Music entrepreneur who toured with Led Zeppelin is made an OBE

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

An entrepreneur who began his career as Led Zeppelin’s touring soundman and went on to a lead a global music technology group, has been made an OBE.

Philip Dudderidge, 75, described himself as a “a teenage rebel who went into the music industry” but found touring America in 1970 with the rock legends a physically punishing ordeal.

He is the founder and chairman of Focusrite, a global firm that supplies hardware and software used by professional and amateur musicians and the entertainment industry.

Mr Dudderidge said about the Led Zeppelin tour: “The music was fabulous of course but the experience of going to the States and doing a tour there, it was really hard work.

“Not only doing the shows but then having to drive between cities – we did 28 cities in a month – so by the end of it I was completely exhausted. I just said ‘I can’t do any more’. We were only a crew of three, these days they’ll have 50.

“Really, what I learned in the States was the direction of travel for live sound amplification – systems needed to get a lot bigger.”

He was reunited with Led Zeppelin’s lead singer Robert Plant recently, decades after the two men worked together.

Mr Dudderidge also worked as the house engineer for the famous Implosion Club concerts at London’s Roundhouse in the 1970s.

He said: “Elton John played and a band called America did their first gig, but so many bands, more bands then I can even remember.”

He later co-formed a number of music industry businesses before finding further success with Focusrite, and his career was honoured during a Buckingham Palace investiture ceremony hosted by the Princess Royal.

The entrepreneur added: “My ambition at the age of 21 was to own the best PA system in the world and work with the best people in the world, and for a number of years we did run a rental system and we toured with lots of different people.

“My last gig was at the then Odeon Hammersmith with Ry Cooder. It was just a one-off gig and I deputised for the usual sound engineer and that was the last show I mixed.

“There’s nothing more artistically satisfying then mixing a live show, and feeling what the audience was hearing. Well, it’s down to the band but it was completely up to you how you represented the band.”