He began playing in the Dive Bar at the King's Head pub in Soho, where he was often joined on stage by an old school bandmate, Rick Tykiff.
[6] Tykiff departed, and in 1966 Roberton began a solo career and released a cover of Neil Diamond's 'Solitary Man'[7] on Columbia under the name Sandy.
A cover of Bob Dylan's 'Baby You've Been On My Mind', backed by a group called Fleur De Lys, followed in 1967 and was released on Polydor under the name Lucien Alexander.
Their writers included Blues greats Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley.
In 1968, Roberton formed his own music production and artist management company, September Productions Ltd. One of his first signings was The Liverpool Scene, a poetry and music collective from Liverpool featuring poet Adrian Henri and guitarist Andy Roberts, with Mike Evans,[25] Mike Hart, Percy Jones and Brian Dodson.
Roberton co-produced their first album, Amazing Adventures of, along with DJ John Peel, who had featured their music on his BBC radio shows.
[26] In two years under Roberton's management, Liverpool Scene released four albums[h] on the RCA label; played on the same day as Bob Dylan at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival in front of 150,000 fans; toured on a three-act bill with Blodwyn Pig and Led Zeppelin, which included playing at the Royal Albert Hall in London;[28] and finally broke up in May 1970 after a financially disastrous US tour.
[i] A second album, Everyone,[32] by his post-Liverpool Scene band Everyone, was released on the B & C record label[j] in 1971, in a deal Roberton negotiated when the RCA relationship came to an end.
In a magazine interview in 2013, Roberton said that when his relationship with RCA ended, he had been approached by Lee Gopthal, co-owner of Trojan Records, who wanted to move into different areas of music and sign his own acts.
[37] This was the beginning of a long relationship with Matthews, in which Roberton produced the third album of the Vertigo deal, Journeys From Gospel Oak (recorded in November 1972[38] but not released until 1974).
[41] His biggest breakthrough was with Steeleye Span, the British folk rock band formed by Ashley Hutchings following his departure from Fairport Convention in November 1969.
[45] Roberton became one of the best-known producers for the best of British folk rock bands, along with John Wood, Joe Boyd, and Tony Cox.
[47] Roberton also managed and produced folk rock/country rock band Plainsong, which was formed at the end of 1971 by Andy Roberts and Iain Matthews with pianist and bass player David Richards and guitarist Bobby Ronga.
[48] The band's debut album, produced by Roberton, In Search of Amelia Earhart, received critical acclaim when it was released in October 1972.
[54] Matthews and Roberton worked together again in 1973 and co-produced the album If It Was So Simple by Longdancer,[55] a folk rock band that included Dave Stewart.
Roberton produced four albums for Iain Matthews in the late 70s/early 80s: Stealin' Home (1978), Siamese Friends (1979), Spot of Interference (1980) and Shook (1984).
[63] It was the second of two John Martyn albums released on WEA, the first being 1981's Glorious Fool produced by Phil Collins, and commercially his most successful.
Phil Thornalley was an engineer I was using and I was really getting fed up with being in the studio all the time and I asked him what he was doing next and he said he didn't know..... so I said let me find you a project and I got him a job and I thought there's a business here.
Roberton became sole owner,[68] and the company represented successful producers such as The Matrix, the songwriting collective consisting of Lauren Christy, Graham Edwards and Scott Spock, that had a big hit in 2002 with Avril Lavigne's debut studio album Let's Go.
[69] In 2007 Roberton set up the independent record label Beverly Martel, which released music by acts such as The Philistines Jr., Amelia Carey, the High Divers and Josh Difford.
[70] In 2007, with his daughter Niki, he co-founded the IAMSOUND record label that helped to launch the careers of artists such as Florence and the Machine, Lord Huron, Nikki Lane and Charli XCX.
In the same way that Jimmy Hill got soccer players the money they deserved, Sandy pushed for better deals and royalties for his producers and succeeded in getting them, even for mixers which was pretty unknown at that time.