Richard James Burgess MBE (born 29 June 1949) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, composer, author, manager, marketer and inventor.
He launched his career as a producer with Spandau Ballet's debut UK hit "To Cut a Long Story Short",[1] the first commercial success for the hitherto underground New Romantic movement.
From 1975 through the early 1980s, Burgess co-produced, co-wrote, programmed, sang and played drums for the electronic band Landscape with Christopher Heaton, Andy Pask, Peter Thoms and John Walters.
[4] The band's RCA Records album From the Tea-rooms of Mars... To the Hell-holes of Uranus yielded the international hits "Einstein a Go-Go" and "Norman Bates".
[7] Other productions included recordings for Living in a Box, Adam Ant, King, New Edition, Melba Moore, Colonel Abrams, America, Kim Wilde, Five Star, Tony Banks and Fish.
[12] Burgess's mixes and remixes include tracks for 9½ Weeks, About Last Night and artists Thomas Dolby, Lou Reed, Youssou N'Dour,[13] and Luba.
He conceptualised and co-designed the first standalone electronic drum set, the hexagonal shaped Simmons SDS-V.[16] He appeared on three separate occasions on the BBC Television programme Tomorrow's World demonstrating his prototype of the SDSV, the Roland MC-8 Microcomposer, and the Fairlight CMI.
He is also reported to have coined the name "New Romantic" for the subcultural movement of the early 1980s,[17] as well as the term "electronic dance music" (EDM), which first appeared on the record sleeve of the 1980 Landscape single "European Man".
[23] Burgess is a member of the academic advisory committee for The Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP, London College of Music).
The company changed its name to Burgess World Co in the mid-1980s, and relocated to Maryland from Los Angeles and New York in the mid-1990s where it managed many mid-Atlantic based artists including Jimmie's Chicken Shack.
As a member of the avant-garde electronic group Accord (with Christopher Heaton and Roger Cawkwell), he was featured on BBC Radio 3 programs Music in Our Time and Improvisation Workshop.