Barratt started his EMI career in the early Sixties working with Tim Rice and later worked with the corporation's key A&R executives Norrie Paramor and Norman Newell. It was during this period that he scored a big hit with Vince Hill's version of the Sound of Music song, Edelweiss. In the Seventies he produced novelty act The Wurzels, scoring a UK number one hit with the group's Combine Harvester (Brand New Key).

In 1985 he set up a label called ...