymanowski, Arthur Bliss, George Dyson, Herbert Howells, Maurice Ravel, Nikolai Tcherepnin and others.

Peter John Branscombe (7 December 1929 in Sittingbourne, Kent – 31 December 2008 in St Andrews, Scotland) was an English academic in German studies, a musicologist, and a writer on Austrian cultural history.