James Last

Died: June 9 2015.

James Last, who has died aged 86 at his home in Florida, was a German bandleader, arranger and composer, and possibly the most prolific commercial recording artist of all time.

Last, known to his fans as "Hansi", described his style as "happy music": others dubbed him "The Emperor of Elevator Music". It was, however, never elevated enough even to qualify for contempt from critics, who simply ignored his work altogether, despite its extraordinary popularity.

It was not easy to fix on the precise ingredients of his music - or muzak, as his detractors put it - but it was not hard to identify when you heard it. "Debussy will always be Debussy," he explained, "Bach always sounds like Bach, and Mozart is always Mozart. In a small way, Hansi Last always has the Hansi Last sound."

Not everyone put him in quite their league. His stock-in-trade was the medley, usually of pop songs of the day, arranged for big band, but no genre was safe from the Last treatment. Classical music, showtunes, Irish jigs, tango, reggae, polka, funk, Country & Western, even Hawkwind's psychedelic rock anthem Silver Machine could all, it transpired, be requisitioned and repurposed as "happy music".

The kindest label was usually "easy listening" - though some music fans would have disputed the description. And the musical vocabulary of Last's arrangements - though they may have been instantly recognisable as his work - had none of the complexity or originality of others often placed in that category, such as Burt Bacharach or Herb Alpert.

But there was no denying his industry or his popularity. Last and his orchestra were at one stage turning out two LPs a month; he recorded more than 200 albums and notched up the same number of gold discs. In Britain alone, from This is James Last (1967) through to Music is My World (2011), he notched up 66 hit albums and made 90 appearances at the Royal Albert Hall. He was reckoned to have sold well in excess of 100 million records worldwide.

Hans Last was born in Bremen, the third son of a merchant seaman turned postal worker who was a keen amateur musician. He grew up with his two older brothers and three half-sisters from his father's first marriage in a house filled with musical instruments and accordians. Hansi began learning the piano aged 10, when his first teacher told him that he had no discernible musical talent.

He persevered, though he switched to the double bass as a teenager. At 14, he signed up to the Bückeburg Military Music School - making him a member of the Wermacht - and also studied brass instruments. The war ended when he was 16, and Last joined the Radio Bremen Dance Orchestra as a bassist. After a couple of years, he set up his own band, which became fairly successful; German jazz fans voted him the best bass player in the country for three consecutive years from 1950.

After the Last-Becker Ensemble broke up in the mid-50s, Last became the in-house arranger for the radio station NDR, then Polydor Records, and worked on a large number of popular hits for other artists. His first recording, Tricks in Rhythm, was released in 1959.

His next was not until 1963, by which point he had become James, in order to increase his international appeal. But after that, there was no let-up. By his sixth album he had perfected his formula; Non-Stop Dancing '65 was followed by more than a dozen others with very similar titles. Another series began with Hammond A Go-Go (1965); trumpet, sax, piano, guitar and "Humba-Humba" a Go-Go followed. Classics Up To Date (1966) and Rock Around With Me! (1968) were as advertised. Odder were his 1968 recording of Kurt Weill and Bertoldt Brecht's Threepenny Opera and the following year's Hair.

By the time he began touring in 1969, Last had not only a signature sound, but a look to match. With his shoulder-length hair, neatly trimmed beard and white suits with grotesquely flared trousers, he anticipated the mid-1970s smoothie, and stuck with the format thereafter.

He had some success as a composer, writing Happy Heart for Andy Williams and Fool, recorded by Elvis Presley, but had relatively little impact on the singles charts in either Britain or America. Games That Lovers Play, perhaps his most-covered composition, was never a hit. His European success took some time to reach the USA, although in 1967 his LPs accounted for five per cent of all Canada's record sales.

His wife Waltraud, whom he married in 1955, was so taken by the USA, however, that he acquired a home in Florida, complete with recording studio, and divided his time between it and Hamburg.

He was nervous about the likely British reception of a German bandleader on his first visit. "So after the third song, we played Rule Britannia," he told the BBC. "That was wonderful. It was done - and we were friends."

Last was both extravagant and hopeless with money, which may have accounted for his impressive output. By the time his popularity began to wane in the early 1980s, the habit was too ingrained - and his fanbase too devoted - for him to countenance retirement. He continued to record and tour with great success, and to enjoy a certain, possibly ironic, reputation amongst some younger musicians. He performed his final British concert at the Royal Albert Hall last year, after discovering that he was seriously ill.

His first wife, with whom he had a son and a daughter, died in 1997. He is survived by his children and his second wife, Christine.

ANDREW MCKIE