Tony Edwards: Entrepreneur who managed Deep Purple, Toyah Willcox and Johnny Clegg

One of the most successful British rock bands of all time, with worldwide sales of over 100 million albums, Deep Purple wouldn't have existed or lasted without the guidance, the foresight and the finance provided by Tony Edwards, who managed them between 1967 and 1976.

A London clothier with a keen interest in music, he began bankrolling the group when they were Roundabout, a glimmer of an idea in the slightly scrambled brain of the former Searchers drummer and vocalist Chris Curtis in September 1967. Within a year, Curtis was out of the picture but the moody and magnificent guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and classically-trained keyboard-player Jon Lord were leading the Mark I line-up of Deep Purple, also comprising drummer Ian Paice, singer Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper, and performing their dynamic version of the Joe South composition "Hush", a Top 5 US hit, on Hugh Hefner's Playboy After Dark TV programme.

The band concentrated on the US, where they issued three albums within a year, before the publicity coup that put them on the map in Europe.

"Jon Lord said to me that he dreamed of writing a work that could beperformed by a rock group and a symphony orchestra," Edwards recalled. "I said, 'how long would it take?' I came home, booked the Albert Hall and he was appalled. Once he'd got over the shock, he thought it was wonderful." In September 1969, the Mark II line-up, with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover taking over from Evans and Simper, performed the Concerto For Group And Orchestra with the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold. Edwards' chutzpah and business acumen secured Daily Express sponsorship and acres of coverage.

The band next worked on Deep Purple In Rock. Edwards couldn't hear a single in it and sent his charges back to the studio. The result: "Black Knight", which rocketed to No 2 in Britain and inaugurated a run of multi-million selling albums such as Machine Head – featuring "Smoke On The Water", their signature song and biggest hit – Fireball and the live Made In Japan.

They became one of the top-grossing acts of the '70s, including an appearance by the Mark III line-up – featuring David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes in Gillan and Glover's stead – at the California Jam in April 1974, in front of a record-breaking audience of 400,000. Edwards could do little to stop Deep Purple turning into a fractious monster, though, and the short-lived Mark IV line-up, with Tommy Bolin replacing Blackmore, broke up in July 1976. When the Mark II line-up reunited in 1984, Edwards had moved on.

Born into a wealthy clothing family in 1932, Edwards grew up in London and Brighton and had his Bar Mitvzah at the Royal Pavilion. By the mid-1960s he was "not particularly happy in the rag trade." Alongside his day job at the company headed by his mother he was trying to help model-turned-singer Ayshea land a slot on Ready Steady Go, and in 1966 befriended the show's producer Vicki Wickham.

With Wickham, he met Chris Curtis, who made a big impression. The following year the musician called him and suggested he become his manager with the remark, "Brian is dead: you can be the next Brian Epstein".

Curtis envisaged Roundabout as an ever-changing group around a triumvirate: him, Lord and Blackmore. Despite his erratic behaviour, Edwards remained committed. "I financed the concept," he said. "All my personal shareholdings in the family business were there as collateral for financing equipment, subsistence, rents. I don't think I was familiar with the sort of music they were creating. I was rather aghast, but I believed in artistic integrity and felt they knew better than I did."

He also recruited John Coletta, a designer who ran an advertising consultancy, and Ron Hire, to form HEC Enterprises and help launch Roundabout. The band moved to a farmouse in Hertfordshire and fashioned a musical direction heavily influenced by Vanilla Fudge, the American group best known for their grandiose cover versions. Edwards funded a demo which attracted the interest of Parlophone, and of Tetragrammaton, a US label backed by the comedian Bill Cosby. They were keen to sign a British act and heavily promoted Shades Of Deep Purple, the renamed quintet's debut. After Concerto and In Rock propelled them into the major league, they spent the next six years on the road or in the studio.

Paice, the only constant member through all the incarnations, said: "Back in the manic early days of Deep Purple, Tony was the quiet voice of reason, when all around him would be getting excited or angry or disheartened with the daily chaos of the music industry."

Following the collapse of Tetragrammaton in 1970, Edwards signed a US deal with Warner Brothers and started Purple Records under the EMI umbrella the following year. In 1974, the label scored a hit with the concept album The Butterfly Ball And The Grasshopper's Feast by Roger Glover & Guests. Another Purple act managed by Edwards, the singer-songwriter duo Curtiss Maldoon, found recognition when "Sepheryn" was adapted by Clive Maldoon's niece, Christine Leach, and William Orbit, becoming the title track of Madonna's 1998 album Ray Of Light.

In 1977 Edwards launched Safari Records with John Craig, who had helped run Oyster, another Purple-related label boasting Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and the Strawbs. They signed New York punk exile and transsexual Wayne County, backed by British band the Electric Chairs, and caused a sensation with the Blatantly Offensive EP which topped the independent charts.

Safari also promoted punk band The Boys and their festive alter-egos The Yobs. Their guitarist Matt Dangerfield says Edwards was "a fantastic old school music biz character of a kind you don't come across any more. I will always remember him turning up at the Marquee for a Boys gig at the height of punk. He was wearing a tweed cape and deerstalker hat à la Sherlock Holmes. To say he stood out a bit would be an understatement."

Edwards also guided Toyah's rise from indy darling to Best Female Singer at the British Rock & Pop Awards in 1982. Eclectic and iconococlastic, Safari also released a punk-country version of Kenny Rogers' "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" by Gary Holton and "Scatterlings Of Africa" by Juluka, the racially mixed South African group led by Johnny Clegg.

In 1984, Edwards and Craig spotted an opportunity to capitalise on the figure skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, who had won Olympic gold at the Winter Olympics with their Bolero routine, and rush-released The Music Of Torvill And Dean EP credited to the Michael Reed Orchestra.

Reed was Musical Director of Singin' In The Rain, then playing at the London Palladium; Edwards and Craig struck a deal for a Cast Album, whose success ushered in the third act of Edwards' career: First Night Records, devoted to cast recordings of musicals such as Les Misérables, Legally Blonde and Sister Act, is still going strong. "I'm a modest guy," Edwards said. "It was 10 per cent hard work and 90 per cent luck. The real luck was that such a wealth of talent descended on us."

Maurice Anthony Edwards, manager, label owner, entrepreneur: born London 30 June 1932; married 1966 Judy Moyens (two daughters, one son; marriage dissolved 1977); 1984 Manuela King (one stepson); died London 11 November 2010.