Herbert C. Ridout

Herbert Currington Ridout (1881 – 11 October 1948) was a British journalist, editor, and short story writer.

His series of articles for The Gramophone titled "Behind the Needle" (1940–43), has become a primary source for the early history of recorded music in Britain.

[6] In that year his short story titled "The Great Scourge" was published in The Novel Magazine telling of how advertising was used to mitigate the effects of a serious case of food contamination.

[10][11] The series, titled "Behind the Needle" (1940–43), has been used as a primary source for the early history of recorded music in Britain, containing information about the business, recording techniques, and artists,[11][12] such as the unprecedented and almost overnight demand for the popular song "You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)" in 1913 which required a special order of 25,000 copies from Columbia U.S.[13] In 1936, after he saw the Rhein in Flammen (Rhine in Flames) firework display, he wrote to The Times with a proposal to "set the Thames on fire" from Hammersmith to Richmond to celebrate the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

[14] He presented music programmes on BBC radio[7] such as Gramophone, which in 1939 was billed as showing "how the recording engineer and artist have combined.