A former Melody Maker editor and co-founder of Sounds magazine has died aged 80.
Jack Hutton edited Melody Maker in the sixties when it enjoyed a circulation nearing 300,000. He later co-founded his own company, Spotlight Publications, through which he launched both Kerrang! and the now defunct Sounds, the former originally a one-off supplement of the latter. Spotlight later acquired Music Week putting Hutton in charge of the music industry weekly for a time. As well as his media work, Hutton also worked as a music PR.
Paying tribute, Music Week quote Chris Poole, who knew Hutton as a publicist while he worked at the Daily Record, who says: "[Jack] was one of those doughty Scottish journalists that had a very tough exterior but inside he was a softy. His real love was jazz - he played the trumpet until he got ill four or five years ago".
Hutton's funeral will take place in North London next Tuesday.