Alan Klein

Distinguish carefully from the other Allen Klein renowned in the 1960s for managing the Rolling Stones and later the Beatles, this Alan Klein was a British musician and composer born June 29, 1940, in Clerkenwell, London. He first attracted notice in 1963 when he served as lead composer for the soundtrack to What a Crazy World. Although the 1964 cult album Well at Least It's British, which favored British musical traditions over the American blues and country styles then favored by most leading English groups, brought him only modest attention, Klein's work regained currency during the mid-'90s resurgence of "British-ness" in rock, known as Brit-pop, through artists such as Damon Albarn of Blur and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. In his own era he moved back and forth between performing and songwriting, aside from a short period in 1966 when he sang with the New Vaudeville Band. He issued additional singles throughout the latter half of the 1960s, among them a cover of the Beatles' "Honey Pie," as well as several that Decca released in 1970. RPM Records later issued an expanded CD version of Well at Least It's British in 2008, appending a pair of Joe Meek-produced singles and assorted bonus tracks.